First Came Love....Nine Years Later Came Marriage
Amy and Trey sitting in a tree…K I S S I N G! First came love and nine damn years later came marriage and wham bam 12 months later came Will in a baby carriage!
Welcome home Will Berry!!!!
This is LITERALLY how my 30’s started, but first we had to make it through a plane crash! And when I say “we” I mean Trey! You heard that right! In May of 2000 my amazing husband survived a plane crash while doing work ups for the US Navy off the coast of California.
Would you believe he was out of the hospital in less than 8 hours! So this young, dumb, in love, fiance, thought nothing of it and kept on planning their wedding and never thought twice about it until recently. BIG mistake. The brain is a funny thing and trauma can resurface in odd and weird ways! But, hey! That is my forties and we are in my thirties!
My thirties were miraculous in that I became a wife and a mom! We got married on December 30, 2000, moved to California, and two short weeks later, Trey was off the coast of California preparing to go overseas for six months. We lived in a house on Silver Strand Beach with 5 other guys in which Trey’s squadron dubbed it the snake ranch with a flower. I have to say looking back I think to myself, “What the heck was I thinking?” But, I also have to say I had a blast with those guys!!!!! We cooked together, hung out, watched Survivor, and just had a blast. I never was alone and I never felt unsafe in my new surroundings. It was like I had four body guards and Trey! It was awesome! They took care of me and welcomed me with open arms.
In February, just before Trey got sent overseas, we FINALLY got to have our honeymoon. One thing is for sure. When you are a military spouse you learn real quick to be flexible and I think that was a great lesson for me. I had to learn to bend and realize that honeymoons might not happen in the traditional sense, the day after the wedding, Christmas for us might not be spent on December 25th, or birthdays and anniversaries might not be spent on their actual day, and I learned it was o.k. My life did not crumble. Just typing this I realize I probably learned a lot about that while working with my kids with cancer because it never bothered me and when we did finally get to be together I just really appreciated the time and was so grateful for it.
Trey left in March of 2001 for six months and I got to meet him over in Australia for a few weeks. My dear friend Dana came with me and we had a ball. We flew into Sydney and met the ship the next day and the adventure began! Australia is such a neat place and Trey and I have so many wonderful memories there, but the biggest memory we have is Sydney, Australia is where Will Berry was conceived! Yep! On the US Constellation! (That is a story for another day!) I use to kid with Will and tell him if he was a girl I would have named him Connie, but that is not true, I was going to name him Sydney if he was a girl, but it is a mute point, because, well, because he is a boy and he is my Will!!!!!
I had no idea we had conceived Will until about a month after I was back in the states and I was so sick! So sick, I came back to Texas and my mother in law and mother had to take care of me. I had terrible hyperemesis, but again, looking back God knew what he was doing because I got to be here to spend more time with Leah. Matter of fact Leah was with me the day I found out the sex of the baby. I remember that day like it was yesterday. When the nurse announced it was a boy, she got up and bolted from the room. Poor thing was so sad. She desperately wanted me to have a girl so I could name her after her and thank God for my mother in law’s quick thinking because she immediately said, “Well, his name will be William which is the male form of Leah!” Leah bought it and life was good!!!!!
In September of 2001 Trey called to say he was coming home from the middle east!!!!! He told me he was flying home a few days earlier than the ship. I was so excited! It was September 10, 2001 and I was back in California waiting for Trey to get home! He landed around 5 that afternoon, we had dinner with his grandparents, aunt, and mom and then we went home to be alone. We had our own little place on Silver Strand now and it was right on the beach. I remember waking up VERY early the next morning to our phones ringing and I clearly remember the sun coming up over the water and I could hear Trey’s father’s voice saying, “Turn on the T.V.”. We did and well, you know what was happening. I remember being so scared. The phone started ringing again and it was Trey’s Commanding Officer who was still en route on the U.S. Constellation telling Trey to pack his bags they were turning around and going back. This was a terrorist attack and this meant war. I was devastated and if I am being honest I truly was thinking, “This is it. My husband is going to war and is going to die. He will never meet our child.” Needless to say I was a mess.
Trey thankfully did not have to go back to the middle east, but he did fly patrol over New York and Washington DC, which for me gave me comfort because he was state side. I am not sure why, because they took those towers down with all those innocent people in it and that was state side, but for whatever reason I was able to cope. I am thankful for that.
Will Berry came 6 weeks early on December 9, 2001 and I became a mom! What a true miracle! And by January 30, 2002 we were moving across the country to Mississippi. What a whirlwind! We moved to Meridian, Mississippi in February 2002 and Meridian is where my sweet John Paul Berry was born! February 21, 2003. Yet another miraculous day in my life! And he too came 6 weeks early!!!!!
Welcome home John Paul Berry!
