by Brett Nunn | Dec 11, 2019 | General
The City of Port Townsend did something good. On October 7, 2019 ordinance
3233 was added to section 9.08.020 of the municipal code. Human feeding of wild
ducks, geese, gulls and deer within the city limits is now listed as a public nuisance.
The key species here is deer. Everybody has an opinion of what to do and why the city
has been so slow to address this issue. Should be an easy fix right? I mean out in the
county you can just shoot them, in season of course. Cougars deal with the surplus.
So it should be easy. I have delved into the topic. It is not easy. As a public service to
the community, let me share what I have found.
White tail deer in the United States have experienced an unprecedented recovery,
from a low of about 500,000 in the early 1900’s to as many as 30,000,000 today. Natural predators are mostly gone, especially in urban areas. Lawns and gardens provide an abundance of food. We can congratulate ourselves on saving a species. Then I look out our window to see what my neighbor has nicknamed “rats with stilts” devouring our roses, poppies, lettuce, lilacs, grapevines, tulips, raspberries, laurel, and fruit trees while laying down a layer of manure, flea eggs, and ticks where-ever they linger.
This is not a problem unique to our town. It is happening all across the country. Even New York City is dealing with an over-abundance of deer.
Ask a wildlife ecologist to sum up the impact of this success and you will hear the term apocalyptic more often than not. At an estimated rate of 2000 pounds of vegetation consumed per animal, per year, we have a plague of hundred pound locusts clearing forests of everything except for mature trees and the few plants they won’t eat. This devastates habitat for game birds and songbirds, and can affect these environments for centuries. The impact on the human population is equally severe.
“Struck by cars, trucks, motorcycles, more than a million times a year, with
accidents killing more than 100 people annually and causing more than $1
billion in damage, the human toll makes deer deadlier than sharks, alligators,
bears and rattlesnakes combined.” Out Of Control; Deer Send Ecosystems Into Chaos, by Andrew C. Revkin, The New York Times, 2002.
In Port Townsend we have black tail not white tail deer, but that is where the difference ends. Anybody who has witnessed the deer plague develop over the last two decades can see that our homegrown herd has exceeded the carrying capacity of the natural environment and has certainly strained the cultural carrying capacity, the patience of the human population.
Just for reference, U.S. Forest Service Scientists at the Northern Research Station in
Irvine, Pennsylvania have been studying deer impact on forests since the 1940’s. As
a general rule, they found that deer population levels at or below twenty per square
mile allow undergrowth to recover. Port Townsend has a deer density far above that.
Doing nothing is the default. Those of us that drive, garden, and live in Port Townsend can tell you how well that is working. The end result will be all edibles in Uptown gnawed down to bare dirt and up to dead twigs about six feet off the ground, likely to be follow by starvation or disease of the herd. Nobody wants to see that happen.
Capture and release has proven to be ineffective with a high incidence of injury and death to the animals due to the stress of the experience. Sterilization is expensive, short-term results negligible, long-term results hard to quantify, and ineffective unless the herd is contained. Since 2012, Cayuga Heights, New York has spent close to $200,000 to remove the ovaries from 150 does. The animals are captured, one at time, surgically sterilized, and released. City leaders expect only a ten to fifteen percent decline in deer population.
Not far from Port Townsend, authorities in Oak Bay, a suburb of Victoria B.C., have settled on birth control. Deer are captured. Drugs are administered. A booster is required several weeks later so the deer must found a second time and shot with a dart containing additional drugs. Treatments are done on an annual basis. This is happening as we speak so results are yet to be determined. Solid data is probably several years out.
Culling the herd to a manageable level has been used in many locations on the East
Coast. It is the only option that has been proven to be immediately effective, affordable, and can feed the community. Professional hunters are brought in, private contractors or employees with the State Department of Fish and Game. The work is done quietly, and at night. Organic, free range, protein in the form of venison, can be provided to the local food bank.
“Either a community has leadership that drives the decision [to cull] or the
community flounders. When we finish a project, attitudes are the same as well
— people are always astonished by the benefits [of fewer deer].”
Dr. Anthony DeNicola, co-founder of a private, east coast based, non-profit, wildlife
management company.
At this time Washington State has no program for culling deer within city limits. The semi-official stance of the Washington State Department of Wildlife is that humans are encroaching upon deer territory; therefore we must learn to live with wildlife in our midst. Once this message has been delivered you will be referred to the Preventing Conflicts page on the website of the Washington State Department of Wildlife where you will find helpful suggestions such as a recipe for making your own deer repellent, tips for constructing deer fences, and my favorite: “A dog can help keep deer away especially if it is large and awake”.
Deer-ravaged hedge near my house
So we are left with repellents, prison camp style fences, and big, lively dogs. I like dogs, but that is where it ends for me. I have had hundreds of dollars of landscaping devoured, fences broken, and hedges left with leaves only above the six-foot mark. The trees and shrubs that aren’t eaten, are damaged by bucks scraping their antlers on them. The pleasure of walking in the green grass of summer is long gone, unless you like the squish of deer feces working it’s way between your toes. I am not asking for anyone to cry a river for me. I am asking for a deer population that is appropriate for the carrying capacity of my neighborhood, like it was when I moved here twenty years ago, before there was a game trail through my front yard.
The city has made a good start with the no-feeding ordinance, but it is just a start.
by Jim Scarantino | Dec 3, 2019 | General
The City of Port Townsend bought and imported at significant cost a nearly 70-year old building that had just failed a Canadian hazardous materials inspection. The presence of asbestos and lead in the troubled building has been disclosed only recently as the group behind the “affordable housing” project seeks a State Environmental Protection Act (SEPA) permit, and the projected costs of completing the building’s eight apartments break the $3 million mark.
This and other information that will be reported in upcoming articles came to light in response to another public records request filed by Port Townsend Free Press. Our past reporting has exposed the soaring costs of the project, subsidies hidden from taxpayers and knowledge by the City and project developers that the amount of the City’s loan to complete the project was inadequate from the start.
Cherry Street “Affordable Housing” To Cost More Than $2 Million, May 28, 2018.
The Tragedy of the Cherry Street Project, December 12, 2018.
What’s Happening With The Cherry Street Project?, October 29, 2019.
Asbestos and Lead
In May 2017, the City of Port Townsend purchased a mid-Twentieth Century wooden building that had been standing in Victoria, B.C. That building was later barged across the Strait of Juan de Fuca and settled onto stacks of wood, known as “cribbing,” off Cherry Street in Port Townsend. It sat on those stacks of wood for over two years until the Summer of 2019 when it was finally provided a permanent foundation.
The City gave more than an acre of land, valued at over $600,000, and a quarter of a million dollars to a non-profit group called Homeward Bound Community Land Trust. It was at the time a defunct organization with only one member. The public was told that the cost of rennovating the building and adding four small single bedroom units at ground level would be less than $500,000. Since then the City has loaned the group $834,000 and provided a nearly $500,000 additonal subsidy and other grants and services free of charge. An upcoming report will detail how the projected cost now exceeds $3 million, more than six times the original stated cost.
Because the building had been slated for demolition, a hazardous materials study was conducted in February 2017 by Island EHS of Victoria, B.C. Their investigation found asbestos insulation on pipes and elbows. Asbestos was also found in kitchen flooring. The levels of asbestos concentration significantly exceeded Canadian standards for environmental exposure. Removal of the flooring was deemed “high risk.”
Lead at unsafe levels was found in the interior wall paint and exterior trim.
When Port Townsend Free Press reviewed the City’s records more than a year ago, this hazardous materials report was not in any of the permit or correspondence files. It was turned over to the City only in September 2019 during the process of obtaining a SEPA permit, a necessary step before further work could proceed. Correspondence reviewed by Port Townsend Free Press shows Homeward Bound only disclosing the findings after being informed that its SEPA application must address any hazardous materials in the building. The report was provided in what appears to have been an attempt to assure the city that hazardous materials were not an issue. But upon receipt of the report, a city building official immediately noticed and informed Homeward Bound that the report indicated the presence of asbestos and lead. At that point, the correspondence in the SEPA permit file ended on this issue and it remains unresolved.
Homeward Bound has not responded to any questions posed by Port Townsend Free Press as to how long it has been aware of the presence of hazardous materials in the building and whether it has any plan for dealing with them. They did not answer our question whether the costs of asbestos and lead mitigation or removal are included in the original or latest budgets.
As of now, Homeward Bound has not submitted a complete SEPA permit request. We did not find any applications for other necessary permits to take the project beyond where it is now–an empty building needing major electrical, plumbing, carpentry, and civil engineering work before it is ready to be occupied.
The scope of work submitted by Homeward Bound in its November 12, 2019, presentation to City Council (see video and related documents by clicking here) states that the building will receive all new plumbing, drywall and kitchens. These are the locations where the dangerous levels of asbestos and lead were found. Demolition of those contaminated features will require special procedures and permitting and will be costly. Their scope of work notes asbestos in the subfloor that will be repaired. The submittal to City Council does not mention that the pipes and elbows to be replaced are all encased in asbestos.
Unsafe Conditions Within
The public has repeatedly been assured that, despite its age, the building is in excellent shape.
Those statements have been misleading, if not false.
During the first week of August 2019, city building official Angela Garcia and Assistant Fire Chief Brian Tracer entered the building and gained access to the upper floors via a ladder they found on site. She reported, according to an email in the City’s files:
“[W]e observed multiple hazardous conditions such as holes in walls and floors large enough for a person to fall into.”
Garcia requested that measures be taken to safeguard the building from unauthorized entry to protect anyone who may wander inside.
Three days after receiving Garcia’s request, Homeward Bound on its Facebook page posted photographs of its Board members putting up plywood sheets across the openings on the ground level. Homeward Bound stated this was being done “because our insurance company needed assurance that it wouldn’t be damaged while we carry on to Phase 2.” No mention was made of the City’s request.
Homeward Bound in its latest presentation to Council stated that it will have to replace floors, all electrical systems, all plumbing, all windows and all drywall–in contradiction to previous representations regarding the building’s condition.
Growing Problems with Neighbors
We have previously reported about problems being caused for the homeowner who lives in front of the building. She told us that Homeward Bound’s plans block her driveway. The SEPA permit file also reveals increasing concerns by Grace Lutheran Church, which has been a supporter of the project since inception.
A two-page, single-spaced letter from Pastor Coe Hutchinson dated September 17, 2019, details multiple inaccuracies in the SEPA application (e.g., getting the grade of slope wrong, pointing out that the planned exterior wheelchair ramp could not be going to the third floor and could not possibly be at a 12% slope). He also raised concerns about erosion that started when the building was moved in and much of the area scraped and excavated. “Water is running off Cass St. and down through the area used for parking by GLC. The runoff is not going into the current catch basin in the Cass St. right-of-way,” he wrote.
Those concerns have not been addressed in the past months. This author upon a recent visit observed the erosion damage from almost three years of failure to appropriately channel runoff.
Pastor Coe also raised concerns with what appears to be inadequate access to the building once it is occupied, including the possibility that a proposed gravel roadway from Cherry Street up the hill would not handle all the building’s anticipated traffic, as well as use by GLC. (The alternative is paving, another considerable expense which does not appear to have been included in existing cost estimates, already grossly inaccurate. Homeward Bound, in its presentation to Council, was hesitant to include “street work” in its latest $1.83 construction estimate. More on that in an upcoming report).
Lastly, Pastor Coe shares that GLC is now facing a “parking dilemma.” Homeward Bound’s plans pose the possibility that they will lose parking they have been using for the past 50 years. This is a similar concern to that raised by the neighbor, mentioned above.
How serious are the issues raised by Grace Lutheran Church in its comments on the SEPA application?
Correspondence from Homeward Bound’s consultants in the city’s files shows an acknowledgment that conflicts with the neighboring church, including an unresolved water line issue, may hold up project permits. The SEPA permit application had been scheduled to be delivered by October 17, 2019. It has not yet been submitted.
A Long Way to Go
In its November 20, 2019, article on the soaring costs of the Cherry Street project, the Port Townsend and Jefferson County Leader reported that the project was “75% complete.” Just the fact that the project lacks at least $1 million with no source of additional funding in sight, should have been enough for the reporter to know this statement was false. But the reporter more likely misunderstood what was said by Paul Rice, Vice President of the Board of Trustees of Homeward Bound, in his November 12 presentation to the City Council. He stated that Homeward Bound was “75% of the way to permitting.”
The files reviewed by Port Townsend Free Press found nothing to substantiate that claim. Indeed, it appears Homeward Bound is already off its own timeline for permit application.
It is no wonder this has been and will continue to remain a troubled project, with no foreseeable upward limit on the taxpayer investment. It is now clear that the City purchased this building blindly, without inspection or a professional estimate of what it would cost to make the old structure up-to-code and habitable. For years, both the City and Homeward Bound have known this project would cost far more than they had been telling the public or The Leader and the Peninsula Daily News.
Homeward Bound is headed for default on its loan from the City. It was granted a two-year grace period at the start of its forty-year loan term during which time it would not be required to make any principal or interest payments. That grace period expires in July 2020. Homeward Bound has not only indicated that it will be unable to make its first payment, but will be back to ask the City Council for $1 million or more in additional funding.
The public may be surprised because they have not been told the truth. But neither City leaders nor Homeward Bound trustees can claim to being caught unawares at this turn of events. They’ve long known this project was in trouble.
City files contain a printout of an email from Monica Bell, a former Homeward Bound Trustee, to her fellow Trustees, all members of City Council and other persons in the homeless services and affordable housing communities. She questioned the “deal” between the city and Homeward Bound and wrote that the person then serving as project manager, the person in the best position to know what lay ahead, had called the numbers then being given for the project’s cost “rushed, slapped together” and “completely bogus.”
Only now are taxpayers learning how true those words are.
by Jim Scarantino | Nov 27, 2019 | General
The tables are set, the turkeys are roasting, volunteers are getting excited about seeing old friends and making new ones. The annual Tri-Area Community Thanksgiving Meal will return starting noon tomorrow and filling bellies and bringing smiles until 3 p.m. Hundreds of people are expected to line the long tables at the Tri-Area Community Center, across S.R. 19 from Chimacum Grange, and next door to Chimacum High School.
I am returning to volunteer as table setter, water pourer, silverware fetcher, table wiper, dishwasher, plate stacker, whatever the dedicated, cheerful team leaders give me to do. My wife and I spent last Turkey Day helping out and seeing our local community with new eyes. A very diverse group comes for what is a surprisingly tasty, perfect Thanksgiving meal. (I can’t cook one whole turkey right. How do they manage to serve hundreds of pounds so well?)
Families, seniors living alone, folks who can’t afford their own celebration, people just looking to connect on this holiday. They were all seated at the tables, happily tucking into the delicious food.
Did I mention the killer pumpkin pie?
Good stuff will be served up: turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce and not just pumpkin pie. (I’m hoping to see some of that tasty ham they dished out last year. The food just kept coming and coming).
Last year Chicago Bob and friend provided live music. I hope to see and hear them again.
The Tri-Area Community Meals team, expertly organized and ably led, pulls this off seemingly without effort. Their many, many hours of preparation and work make this holiday celebration something very special, something worth seeing for yourself.
No more volunteers are needed for Thanksgiving! What a wonderful measure of community spirit! But volunteers are needed for Christmas. Contact t Tria Area Community Meals at 360-605-03000 or contact@triareacommunitymeals.org. For more information see their website: https://triareacommunitymeals.org/
Happy Thanksgiving. Please don’t drink and drive.
by Jim Scarantino | Oct 29, 2019 | General
Port Townsend’s premiere affordable housing project is an eyesore. One of the most expensive real estate developments in Jefferson County–over $2 million in public funds for eight apartments–is boarded up, uninhabitable and detracting from the quality of the neighborhood around it. Your tax dollars at work.
You would think this would be an issue in the current City Council races, especially in Mayor Deborah Stinson’s re-election bid. Her opponent, Monica Mick Hager, has leveled criticism about the city’s $17 million deficit and large expenditures on beautification projects while fundamental needs go unmet. She told this writer that in going door-to-door she frequently hears complaints about the Cherry Street Project. But she has not made much of an issue of it beyond those face-to-face meetings with voters.
In City Council meetings discussing the project, only outgoing councilor Robert Gray questioned the numbers and the soundness of the volunteer organization to which city leaders gave land valued at $600,000 and hundreds of thousands of dollars in nonrecourse loans, secured only by the city’s former property and the uninhabitable building itself. When he did raise a question or two, Gray almost apologized for having doubts and concerns.
The building that sat on the equivalent of stilts–known in the industry as cribbing–for over two years is finally on a foundation. But work has again ground to a halt. The only activity since the foundation was added in June 2019 has been a hurried and rather sloppy job of throwing up plywood across open doors and windows.
The surrounding area, after 30 months since the sixty-year old building was barged here in May 2017 at great expense from Victoria, B.C., continues to look like an open wound in the city’s center.
One neighbor complained to us last month:
I own the property directly in front of this building and have been completely ignored and avoided during this process the entrance and parking lot they currently proposed with no mention of my home comes across my yard and takes out part of my garage they also ffail to mention the land they are on is not nor has it ever been zoned for multifamily residential i find it absolutely disturbing that they are waiting til the last moment to inform me at bare minimal leaving me no where to turn to..where do I go for legal help?
Several times we have asked the group entrusted with the Cherry Street Project, Homeward Bound Community Land Trust, when they expect the building to be ready for occupancy. They have not responded.
Homeward Bound is the recipient of over $2 million in public support from Port Townsend taxpayers, in the nature of financial and professional services, as well as fee waivers and free utility work. Their $834,000 loan from the City contains a nearly $500,000 hidden interest subsidy that is an outright gift. They also received a direct grant of $30,000 just to get their act together.
Homeward Bound used to be transparent, providing public notice of their meetings and posting minutes on their website. That is what an entity funded nearly 100% by taxpayers should be doing. Those minutes, as we reported previously, revealed how very far the Cherry Street Project is from ever providing living quarters to any human being, and how they may not ever be able to complete the project, even with the City opening its wallet and donating its engineers and work crews.
They no longer invite the public to their meetings. They don’t post minutes. They don’t answer questions.
Neither The Leader nor the Peninsula Daily News have done any significant questioning of this project. Occasionally they publish a puff piece, such as their last fawning coverage that was initiated by Homeward Bound’s PR push. When would the building be finished, how much would it cost? Our incurious local papers didn’t bother to ask.
Though Homeward Bound won’t respond we will get answers to our questions. As we have been doing for the past two years, we have again filed public records requests with the City. Through previous public records requests we were able to report on the soaring costs of the project, the recognition by Homeward Bound that their cost projections and funding fell short of what it would take to finish the job and the City’s determination that it would have to provide professional project management to get the building out of the air onto a stable foundation. When we finish studying the latest communications between Homeward Bound and the City of Port Townsend, and the loan records, we will be back with some answers.
In the meantime, a picutre is worth a thousand words. The photo accompanying ths article was taken October 23, 2019, and shows what is happening with the $2 million Cherry Street “affordable housing” project.
Check out our previous reporting. You will find the factual basis for statements made in this post and more:
The Tragedy of the Cherry Street Project, December 12, 2018.
Cherry Street “Affordable” Housing to Cost More Than $2 Million, May 28, 2018
by Jim Scarantino | Dec 31, 2018 | General
Thank you to all the readers who helped us exceed 60,000 page views since our first investigative report was published a short seven months ago. Our most widely read reporting was on the Cherry Street Project–the extravagant waste of scarce affordable housing dollars on a sixty-year old building that has been sitting on stacks of wood going on two years, providing shelter to no one as its costs have risen above $2 million.
Our reporting on how Jefferson County Prosecutor Michael Haas dumped a rape case against a man with a long history of violence against women and mistreated a victim came in second, followed by our story on the pending mass exodus from the Sheriff’s Office if the incumbent Sheriff, David Stanko, were elected. (He lost, and we are told that morale has vastly improved in anticipation of new leadership.) That one article hit 1,000 page views in less than a day, making it our single “hottest” story.
Our reporting on the rising violence among Port Townsend’s transients and close-up looks at the work of police, sheriff deputies, and jail personnel also received a strong and positive response.
We were pleased to highlight the lamentable abuse of marijuana by our county’s teens at a time when voters were putting on the county commission and giving oversight of teen marijuana prevention programs to a man with a history of violations at his marijuana store and a practice of promoting the increased use of marijuana while downplaying its known health risks.
Our other most widely read stories included good news on the opening of the Crazy Otter in Port Hadlock and Sugar Hill Farms in the old Beaver Valley store.
Scott Hogenson’s op-eds and accurate reporting regularly provoked a lot of discussion and heated debate. That’s what facts and new insights can do in the face of a local political monoculture that seeks to stifle dissenting speech and keep unwelcome truths from voters.
To this editor, the most rewarding posts came from the seventeen-year old Ravyn as she shared her most personal thoughts and feelings during her pregnancy. Readers who followed Ravyn’s story could share in her joy, springing from the depths of despair, as her young husband stepped up to the responsibility of being a man and a father and her faith in God gave her strength and hope. She has promised one last installment after she holds her new son in her arms.
Now for some less happy news.
This is a solely volunteer effort. We have done well and have made an impact with our small contributions to bring light to facts unreported, ignored or misrepresented by our local newspapers. We earned those 60,000-plus page views with primarily Facebook as our delivery system, and with the invaluable help of readers who shared our posts. We must also credit our detractors who reacted as we’d hoped and in mindless outrage spread our stories around the community. While they were attacking us, we saw our readership and Facebook “likes” and “follows” steadily grow.
We thank all our contributors–Sky Hardesty, Kara Kellogg, Brett Nunn, Mike Howard, Ravyn and the anonymous city official who spoke honestly about who the “homeless” in Port Townsend really are. Our biggest thanks goes to Scott Hogenson, a real pro, one of the smartest people we’ve ever met. His standards of excellence in journalism are sorely lacking from today’s media. We were truly honored that someone with his impressive journalistic credentials would want to provide his time, talent and wise counsel to this humble foray into citizen journalism.
There is so much more to write about, so many more voices needing to be heard, so many investigations to conduct…but we’re not going to be able to do it in the near future.
The editor has faced the fact he does not have the time, at least over the next six months, to give this project the care, attention and mental energy it needs. He has an employment commitment and an ongoing fiduciary obligation that will call him out of Washington state, as well as other personal and church obligations that leave no time for the Port Townsend Free Press.
We’ll keep the site up as an archive of our work. It can be always be reactivated, if the need arises.
With that said, we wish all of you a successful, happy and healthy 2019. Thanks everyone. God bless you all.
by Ravyn | Dec 28, 2018 | General
The first six months of Ravyn’s journey opened with happiness and hope then crashed hard into the reality of being a teen mother. We encouraged readers not to rule out this young couple just because of the hopelessness and despair described in Ravyn’s First and Second Trimester accounts. They could have aborted the baby but instead they married and determined to bring their child into this world, whatever it took. Ravyn is now one week from her due date. And things are turning around for her and her husband. We have been privileged to get to know them and see their true character and to share Ravyn’s words with our readers.
As I move into the final weeks of my pregnancy, it hits me that this journey has gone by so fast. It feels like only yesterday that I was taking The Test and telling my parents The News. It’s hard to believe the formation of a human being could take so little time.
I have started to notice that as I travel along this road I am growing as a person along with the son growing inside me. God’s loving hand has led me down a very complicated and obstacle-filled path. Despite the difficulties and challenges—maybe because of them—I believe I am becoming better in many ways. In the first part of this story I had written than I had been a horrible person. That person who was is not me anymore.
My son moves around and stretches my belly, running out of room to move. I go in for my thirty-five week appointment and learn he is still sideways and has not turned. I also learn that the incessant itching and red bumps I have acquired within a week are called pupps (a rare skin rash that only happens to only pregnant women and then only 1 in100) and that it will not go away until sometime after birth. With my hormones going wild, I worry to no end that my son will not turn. I prepare myself for the next appointment that will tell me if I need to try an inversion or if I may need a Cesarean section.
The week between thirty-six and thirty-seven is a quick seven days. While I have been waiting for my son to head in the right direction, my husband has found his way forward. I have written about my frustration, fury and sadness at how he has not been the person I needed, and how I had I realized I could not make him into the man I wanted him to be. But he has changed from within, found strength and determination. He has taken stock of who he is and what he can do to be the father this family needs, and how he can be the man he wants to be. He will be a soldier, committing himself to serving and protecting this country…and us. It is a huge decision, a turning point in his own life that points him toward the exit door of the life he is leaving behind.
Still, he needs my help with paperwork he must assemble for enlistment. All the turmoil and getting everything prepared for the baby and organizing his documents, I forget all about the upcoming appointment. When we go in to see my doctor at my thirty-seven week mark, I get the bad news: my son is still inverted. My baby is positioned sideways in my belly and the doctor says they can’t do inversions at our local hospital. It’s either a C-section, go to Tacoma, or wait. I chose to wait, praying my baby would turn on his own. I have faith. After all, I know my prayers for my husband have been answered.
While waiting for the thirty-eight week appointment there is so much bustle with the holiday coming up, my husband’s GED testing (he passed and, Lord, was I thankful and proud of him), and getting ready for the baby doctors tell me I will see the first week of January. We went through clothes (ours and the baby’s), blankets, put up cleaning supplies, and talked about the plans for the future since so much had changed so quickly. My husband did his swearing-in to join the Army and we needed a plan for the months to come when I would be without him.
I have a warm, safe place for me and my child until I join my husband wherever he will be stationed. A wonderful woman from our church will take me in and allow me to live in a private space in her home. This is such a blessing. The place where we had been living lacked proper plumbing and heating. It was all we could afford, two kids without high school educations, no money and a child on the way.
The doctor tells me my son is now head down, aimed for the exit out of me and into this world. Our baby is finally in position. Now it is just a waiting game. The next appointment will be December thirty-first. Christmas and family events keep us busy. The start date for my husband’s basic training has been moved up. He will be leaving us sooner than we first thought. The Army needs him, but so do I. Now I have to think about these months ahead when I will be alone with my new child. My thoughts are focused on time and events: When would the baby show himself? Will he be born before his daddy leaves? Would we risk inducing birth if he hasn’t showed or showed signs of coming?
This third trimester has brought more anxiety than the first two—and they were hard enough. But I close out this last stage of my pregnancy filled with so much joy. In the depths of despair and hopelessness, unexpected loneliness and fear for the future, I never thought I would again be this happy.
