How the Military Prepares You to Handle Trauma

As I lay back in the gray faux leather recliner at my obstetrician’s office, with a heartbeat monitor strapped to my abdomen, I watched the purple line on the screen plummet. Within seconds, the nurse flung open the curtain to check on the stats of my 31-week-old baby, and the most stressful “non-stress test” was concluded as the high-risk doctor sent me to labor and delivery. 

The two holes in Finley’s heart led us to an OB office 75 miles away, across the street from a level IV NICU. On top of the holes in her heart, she also measured under the first percentile for her growth. The doctor explained the grim reality that we needed to prepare for the possibility of palliative care when she was born. Finley would be so small that there may be nothing to do but keep her comfortable until she passed away.

An hour later, as magnesium and steroids coursed through my body to prepare for Finley’s nine-week early arrival into the world, I prayed desperately: “Lord, please let me keep her! Please, let me keep her!” After the surgeon pulled Finley from my body and lifted her over the royal blue curtain, I cried in awe of her open almond-shaped eyes, her pink body full of life, her beautiful cry, and her sweet face that confirmed she did indeed have Down syndrome, something the OB told us to expect. “She’s perfect. She’s so perfect,” I muttered as she splayed her tiny arms and legs as far out as possible, looking like a starfish.

Due to her size, lack of ability to feed, and several heart conditions, Finley endured an 88-day stay in the NICU. Because our home was over an hour away, we stayed at the Ronald McDonald House with our other three children. This entire experience was the most trying three months I’d ever endured—having an unplanned C-section, praying for my child to survive each day, witnessing other parents lose their babies, advocating daily for Finley’s health, navigating constant waves of anger and grief of our older children who were displaced from their home and unable to meet their baby sister, and living in an unfamiliar place. 

Near the end of our time in the NICU and the Ronald McDonald House, it dawned on me that although this was an intensely traumatic experience, I survived. And then I realized something that felt profoundly comforting to my heart—military life prepared me to handle this traumatic event. 

Being a military family, we know what it is like to live without our belongings. Whether between moves or disposing of all our household goods due to toxic mold levels, we’re familiar with being away from the things that make us feel like we’re home. We capitalized on that experience to help us handle the discomfort of living in a new place with unfamiliar items in the Ronald McDonald House. 

We’ve also moved 12 times in our 17 years in the military, so we know the flexibility required to live in small hotel rooms with little kids. While living near the out-of-town hospital, we relied on the creativity acquired from past moves to help us get through the days and still look for joy and fun as we explored our temporary city. 

As a military family, we know how it feels to miss our people when we move. We understand the loneliness that moving creates. But we’ve also learned how crucial it is to cultivate community whenever we arrive at our new duty station. Using that experience, we quickly began to get to know our fellow hospital families at the Ronald McDonald House. We learned each other’s stories, prayed together before surgeries, shared meals after exhausting days in the NICU, and created life-long friendships bonded by our mutual circumstances. 

As challenging as military life may feel, the hard doesn’t go to waste. It’s providing you with the necessary experiences and tools to survive (and somehow thrive through) future traumatic life events that are bound to come on this side of Heaven. The next time you face the unexpected, remember you have the grit and gifts needed to make it through because you are a military spouse. 

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