Welcome, Susanna!

We always knew we wanted kids. It wasn’t even a question, it was a steady dream we carried together through every move, every fire season, every late-night phone call. I also knew it wouldn’t look like the traditional version of family life. Holidays would be missed, birthdays celebrated over crackly satellite calls (if that), and I’d often be the one in the crowd clapping for two at school events and performances. That part, I thought I had made peace with.

What I couldn’t stop worrying about, what I couldn’t seem to prepare for, was the thought that Josh might miss the birth of our daughter.

She was due in July 2017, right in the thick of fire season. The calendar was stacked against us, and so was the unpredictability of his job. Josh reassured me over and over again: “I won’t miss it. I promise.” And somehow, through some miracle or sheer force of will, he managed to stay close to base as the date drew near.

Then, on July 15th, after 30 hours of labor and an emergency C-section, Susanna came into the world. She was perfect. Wrinkly, red, and impossibly tiny. Everything shifted in that moment. The room seemed to hold its breath, and then all at once, life began again. Josh took three full weeks off, cashing in sick days and annual leave to soak up those first fleeting moments with us. There were midnight diaper changes where we laughed through exhaustion, quiet mornings drinking lukewarm coffee while watching her sleep, and slow walks around the neighborhood pushing the stroller like new parents trying to memorize those moments before it would change again.

And then—just like that—he was gone. The day he returned to work, the call came. He was dispatched to the Maud fire, burning in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness on the Idaho side where there was no service. No texts, no phone calls. Just silence. Josh remembers how busy it was, especially the first 3 or 4 days. During the day he would be so caught up in operations that it almost didn't hit him until he'd lay his head down at night. Only then would it wash over him and he'd think "oh my God, I'm a dad!"

As for me, I was suddenly alone with a newborn. I knew this was a probability but nothing prepares you for the moment you're officially on your own as a mom.

Having a baby is intense no matter the circumstance. But doing it while married to a wildland firefighter, in a still-unfamiliar town, with no family nearby and friendships just beginning to form; that’s a different kind of hard. That’s a kind of alone you don’t know until you live it.

I did it all. I had no other choice. Feedings every two hours. Rocking her for hours when the colic wouldn’t ease. Navigating doctor visits while sleep-deprived and held together by abnormal amounts of caffeine. I had friends, sure, but I didn't feel close enough with any of them yet to ask for help. I didn’t want to come off as needy or incapable, and besides, I had told myself: You chose this life. Don’t make it anyone else’s problem. Plus, being a wildfire wife you kind of get used to doing it all yourself. I was too headstrong to accept any assistance, it wasn't in my nature.

That stubbornness was both my strength and my undoing. There were so many moments I would’ve given anything just to take a shower without rushing, to hand the baby to someone I trusted for ten minutes of silence. But instead, I became my own village. I learned to manage the weight of everything, even as it quietly cracked parts of me open.

I developed a deep respect for the women I used to only admire from a distance. Military spouses, fire wives, solo moms doing it all while the world looked on. People told me I was strong. They’d say, “I don’t know how you do it.” And the truth was, I didn’t either. I just did. Because there was no other option.

Still, the emotional whiplash was brutal. I was proud of Josh, proud of the work he was doing, the lives and land he helped protect, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a twinge of resentment when I was pacing the living room at 3 a.m. with a crying baby and no one to give me a break. There were days when I felt invisible, like I was holding up the whole world and no one even noticed. And the guilt that followed those feelings was sharp and shameful. Because how could I resent a man who was risking his life for others?

On a certain level, I stopped trying to explain the complexity of it all to people back home. Unless they’d lived it, they just couldn’t understand.

Despite the exhaustion and the loneliness, a growing trust in myself was evident. I found a rhythm. I started to notice the small triumphs like the night I got Susanna to sleep without tears, or the first time I took her to the grocery store alone and made it home without a meltdown. These tiny victories helped stitch a quiet confidence into my bones that I would continue to carry with me.

Eventually, I started growing closer with women in the same boat. Some were fire wives, some had babies the same age as Susanna. We’d gather for stroller walks or coffee on the patio, and those moments and conversations where I could say “me too” and hear it back kept me sane. Those friendships became lifelines, forged in the fires of shared experience.

And then, just as suddenly as he’d left, Josh would come home. Those returns were always bittersweet. I missed him desperately, but the adjustment was never smooth. He was exhausted physically and often emotionally. I had settled into my own rhythm, one that didn’t always have space for readjusting. I wanted his help, but didn’t want to burden him. And lets be honest, I had been doing all the things while he was gone, so how could he do them 'right'. I craved time to rest, but felt guilty asking him to get up with the baby when he only had two days at home before the next call. It was tricky.

He'd come home sunburned, excited as heck to see us but also so tired. He'd drop his smelly boots outside the door and open his arms for that familiar welcome home hug.

“I missed you,” he said, scooping Susanna into his arms. “God, she’s bigger already.”

“I know,” I said, folding laundry. “She learned how to smile.”

He looked up. “I missed that?”

“You missed a lot.”

There was no blame in my voice. Just truth. Still, it hung in the air like smoke.

That first night, she cried. He got up, bleary-eyed, fumbling with the bottle.

“Is it warm enough? I forget how warm it’s supposed to be.”

“It’s fine,” I said, too quickly. “Just… you’ve got to bounce her while you feed her. She likes that.”

He tried. She screamed. I took her, bounced, paced, sighed.

“I’m sorry,” he said, quietly.

“It’s not your fault. You’ve been gone.”

“But I’m here now.”

“Yeah. For two days.”

That was the push-pull of it. It was complicated. I wanted him home, wanted help, but resented that I had to teach him what I’d been doing alone for weeks. Then I’d feel guilty for the resentment. It was a cycle of love, fatigue, gratitude, and frustration that I never expected and no one straight out warned me about.

Still, in the quiet moments, I saw it, the way he looked at her, the way she settled in his arms. There was love. So much love, even when everything else felt like utter chaos.

Even in the hardest parts, I kept coming back to the same thing: I loved this man. I loved this life, even when it was hard. Even when it stretched me farther than I thought I could go.

I was still learning. Still growing. Still figuring out how to hold space for all the contradictions: pride and pain, joy and grief, strength and surrender. That summer changed me. I wasn't just a wildfire wife, I was a mom too.