Career Path > Navy Nuke

Starting mm a-school with Pregnant fiancé. Looking for advice

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gb54123:
I was just stationed at NNPTC and I ran into this situation often enough.

The first thing that I would tell you is that marriage and a kid are going to be two huge distractions to your academic obligations. The training pipeline isn't impossibly hard, but it is very challenging for the majority of people who go through it. Having a brand new wife with no family support and a child on the way is going to negatively impact your academics - no matter how smart or gifted you are.

Your SLPO is going to direct you to all of the resources that you'll need. There is Fleet and Family, Navy and Marine Core Relief Society and a Navy Club that does baby orientation stuff in Charleston. I'd stay on base housing, even though it can be shitty, because that will give you more time to be at home and to study.

If you fail out in A-school, you'll drop back to E-1 (unless it is protected in your contract) and you'll get a limited selection of jobs to pick from. If you have disciplinary problems, you might get sent home. If you fail out after A-school, you'll become a conventional mechanic.

My brutally honest recommendation is to consider not having your fiance coming to Charleston at all. I don't know about your situation (and I don't care to know), but if you got engaged because you knocked her up then doubling down may be a profoundly poor choice. Maybe having her family around to give her help is going to be better than the sporadic support you'll be able to give, especially if you struggle with academic/military standards.

shehane:
My brutally honest recommendation is to consider not having your fiance coming to Charleston at all. I don't know about your situation (and I don't care to know), but if you got engaged because you knocked her up then doubling down may be a profoundly poor choice. Maybe having her family around to give her help is going to be better than the sporadic support you'll be able to give, especially if you struggle with academic/military standards.



Great input gb54123! 

spekkio:

--- Quote from: gb54123 on Jul 13, 2019, 07:14 ---The first thing that I would tell you is that marriage and a kid are going to be two huge distractions to your academic obligations. The training pipeline isn't impossibly hard, but it is very challenging for the majority of people who go through it. Having a brand new wife with no family support and a child on the way is going to negatively impact your academics - no matter how smart or gifted you are.

Your SLPO is going to direct you to all of the resources that you'll need. There is Fleet and Family, Navy and Marine Core Relief Society and a Navy Club that does baby orientation stuff in Charleston. I'd stay on base housing, even though it can be shitty, because that will give you more time to be at home and to study.
--- End quote ---

These two paragraphs are the only halfway decent advice in this entire thread.

OP, just prepare your future spouse for the reality that you are going to work a 60-70 hour work week in Charleston. How you chop that up in NPS (12-14 hour days with weekends off or 10-12 hour days working a near full day on weekends) will mostly be up to you. The best thing you can do is utilize the quiet study room and utilize breaks to get your HW done or study more instead of BS with classmates for 10 minutes.

Plenty of people manage to work 60 hour weeks and have families in civilian jobs as well, so it's plenty do-able.

Prototype will be a bit tougher with shift work because the baby doesn't care that you're on mids, but as long as you make good use of your time at work you'll do just fine.

Aside from that, just make sure you and your wife fully understand the resources that are available to you at Fleet and Family, and despite GLW's cynical posts (more on that below) you'll find that most people in the Navy are very supportive of families so that you can focus on doing your job.


--- Quote ---My brutally honest recommendation is to consider not having your fiance coming to Charleston at all. I don't know about your situation (and I don't care to know), but if you got engaged because you knocked her up then doubling down may be a profoundly poor choice. Maybe having her family around to give her help is going to be better than the sporadic support you'll be able to give, especially if you struggle with academic/military standards.
--- End quote ---
This is terrible advice spoken by someone who has never been a voluntary geobachelor (someone who lives separate from their family because they choose to and not because they have unaccompanied orders). It will make OP's personal life substantially harder to manage and put him in a financial hole to become a voluntary geobachelor.


--- Quote from: nowhereman on Jul 11, 2019, 06:57 ---I see you are asking about finishing school and what happens. Have you considered another aspect of the equation? When your son/daughter comes out(they don't stay in there forever), you will need to be married or sign full custody over to your fiance, or your parents and you will need a family care plan. You will not be very deployable if you have custody of your child.  []So you said fiance, so marriage was thought out, just maybe a little quicker than you thought.

--- End quote ---
To clarify this post: OP will only need a family care plan if he has a child and is not married. He won't have to sign over full custody; a simple signed letter by his fiance stating "I'm the baby's mom, I live with OP, and I'm going to take care of the child while I am deployed" will suffice.


--- Quote from: GLW on Jul 11, 2019, 10:42 ---just a question,....

was there a pregnant fiancee issued to you in your sea bag?!?!?!?!

because I've been out of the Navy a very long time, and that's all the intra-Navy support I remember for such a predicament,...

--- End quote ---
You need to cut this b.s. out. Your post is not aligned with Navy policy or its core values. I don't doubt that some (very bad) Chief told you this behind closed doors one day, but you won't find them saying that crap while the XO or CO is walking around the space because it would be inconsistent with their command policy. The Navy does not spend millions upon millions of dollars on Fleet and Family support programs because it believes that Sailors with families should be hung out to dry. On the contrary, the Navy wants every Sailor to know that it's there to help support their families if they need assistance so the servicemember can focus on performing his duties and responsibilities. And if some real emergency does come up, the vast vast majority of leaders will be understanding and bend over backward to ensure OP can take care of the home front and come back to work undistracted.

I'm sorry you had a bad experience with your leadership, but don't spread this expectation to the new guys. It's not the norm. A good command composed of good leaders fosters a sense of family among its Sailors, Chiefs, and Officers vice rejecting it.

GLW:

--- Quote from: spekkio on Jul 27, 2019, 08:02 --- .... You need to cut this b.s. out. Your post is not aligned with Navy policy or its core values. I don't doubt that some (very bad) Chief told you this behind closed doors one day......

--- End quote ---

actually it was an XO, in the XO's stateroom, who eventually became a Rear-Admiral, you probably know of him,....

don't get me wrong, more than one chief said similar,...

so, let me tell the OP some hard truth straight from the O-gangers keyboard,...

"just prepare your spouse for the reality",....

you're gonna be told that your spouse has to understand the reality of the Naval Service a lot pal,....

so let me advise the OP, who hopefully can pick up what I have been laying down this whole thread,....

you're a blueshirt, you're being forged to be an integral cog in the Navy machine, but you're just a cog,...

and there's nothing wrong with that, it's a good, honorable thing,....

when you're a cog assigned to a machine (aka as a carrier or a submarine), then the machine needs that cog to be on the machine,...

you are not a ready spare (unless you're on shore duty, which is a rest and repair phase for the cog),...

if the cog has a family, which you now have, then understand that the machine will support your family so that you "the cog" can support the machine,....

the previous poster (an Officer and a Gentleman) has not stated anything different,...

all of his carefully crafted managerial statements always stress the Navy supports your family so that you can support the Navy,...

there is a breaking point where that support doesn't cut it anymore,...

fiveeleven:
I had a feeling that was Richard Gere.

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