Enlarge Courtesy of Ashley Charter

Ashley Charter is getting used to taking care of her son, Abel, while she's taking classes and her husband, Jesse, is in Iraq.

Courtesy of Ashley Charter

Ashley Charter is getting used to taking care of her son, Abel, while she's taking classes and her husband, Jesse, is in Iraq.

Jesse has been back in Iraq for more than a week now, so I've been getting used to handling everything myself.

I don't really like to think of myself as a single parent because I do have the financial and emotional support from my husband that single mothers often do not have. But it definitely is a lot like it. I have to let Abel cry at times. I don't have someone else here to comfort him while I make a bottle, or to change his diaper when I'm in the shower. There just is physically no way that I can comfort him every time that he wakes up. I don't really have much to compare this to, though, so I don't really feel like I have it harder than most.

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A common question I keep getting is, "Are you going to breast-feed?" Some people ask just because they would like to know, others know that it's a more loaded question for me than most.

Every time someone asks me, I always respond with the same thing: "I'm going to try." I have gotten the response: "It's breast-feeding. You don't try, you just do it." But for me, it is not just up to whether he latches right or if it is painful, but if I can actually do it.

I mentioned in a previous post that I was burned when I was a child. When I was 5 years old, I suffered third-degree burns on more than 30 percent of my body, which does not sound like much, but for a 5-year-old, it's a pretty large area.

Enlarge Courtesy of Ashley Charter

Jesse Charter met his son Abel on Wednesday, July 27, at the Raleigh Durham International Airport four days after Abel was born.

Courtesy of Ashley Charter

Jesse Charter met his son Abel on Wednesday, July 27, at the Raleigh Durham International Airport four days after Abel was born.

Ashley Charter gave birth to Abel Weston Charter on Saturday, July 23. Here is her birth story.

The past two weeks, I had been wondering if I would know for sure when I was really in labor because I had been having false labor off and on for a while. Would the contractions feel a lot worse? Would my water just break? If my water did break, would it be a huge gush or just a small trickle?

At 5 a.m. on Saturday, July 23, I got my answer. My water broke, in a huge, movie scene-style gush. I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom.

At my last appointment, the midwife told me that I did not have to rush in to the hospital if my water broke — that I could take a few hours and relax at home, because this being my first birth, I would probably labor for a long time.

We hadn't heard from Ashley Charter for a few days and weren't quite sure why. Now we know: Her son, Abel Weston Charter, was born Saturday, July 23. Here's the email she sent us this morning:

Enlarge Courtesy of Ashley Charter

Abel Weston Charter was born Saturday, July 23, at 2:13 p.m.

Courtesy of Ashley Charter

Abel Weston Charter was born Saturday, July 23, at 2:13 p.m.

Mr. Abel Weston Charter was born Saturday, July 23rd, at 2:13 p.m., 5 pounds, 9 ounces, 19.5 inches long and absolutely perfect. My water broke at 5 a.m. that morning and contractions started right away. Once I got to the hospital at 7 a.m., I was 5 c.m. dilated and they admitted me. I ended up getting an epidural at around 8, and by 9 a.m. I was fully dilated.

Enlarge Courtesy of Ashley Charter

Courtesy of Ashley Charter

It took a little while for him to move all the way down, but once he crowned, I pushed for about an hour and he was born. All together, everything went very well. We spent 2 days in the hospital and were released yesterday afternoon.

Ashley says she'll write up a more detailed post and get it to us as soon as she can find the time. Congratulations!

Courtesy of Ashley Charter

Ashley, pictured here a week ago, says she went into false labor on July 1.

The Baby Project recently asked moms to write about their birth plan, including how they plan to deliver, where, and who they will have accompanying them.

My birth plan is actually more of a "no plan." I will be delivering at Womack Army Medical Center, the hospital on post at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. That's really the only thing that is certain. Like any hospital, I have heard mixed reviews, so I suppose we will just have to see how it goes for me.

On July 1, I was having regular contractions at two minutes apart, so I went to labor and delivery at the hospital in the middle of the night. Everyone was very nice and accommodating during my short 45-minute stay when they determined that I was in "false labor" (contracting, but no cervical changes), and they sent me home.

Courtesy of Roxy Haney

Ashley Charter, 21, thinks she's often mistaken for a pregnant teen because she looks younger than her age.

I don't understand what happens to people when they see a pregnant woman. Some of the comments you hear are insane. I am on the younger side when it comes to wanting to have children, and I understand that, but the bigger I get, it becomes more obvious that people think it's OK to say anything to me.

First of all: Yes, I am pregnant, and no, I do not feel miserable. I can still walk around and do everything I need to just fine. No, my hips don't feel quite as mobile as they did eight months ago, but that's to be expected. After hearing, "You must be miserable" from every random employee at the supermarket, I start to wonder, "Do I look that miserable?"

But to the really annoying part — I am smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt, and it's obvious; not just from the fact that there are four different churches on the same block, but the rather displeased looks on people's faces when they see me.

Enlarge Courtesy of Ashley Charter

Ashley and Jesse at a surprise baby shower given by their friends in the spring. With Jesse now in Iraq, Ashley wonders whether their son will be comfortable with him when he returns.

Courtesy of Ashley Charter

Ashley and Jesse at a surprise baby shower given by their friends in the spring. With Jesse now in Iraq, Ashley wonders whether their son will be comfortable with him when he returns.

I've been through the fears of "Will this pregnancy last?" — and it still seems unreal at times. But there are a lot of things I worry about.

Will I have enough clothes, bottles and blankets? Am I missing anything that our baby will need? Of course, if I don't have it now, I can buy it after he's here.

Then I worry about labor: Am I going to make it through my birth plan the way I want to? What if something goes wrong? Do I have everything I need in my hospital bag? Do I have the Red Cross message written right? (For births, deaths, or any other emergency, the Red Cross sends messages to soldiers overseas.)

Enlarge Courtesy of Ashley Charter

Ashley with her husband, Jesse, last summer between his deployments with the Army.

Courtesy of Ashley Charter

Ashley with her husband, Jesse, last summer between his deployments with the Army.

Things did not go as easily as we expected when we started trying. We got pregnant in August 2009, but it ended in miscarriage, and the same happened again that December and the next February. During my third pregnancy and miscarriage, Jesse had been deployed to Haiti , which surprisingly was not as difficult to deal with as I thought it would be. By the third miscarriage, I had become numb to the whole thing, like it was my normal process.

Jesse came home from Haiti in April last year, the same month the OB on base sent me to the infertility clinic at Womack Army Medical Center. From there, I was referred off-base to the reproductive endocrinologist at the University of North Carolina.

I went through lots of tests, and they determined that I had a clotting issue that would be resolved with aspirin. I also had a progesterone deficiency, and my cycles were irregular. But because there wasn't one specific thing they could say without a doubt caused the losses, I was diagnosed with unexplained infertility.

Enlarge Courtesy of Roxy Haney

Courtesy of Roxy Haney

I am Ashley. I'm 21 years old. My husband, Jesse, who is 23, is in the Army and was deployed to Iraq earlier this month. We are stationed at Fort Bragg, and live in Lillington, N.C. I am a full-time student finishing my bachelor's degree.

Jesse and I were married in February 2009. We both really wanted children, so we decided we would start trying in June because that's when I had my yearly checkup. I remember talking with the doctor about our decision like it was yesterday. She told me to come back in a year if we had not become pregnant. She said: "But you're both young, so you shouldn't have any trouble."

I just knew that we would be pregnant soon. Like the doctor said, I was young — 19 at the time — and most pregnancies at that age are accidents. But July came and went, and nothing. Now that I look back on it, I feel like an idiot for being so upset. In August, I took a pregnancy test and it was positive. We were so excited.

Enlarge Courtesy of Roxy Haney

Courtesy of Roxy Haney

I was your typical young pregnant girl. The first thing I did was post it all over Facebook, and every day I posted a status update about the pregnancy. But on Oct. 7, 2009, my world crashed. After a long, stressful day, I went to the ER, where I was told I had a miscarriage. I was in shock; 19-year-olds don't have miscarriages — at least that's what I thought. As soon as we were told that we could try again, we did, and we became pregnant again in December. But yet again, in January, I had another miscarriage. That was followed by a third miscarriage in February.

Courtesy of Ashley Charter

Ashley with her husband Jesse in the winter of 2008 when they got engaged.

After being diagnosed with unexplained infertility in April and seeing a reproductive endocrinologist for eight months, we were very excited, shocked and scared to learn we were expecting again. This pregnancy has been a very emotional one. Along with the fear of losing the baby, Jesse left for Iraq the month before our son is due to arrive — July 29. Luckily, we are stationed close to my family, so I have support nearby.