You are going where?!?

So in a time not so long ago (October 2013), Patrick and I sat down an made a little list. Let's call it "The Wish List". It took all the Air Force bases that had hospitals big enough for an obstetrics and gynecology service and ordered them from "would most like to live there" to "not over our dead bodies". Now Patrick and I had been talking about this list since we moved to Texas. Over time, some of our preferences had changed, but we had decided quite some time ago that we would put Elmendorf AFB, Alaska at the top of our list. It was somewhere that we both thought we would enjoy and it seemed realistic for a newly minted ob/gyn to be placed there. The rest of our list was lots of negotiating and such, but we really didn't think it would mean much. We really thought we were going to Alaska! Patrick bargained Landstuhl, Germany up to the number 2 spot on the list. My exact words to him were "new physicians do not go to Germany, please do not get your hopes up about Germany because we will not be going there." He replied with "but it is so beautiful, just look at these Google images." We went around like that for a while and then moved on to the rest of our list. One random day in March, I get a phone call from a number I don't recognize. I listen to the voicemail-it is one of the former MFM faculty from San Antonio. He is stationed in Germany and had recalled us mentioning that it was near the top of our list. Long story short, there was the possibility of a new grad coming to Germany and he wanted to know if we were interested. I called Patrick immediately and posed one question, "Do you want to go to Germany?" He said, "When do I need to decide by?" I answered "Now!" I quickly got in touch with the other doc and gave him our answer, "YES!" He told me that I would need to email the person in charge and then wait. Now for those of you who know about military life, one must be very careful when indicating desires. They can easily be "re-interpreted" to suit the Air Force. I wrote an email saying that we were very interested in being assigned to Germany if it was an option, but that if it was not an option, our first choice remained Alaska. Exactly one week later I received an email with our new assignment. I called Patrick and then opened the message. Lo and behold-there really was a spot for a new grad in Germany. As we found out, this was the beginning of lots of adventures and misadventures. Stayed tuned for more posts about the adventures of moving overseas with the military as well as posts about our adventures around Europe (and hopefully some of Africa!).