Story by Camila Molina
Photos by Nicholas Bafia
CHAPEL HILL, N.C.– Last June, Isaiah Leiva needed to complete a 9-mile hike in under three hours to graduate from the Marine Corps’ officer candidate school in Quantico, Virginia. The hike left a sore the size of a golf ball on the bottom of his foot and the 60-pound pack rubbed his back raw.
He failed.
Officers told him to gather his gear to turn in because he was going home. If he failed officer candidate school, he could be cut from his last year in the Naval Reserves Officer’s Training Corps at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
But a few days later, the Marine Corps granted him a make-up hike.
Before he set off on the second hike, some members of his platoon taped up all his gear to be as compressed as possible. Others wrapped the puffy sore on his foot. Another member of his platoon wrapped the exposed flesh on his lower back.
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A few days earlier, Leiva met his son, Liam, for the first time. Liam was eight days old.
Leiva’s parents and his fiancée, Audrey Marovich, met him in a parking lot on the base. Dressed in his civilian clothes, a blue polo and dark gray pants, Leiva held his 8-pound son.
With a smile, Leiva nestled Liam in his arms. He admired Liam’s eyes, his nose, his hands. Marovich adjusted Liam’s shirt. Leiva looked at her and leaned in to embrace her. It was their first moment as a family.
Candidates in the Marine Corps’ officer candidate school are evaluated for six weeks on leadership, physical fitness and academics to earn commission as an officer. Family is not allowed to visit the base until the third week and the use of cellphones is prohibited.
“I was curious about what he would like and if he would be a happy baby,” Leiva said. “Once I finally met him, I just fell in love. He was so precious and so fragile. I didn’t know how to hold such a delicate baby. I was glad to be with my family again and to be with my little family for the first time.”
A cellphone camera captured this memory in a video, which Isaiah keeps on his phone to watch whenever he wants.
Deployment prevents some military parents from being with their children, but for Leiva, college keeps him from his son during the week. Leiva is a fourth-year student at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Leiva often experiences Liam’s firsts, rolling over on his stomach or standing up, through recorded video and photos.
Marovich lives with Liam two and a half hours away in Jacksonville, North Carolina, where she studies dental hygiene at Coastal Carolina Community College.
For Marovich it’s difficult to watch Liam interact with his dad through a smartphone. Though other towns and cities separate them during the week, communication through video chat and photo text messages are the best solution.
“I think Liam understands that Isaiah is ‘da-da,’” Marovich said. “I talk to him while Isaiah is not even here and even when we Face Time I say, ‘You see da-da?’ Liam knows who Isaiah is to him.”
She wakes up early to prepare Liam’s bottles before she leaves for school.When Marovich leaves for class or clinical, her mom or a member of Isaiah’s family watch Liam. Every day, someone who loves Liam cares for him until Marovich returns from school.
While Liam is awake, Marovich gives him her attention. They play and eat dinner together. During bath time, they Face Time Leiva. She does homework around 7:30 p.m. when Liam is finally asleep.
Finding the balance between mom and student is difficult.
Some days while Liam is awake, reminders about a test the next day pop into her head. Some nights she goes to bed earlier to wake up early the next day to continue studying. Other nights she my fall asleep while studying.
“It is hard getting work done while Liam is awake,” Marovich said. “If someone is not holding him, or even giving him the slightest bit of attention, he’s going to whine a little bit.”
Liam wasn’t planned, but giving him up wasn’t ever an option.
“We didn’t know we were ready, but God knew we were ready,” Marovich said. “It’s worth it–taking care of him, seeing him grow, grasping new things.”
Liam is nine months old now and can eat some solid foods. He coos when he looks at people and says “da-da” indiscriminately. When the couple pushes Liam in the stroller through Lenoir Dining Hall at UNC-Chapel Hill, employees recognize the little family and will stop to chat with them.
Even when Leiva walks by himself in the Student Union, an Alpine Bagel employee gets his attention when he enters. She abandons the cash register and asks him how Liam’s teeth are growing in.
Liam can roll from his back to his stomach, crawl and stand up.
“I miss all of that. Pretty much everything for the first time,” Leiva said. “When I am there it’s few and far in between when he does it because he’s still learning. That sucks, not being there.”
Leiva’s seen most of these moments first hand via Face Time when he speaks to Marovich or Brenda Leiva, his mom. In the mornings he watches Liam eat his yogurt and Cheerios, and in the evenings he’s virtually present during Liam’s bath.
Most videochats are for Liam though. The couple spends time together on the weekends to catch up or go on a date.
Some weekends, Marovich and Liam stay with him in his dorm room. Other weekends, he drives to Jacksonville to visit them.
When Leiva sees his son, there are rare moments where he catches one of Liam’s firsts in person. Like when he sat up by himself during a visit in his friend’s dorm room.
Leiva is a midshipman in the Naval Reserves Officer’s Training Corps (ROTC) program at UNC-Chapel Hill. When he graduates, he will commission as a Marine Corps officer.
As a resident advisor in Joyner Residence Hall he doesn’t have to share a room, so pictures of Liam and Marovich decorate his walls and a Pack n’ Play sits in a corner of Leiva’s dorm room.
He wakes up at 5:30 a.m. three-days-a-week to train with his battalion and attends class for most of the day. He returns to his dorm room in the evenings to resume his role as a residential advisor.
When he’s not training or in class, Leiva checks his phone for the photos his mom and grandmother send throughout the day. Even so, school moves on with papers and exams.
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Research shows that Leiva and Marovich’s pursuits in higher education are more difficult to finish after Liam’s birth.
More than a quarter of undergraduate students in the U.S. have children, according to a study conducted by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. The same group explained in a different report that student-parents are especially unlikely to finish their degrees within six years of enrollment–only 33 percent of student-parents receive their degrees or certificates within that time period. They also face significant financial hardship–88 percent live at or 200 percent below the federal poverty line.
Isaiah’s dad, Sgt. Maj. Luis “Chino” Leiva, wanted his son to go to college, an opportunity he didn’t have.
“Not finishing school was not an option,” Chino Leiva said when he found out the couple was expecting Liam.
He and his wife offered to get second jobs to help the couple with the cost of caring for a newborn. If it was necessary, they also expected Leiva to get a second job.
His parents wanted him to go to college more than he wanted to, but now, finishing college is not for him–it’s for his new little family.
“Liam just fills a lot greater purpose,” Leiva said. “My focus is different now.”
He traded in his sports car for a spacious SUV, reduced his expenses by going out less with his friends and cut his dining hall meal plan to one meal per day. Parties are not important anymore and he chooses to Face Time Liam and Marovich instead.
Budgeting time and money are more necessary than before. The couple compares Walmart,Target, Amazon Family and Sam’s Club prices online to get the lowest cost per unit on the items they need. They know a box of diapers of Walmart’s Parent’s Choice costs 12 cents per diaper compared to a Pampers pack at 17 cents per diaper.
Traveling anywhere with Liam requires a plan.
First, wash the bottles and measure the formula. Pack those. Make sure the bottles are dry so they don’t collect mildew. Pack hot and room temperature water in case the bottle temperature needs adjusting. Dress Liam. Pack the blanket, grab the extra blanket, the diapers and the wipes. Make sure he eats so he doesn’t get hungry in the car.
They plan ahead because that’s what’s best for Liam. The couple has even started a college fund to which they contribute to as much as they can.
“You think you know what love is–I love my mom or my dad because they took care of me– but there is no other love then when you have your child because you know that’s half of me,” Leiva said. “That baby has my genes. I would do anything for that baby. It was like re-experiencing love.”
Leiva’s job as a residential advisor and his scholarship through the Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation pay for his college tuition and sustain his family. The couple purchases some of Liam’s food with WIC vouchers, which alleviates some of the financial burden.
The couple graduates this year on Mother’s Day weekend and will marry the following Monday. Leiva will train for another six months until he receives his commission from the Marines Corps.
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He set off on his second attempt of the 9-mile hike at just past 2 a.m. He rucked through the humid, but cool Virginia summer. He passed through woods and hills, walking as fast as he could. Running was prohibited. He rucked with his infected foot and with the “what if” thought of not passing.
In his pack he carried his most valuable item, the one that helped him pass.
“Liam’s in my bag,” Leiva said he thought to himself on the hike. “I’m carrying Liam. I have to do this.”
