Photos capture Marine meeting his 5-month-old for the first time: 'Dear daddy, finally'

Nick Desme just met his baby girl Dallas, five months after she was born.

That's because the Marine was deployed to Japan when his wife, Amanda Desme, was 32 weeks pregnant.

She jokes that he wasn't there when she got pregnant either – because Dallas was conceived via in vitro fertilization after the couple struggled for years to get pregnant, Amanda told USA TODAY. Nick was away for a training when the egg was transferred and Amanda was "pregnant," but he was able to join in on FaceTime during her appointment.

The moment when Nick finally met his daughter was captured in heart-stealing photographs.

But first, you have to know the backstory.

'Dear Daddy, We did it. Love, Dallas.'

Amanda, a planner, wanted to make sure that her husband didn't miss milestone moments during Dallas' first few months. So she started a series of photographs of her daughter next to a letter board with different messages on it to share with "daddy."

The first photo was of Dallas in her hospital crib with a sign that reads, "Dear Daddy, We did it. Love, Dallas."

The photos kept coming.

"Dear daddy, it's my first time in the pool. Love, Dallas."

"Dear daddy, it's my first 4th of July. Love, Dallas."

"Dear daddy, mommy is driving me crazy. Please come home now. Love, Dallas."

Daddy and Dallas finally meet

Amanda did everything she could to connect the two even though they were worlds apart.

"Before he deployed I had him record a video on my iPad reading two different bedtime stories. I took one of his shirts and I took a bottle of his cologne and I sprayed it," Amanda said.

Amanda even had a Build-A-Bear made with Nick's voice singing a song that she would play to her belly.

"He was never absent during those five months he was always right there," Amanda said.

Then daddy and daughter finally met and this time the sign read:

"Dear daddy, finally. Love, Dallas."

"They are absolutely in love," Amanda wrote in an Instagram post after the reunion. "She wakes up staring right at him. She even said dada already."

'Beautiful, stressful, crazy'

Although Nick was thousands of miles away, Amanda was never really alone during her pregnancy. She moved in with her parents in Florida who helped her along her journey.

"It was extremely helpful to have them because it would’ve been a lot harder than I thought emotionally," Amanda said. "I don’t think being pregnant without him was the hard part it was having her without him."

The new mom shared that his deployment was especially difficult when she went through postpartum depression after having Dallas.

The couple first found out that they were going to have trouble conceiving when doctors discovered that Amanda had polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and endometriosis. After receiving the news, she went through months of infertility treatments and made "zero progress," so they decided to take the plunge and do IVF.

"It’s the most beautiful, stressful, crazy thing I’ve ever done. It was emotionally draining and emotionally beautiful all at the same time," Amanda shared. "I think it’s beautiful and I think more people need to talk about it and postpartum depression."

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Marine meets his baby after deployment in adorable photo series