PORTLAND – The families of some Maine Army Reservists stationed in Iraq are worried that their loved ones won’t be coming home as soon as planned.

Nancy Durst’s husband, Scott, is an Army reserve staff sergeant with the 94th Military Police Company currently stationed in Iraq. The unit is based in Saco and Massachusetts.

The unit was scheduled to come home in November, but that homecoming could be delayed until April. A new Army deployment policy says that reservists and National Guard units can spend 12 months from the date they arrive in whatever country they’re sent to, instead of 12 months from when they were deployed.

The 94th was deployed last December but didn’t land in Iraq until April. It is a combat M-P unit that is trained to keep supply lines secure and other military units safe.

Durst said she was looking forward to her husband’s return but now doesn’t know what to think.

“I really felt he was coming home,” Durst said. “He had shipped a box of his things home. Now I feel like the rug’s been pulled out from under me.”

An Army spokesman says there’s been no official confirmation that the 94th will not be sent home on time, but it’s a possibility.

But family members say that all the signs are pointing to six or seven more months of waiting.

Jennifer Stegeman, whose husband, Rick, is also a staff sergeant in the 94th, said she expects the unit will be asked to stay.

“I just kind of had a feeling in the pit of my stomach that they may be gone longer,” she said.

Drawing on experience gained when her husband was an active duty soldier for eight years, Stegeman said she is accustomed to the military changing the rules.

She, too, received a box from her husband Wednesday, and will send it back to him this week.

Durst and Stegeman said they support their husbands and their comrades 100 percent. But at the same time, they are concerned about an extended stay for a unit that was shipped to Iraq just 18 months after spending nine months in Bosnia.

“I miss him,” Stegeman said of her husband. “He’s been gone more as a reservist than when he was active duty.”

Since arriving in Iraq, Durst said, the unit has not had a day off.

“That’s putting them at risk, in my opinion,” she said. “They’re overtired, their morale is very low. I think they are definitely overusing and overextending these units.”