I found out I was pregnant by accident. I thought I was just turning into an old lady when I stopped having a period. I had gone for my check up and shots to prepare me for out of country travel. The doctor said, some shots he couldn't give me without doing the blood test first to see if I was pregnant.
I was shocked when he told me I was. I was glad, but I was scared.
There went my trip to Australia. Even though I knew I'd never have seen much of the place if I'd gone there for war games, I knew I'd always wonder.
Whoever my "bosses" were, they told me they were disappointed but Mother Nature had out ruled them. Some other lucky person would go in my place.
Tom was in New Zealand when I found out for sure. He took some photos there with a camera that he "found". I'm not saying he swiped it. He was always winning things in bets. He bought scratch offs when we got to Ohio and a lot of the time he won. Nothing major but two or three times he won $500.00. I never bet anymore on anything.
It's blurry but you can't blame me for this one. Of course he has a cigarette in his hand...
I think that last one was taken there but I could be wrong. I tried making it bigger to see if I could see anything.
When I did hear from him, he told me that most of them were billeted with local people and he got to be friends with his "sponsors". I was told, when we got to Ohio, that I needed to write to them and let them know he was home. I did but I don't think I ever got a return letter. Maybe it just never reached them.
I couldn't afford to call him even if I'd known where he was. We wives were told when they left that whatever problems we had, we'd just have to handle on our own. For a few weeks this was my "problem" but it was never really a problem. I just never thought I would have kids or ever get married.
It was a good thing but I was still scared. At my age, a lot of things could go wrong. I was told by the docs that because of my age I "needed" to have the amniocentesis test. This would tell them if there was anything drastically wrong.
I was told horror stories of all the things that could be wrong like birth defects or a pregnancy in the tubes instead of in the uterus where it was supposed to be. I'm not one who paid attention in science class if it didn't involve rocks so I hope I'm saying this all right.
They did their tests. A nurse told me if there was anything wrong I could abort it. She actually suggested it might be a good thing at my age to not have one. I told her it was the main reason I'd come to Hawaii and if I possibly could I wanted to have a child.
I worried while I waited for the results. Tom still didn't know. I'd sent him a letter and he must have gotten it by then but I'd heard nothing back. It didn't worry me cause I knew they were out in the field.
I was real anxious about the test results. I couldn't even think about an abortion. This baby was a part of me from the moment I knew he was in there, although at that time I was starting to think he was a she. I didn't think and I'm sure now that even if my baby was born retarded I would still love her and want her.
I got two letters one day. One was from the army and the other from Tom. He was never much of a letter writer but he was elated to think he was going to be a father. It was the longest letter he'd ever written me.
I opened the second one tentatively, scanning the contents and whooping for joy and amusement. Our baby was fine. There was one thing. She was now a HE. I think Tom would have been happy either way.
We had talked this over because in our family the only boy born was stillborn. Anna had had one boy however, but I just felt like I would have a girl. I wanted him to be prepared in the event we did have a girl someday. He said if we did we would name here Jennifer Marie. The Marie was for his Grandma Million.
I had called home to Mom and Dad and Sue and told them I was pregnant. I was calling him Jennifer Marie at that point. Now I had to rethink that idea fast, well not so fast, because we still had some months to go.
Eventually, when Tom came back we picked the names of two of moms grandfathers but she gave me the spelling of the name wrong and when he was born that was what they put on his birth certificate. His first name would be Tom but he would have the two middle names as well. Tom said under no circumstances was he to be called Thomas because no child of his was going to be called "Junior"