It's a Boy!

I was a soldier on active duty at Ft. Riley, Kansas.  The Big Red One.

My mother was terminally ill.  She was dying.

I was pregnant.  Not married.

And there at Ft. Riley living alone, I decided I was having a boy.  I convinced myself of it.  And so, me and baby Zachary, we got along just fine.  I called him Zach, for short.  Zach was due to hit the scene November 14th.

Jerry and I didn't have much opportunity to talk on the phone but the letters flew back and forth and in those letters we made plans for him to be home for the holidays, and the birth of our son.  Because I had determined I was having a boy.


After I left Germany, Staff Sergeant Newsome transferred to a new unit, just down the street from Hindenburg Kaserne, Katterbach Kaserne, 501st LRSD (Long Range Reconnaissance Special Ops Detachment).  At HHC, 1st AD, he had a staff position, a miserable existence for an 11B (Infantry soldier) except for a certain 71D (Legal Assistant) that kept his interest and existence less miserable.  After I left Germany, he wanted to get back into soldiering --stuff like jumping out of airplanes and shooting guns.  Stuff like that.  The point is --he had to get leave approved because they were a forward movement company (er --Detachment) and you just can't up and leave, on leave, like that.  So there was some uncertainty exactly when Staff Sergeant Newsome would come to Kansas and there was some uncertainty if it would be before or after the baby was born,


More uncertainty.

Making it through a heat record breaking summer in the dry plains of Kansas, autumn was a welcomed change and before we ushered in winter, I'd be a mother.  The uncertainty wore on me, worried me as did many others.  Everyone I worked with would ask me, "What are you going to do if you go into labor?"  I mean, I guess I'm going to have a baby.  The civilian secretary that I worked with asked met that one day and   she said, "You know you can't drive yourself to the hospital in you're in labor, right?"  No, I didn't know that I mean, I never had a baby before.

But I was used to being alone and doing things alone.  I guess I could have a baby alone, too.