The Pregnancy

He was in my public speaking class at the Univ. of Alaska-Fairbanks, the cutest and most charming guy on campus, I thought. I was in my first year as a journalism major and excited about being away from my Anchorage home a good seven hours' drive. Although I had managed to straighten up and stay clean during high school, I easily slipped back into the party lifestyle once I entered college. Let's face it, there's not much else for young people to do in Fairbanks, especially in the dead of winter when temperatures dip to -40 and the sun only comes out for a few hours each day.

There were two important new friends in my life that year who happened to be in the same speech class: the cross between James Dean and Paul Newman mentioned above, Trent, and a quirky, free-spirited chick named Sara who drew me in like a barker at a circus. We all started hanging out together in the campus pub and at dorm parties. Trent and I also slipped off campus from time to time to get high and mess around on his water bed in his seductive lair set up in the basement of his father's home. Also living at the house was his sister, Kim, and step-sister, Julie. His whole family --including his father -- smoked pot out in the open, usually in the kitchen. The mother lived somewhere in West Virginia, but that's all I knew about her.

I wasn't exactly a virgin before college. My innocence was lost on a previous water bed to my first "serious" boyfriend at age 15. He was 18 and had just graduated from West High in Anchorage, where I had just entered in 1977. He lived in his mother's basement downtown. Don Casanovas (yes, his real name, believe it or not) swept me off my klutzy feet with roses and short poems, songs on the guitar, and the best homemade spaghetti I'd ever tasted. I thought we were madly in love. He even gave me a tiny, white gold and diamond-specked "promise ring" and told me he'd wait for me to graduate in four years. But, alas, his heart (or other body part) strayed into the arms of a girl from a rival high school and I was crushed -- for a few days.
I was able to move on before too long, having summer flings when visiting my dad in Houston and dating another older guy who was in the Army, based in Anchorage.

Condoms were always my birth control of choice, even after getting to college. I hadn't obtained any sort of reliable birth control like the Pill yet because I was too embarrassed to go to the school clinic and admit I was sexually active. Even though it was sometimes uncomfortable to buy rubbers in the store (especially when you had to ask the clerk to get them for you from behind the counter), it seemed easier and cheaper than the alternatives.

This is why I try to advise parents of teen-age girls to make sure their daughters are protected with more than just condoms, although some of them are still in denial that their sweet babies would ever do anything with a boy other than kiss. I wish my mom had sat down with me and openly discussed sex with me and made sure I was protected. But even after all we'd been through together, she was probably in denial, too. To her credit, though, she was still trying to deal with the emotional and psychological abuse from her second husband. Being an attentive, involved parent just wasn't on her radar at the time.

But I digress . . . back to Fairbanks and the night that changed my life forever. It was February 3, 1982 -- my brother's birthday. Trent, Sara, and I had stopped at the campus pub for a beer after our speech class. While Trent was in the restroom, I confessed to Sara that I wanted to go home with Trent -- even though we were out of condoms. Sara asked about my menstrual cycle and quickly deducted that I was at my peak of fertility that night. I just laughed. Silly Sara. What did she know? I was sure we'd be fine. I would make Trent promise to "take precautions" to make sure I didn't get pregnant. It was just a matter of timing, after all, right?

Yea, right. Once I start drinking, it's all over for me. All cares and inhibitions fly out the window. So when Trent told me he'd be sure to pull out in time, I relaxed underneath him and tried not to worry about it. Unfortunately for us both, Trent was a bit off in his timing and failed to keep his promise. And somehow, I knew in that split second that I was in trouble. It was as if I could actually feel a sperm make contact with an egg at that moment. "Oh, shit," I mumbled. Trent laughed nervously, wanting to believe the odds were in our favor.

Hardly. I stopped by the school clinic about a month later to confirm what I already knew. The nurse advised me to "take care of it as soon as possible." Oh, I knew I would -- for the next eight months.

I'm sure if I'd taken the nurse's advice and had an abortion, my life would have gone "back to normal" sooner and I wouldn't have had to face my parents with the earth-shattering news of being pregnant at 19. I wouldn't have had to listen to my mom's selfish reaction on the dorm pay phone, asking why I was doing this to her and enduring her pleas to get an abortion because "it's not human yet." I wouldn't have had to puke into a cup next to my bunk in the mornings or taken showers at odd times of the day to prevent others from seeing my bulging belly. I wouldn't have to worry about choosing a good family for the baby and I wouldn't have had to deal with the pain of saying good-bye to a baby I'd carried for nine months. I wouldn't have had to spend the rest of my life wondering how he was doing, how he was being raised, whether he ever felt "abandoned" and if I'd ever meet him.

Although I was "pro-choice," I just couldn't fathom disposing of the growth inside of me in that way. As an adoptee who probably could have been aborted herself, even in 1962, I just couldn't do it. It would have seemed like I was aborting myself. And it was difficult for me to understand my mother's views since she adopted two children herself. If all unwanted pregnancies ended in abortion, there wouldn't be any babies for desperate, infertile couples, I figured.

My mother even had my aunt -- who was married to an OB-Gyn -- send me pamphlets on abortion from her husband's clinic in Warner Robbins, Ga., to try to convince me it was no big deal. She just didn't understand where I was coming from. My father, on the other hand, was proud of my decision to have the baby and give it up because he was against abortion and he knew I wasn't ready to be a mother.

I knew keeping the baby was out of the question, especially since I couldn't count on help from my parents and I certainly wasn't prepared to drop out of school and try to make it on my own with a newborn. That wouldn't have done either of us any good.

When Trent learned of the pregnancy, he asked if I thought we should get married. I laughed. We weren't in love -- we barely even knew each other, to be truthful. He then said we could maybe give the baby to his mother in West Virginia. But that didn't sound like such a great option, either. I imagined her living in squalor in Appalachia, surrounded by mangy stray cats and flea-infested dogs.

No, my mind was made up and I wasn't turning back. I started looking into adoption agencies in Anchorage. I contacted Catholic Social Services, but I didn't like their policy of not giving the adopting couple the baby right after it was born. There would be a waiting period, where the baby would be placed in temporary care for several days to make sure the birth parents weren't going to change their minds. But I'm a firm believer in the importance of bonding and I didn't want my baby to be "in limbo" like I was for six weeks. So I kept looking.

For the next few months of school, I attempted to minimize my bulging belly with loose-fitting frocks and dorky maternity pants, but there wasn't much I could do about the morning sickness keeping me out of my 8:00 a.m. editing class. I tried to explain the situation to my professor, but he couldn't have cared less, looking down upon my dark copper head with a smug smirk that said "That's what you get for being such a reckless slut." It was the first time in my entire life I'd ever failed a class.

There was another student at UAF that year who looked so much like me, people thought we were twins. She, too, was pregnant, but a lot farther along. She was planning on keeping her baby and trying to stay in school. I remember seeing her carrying her baby around in a car seat, toting it from class to class in the frigid cold, trying to keep it from crying during lectures. She ended up dropping out for good and getting a job as a bartender nearby. That didn't seem like a viable option for me.

As spring semester came to a close in May, I went back to Anchorage to live with my recently-divorced mother in a tiny one-bedroom condo until I could return to Fairbanks the following January. Until then, I concentrated on finding a good doctor and an adoption agency. Since I was still on my mother's health plan, I was able to get a check-up without paying more than a minimal co-pay.

As the nurse practitioner examined me and the growing life inside, I let her know of my plans to place the baby for adoption. She immediately came to attention, realizing a rare opportunity to help another patient desperate for a family. She told me she knew of a nice couple who would love to adopt my baby, but she asked me again if I was sure I was going to go through with it. When I smiled and nodded enthusiastically, she was thrilled and told me she'd pass on the good news to the adopting couple.

Since I wasn't due for another five months, we didn't feel a sense of urgency at the time and just agreed to touch base again toward the end of summer. Nothing was signed.

Shortly after that, my mother received a phone call from an old family friend from our days in Houston, Texas. I grew up with the Emmerich kids as our parents played tennis together and we'd go on overnight horseback trips and sailing ventures. Celia and her husband John happened to own a small newspaper in Greenwood, Miss. When Celia learned of my predicament, she offered to put me up in their home for the summer and would pay me $50 per week if I worked at their paper -- in the editorial department in the mornings and in the circulation department in the afternoons. Sounded like a great deal to me. I was just beginning my journalism studies and couldn't think of a better way to get some real experience.

So I was on my way to the Deep South -- again. I'd been to Mississippi before, visiting my great-grandmother "Big Mama" in Hazelhurst a few times while growing up. It was where my mother had been raised and attended high school. I loved the century-old homes with their wrap-around, screened porches, wobbly brass doorknobs, creaky wood floors and abundant vines covering the weathered, pealing paint. The weeping willows, giant, moss-covered oaks, and endless chirping of the crickets added to the charm of an otherwise oppressive atmosphere.

It was nothing like my Houston neighborhood, where the oldest home was built in the early 1960s. There were also more people of color in Hazelhurst than in my home surroundings. The only black person I ever saw in Nottingham Forest was our maid Annabelle. She was shared by a few of the other white families on our street. We'd have her on Mondays, say, and the Hollisters would have her on Wednesdays and the Harpolds would have her on Thursdays, etc. She was a status symbol, for sure. It wasn't like any of the women on the block really needed any help -- they were all housewives, after all. The husbands were businessmen and lawyers, doctors and stock brokers. They were living the American Dream.

So until our family fell apart when my father confessed an affair in 1972 and told my mother he didn't love her anymore, I'd lived a very sheltered, white-bread life. I was barely even aware there was a war going on in Vietnam, although I do remember seeing news about Watergate. My parents were loyal Republicans, so I imagine they were cursing Nixon's stupidity.

I think the Emmerichs were among their more liberal friends, although I don't think they were quite Democrats. I hadn't even thought my mom had kept in touch with Celia much after the divorce, but I guess it was just lucky timing that Celia would call during such a traumatic time in our lives.

The Emmerich's Greenwood estate was like something out of "Gone with the Wind." Their two-story, five-bedroom brick home with stately square pillars sat atop a lush green hill adorned with a small duck pond filled with giggly gaggles. And just down the hill on a path through old oaks and slender pines, horse stables beckoned this Texas-raised, cowgirl-wannabe.

It was the perfect escape. I didn't have to explain anything to anyone or worry about running into old friends. And once I hit the newsroom at the Greenwood Commonwealth and got a whiff of the printing press and heard the comforting clickety-clack of reporters and editors at their coffee-stained keyboards, I knew I was where I was meant to be.

They put me to work immediately in the newsroom and darkroom (back before digital photography), proofreading stories and going after my own features and "fluff" photos to help fill the pages. I even got to write my own column every now and then. The afternoons weren't quite as much fun, answering circulation complaint calls, although I did get a chuckle out of one elderly caller who politely declared: "I love reading your paper, but I'm having a little trouble reaching it on my roof."

I devoted some leisure time each day to staying fit by swimming laps at their country club pool or taking evening walks around the Emmerich's homestead and down around the corn field across the lane. I was determined to make sure this baby had the healthiest start possible. I had no idea what fate had in store for him. No amount of exercise, healthy diet, or abstention from alcohol could have prevented what was already imprinted on his DNA.

(To be continued . . . )