Yep, I went to the doctor after a false-negative pregnancy test and found that I was --glory, glory--expecting a child. The doctor had with him a student or intern that day. I remember sitting on the table with this wide, wide, lunatic grin on my face that I absolutely could not make disappear! The young attendee said, "She looks like she's going to jump off the table." It was one of those few times in my life when I could not, could not wipe the grin off--so strange.

From there, I started buying thriftshop bargains, going with a friend to Ft. Wood. I bought a couple maternity tops and wore them from the git-go. Didn't matter that I didn't need them.
Later one of my sisters-in-law said Phil's dad said to them, "Oh my--if anything happens to this baby." We actually did have one scare in which I was put to bed for a day or two, but it passed quickly.

My biggest problem was the all-day nausea. In the summer months my stepchildren from CA, Stacy and Stephen would walk across the field and buy me sprite, but I was SO sick. I took nausea pills the whole nine months. Quickly, I learned that if I took one at bedtime, that almost always took care of my problem. When school started I did fine teaching first grade unless I tried to give up the nausea pills--then BAM. Sick again. A totally awful feeling.

Phil and I had sold the first home we owned at a small profit to my parents, who moved to Plato from their 40 year home at Briar, MO. We took the profit, rented a temporary home, bought quite a bit of new furniture, and started the process of building a new house. Said all that to say this: The house we rented was much a hunting lodge. It had a living room, kitchen, and bedroom, and it's only heat was from a fireplace (all the heat went up the chimney). Phil engaged a kind friend to build a chimney in the kitchen so we had a wood stove, but this house was cold! Also, did you hear me mention a bathroom? No? Well, there was one; it was a stool and a shower located in a separate building outside the house. That block building also housed the washer, dryer, a freezer, and an extra bed.

So, here I was, expecting my first child, living in a cold, cold lodge with some new furniture and a bathroom I had to go outside the house to enter. I was pregnant, and it was a very nasty Missouri winter. The electric blanket we had put away during the conception effort came back out. And I have to tell you, eventually, my husband insisted I use a chamber pot that we found in an old upstairs of the lodge.

Our baby, Joshua Phillip or Rachel Ann Hall ,was due on Dec. 30, 1978. No tax deduction, though. And although the doctor thought we might not watch the New Year's game, we did.
To Be Continued.