My Non-Maternity Shopping Spree With A Surprise

James,Jr's first angel birthday was over.  I wasn't pregnant with a Rainbow Baby.  I had been through that first year of raw pain and deep grief, no other baby in sight, and I was growing older than my years with loneliness and yearning.  I had to do something different.  I decided to put away my maternity clothes and my "just in case" clothes.  I went on a shopping spree for summer clothes.  I felt like Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman."  I tried on everything and bought everything I liked!  It was a break away from the gloom and grieving this 25 year old girl had been experiencing for a little over a year.  I was NOT forgetting my son, but I had to move on.  I walked down the main street of town ( no malls buit yet!) with my packages swinging!  James and I were going to South Carolina in June for his good friend's wedding where he would be a groomsman.  I wanted to be ready for a weekend of a new beginning,  a weekend without grief hovering over me.  On the way home from my shopping spree, I turned up the radio and sang along with the hit tunes.  I was trying to get some optimism in my life!  Then, without warning, a new Paul Anka song came on the radio.  I had never heard a song like this before.  It was called, "Having My Baby!"  It seems that P. Anka's wife was pregnant with their baby and he had written a song to show his love for her carrying his child.  I was horrified!  How old were they anyway?  Didn't they already have a mansion full of children?  Immediately I was back in the dumps again.  I couldn't give my husband a baby and this song was blaring over the radio!  This is on You Tube now.  I just listened to it again after 37 years and it still made me shutter.  How many knives were going to stick into my heart and twist before I could ever have some peace?
June 21, 1976 came.  We were in SC at the wedding.  There was plenty of partying going on!  We had a ball that weekend!  It was fun, exhilerating and feeling young and free!
July came.  I had to go away for a week to Meredith College to a Reading Workshop.  A group of us from our school where I taught went.  After class, I drove us to the big new Crabtree Mall in Raleigh.  While others shopped for clothes or school items, I shopped the book stores for any book I could get my hands on about getting pregnant.  I came home with many books.  The gals and I celebrated my 26th birthday while we were in Raleigh that week.  Here I was, 26 and no baby.
But something else began to occupy my mind that hot July.  I noticed that my period was late.  Once more, it kept right on being late!  Could it be?  I had been to the doctor's office for so many pregnancy test the past few months that I was embarrassed to go for another one.  There were no home pregnancy test to do.  So, I went to my sister's in Washington to have a test done!  When I got there, the nurse told me to pee into a jar.  I COULDN'T GO I WAS SO NERVOUS!  She said honey if you can just give me a drop or two I can do the test.  I couldn't!  My sister and I went to buy me a Coke to drink!  I drank it and back to the doctor's office we went.  Nothing like everybody waiting for you to pee!  I finally mustard a few drops!  Enough!  The test was done and I was PREGNANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Everybody was crying for joy!  I had to get to a phone to call James!  He was over the roof with happiness!  I told him not to tell a soul until I got back home.  I drove the hour and a half drive back home on cloud 9!  There was a baby growing inside of me!  I was pregnant!!!!  What joy!  The tears of happiness were pouring!  I could hardly soak it all in.  My life was changing once more.  Guess what?  By the timeI got home James had told everybody he saw!!!  Can you blame him????  I was so happy that I immediately put up my shopping spree clothes and proudly put on my maternity clothes again!  I wasn't showing, but I was pregnant and that's all the reason I needed to wear them again!  Oh happy July!  Our baby was due March 19th, 1977!