Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

By Bonnie Bartel Latino

Columnist

Ah, Guam. The land of sweet-scented plumerias, where just a few blossoming trees can blanket a large patio party, a hotel lobby or a beach pavilion with their combined fragrance. Although an important part of Chamorro culture, the plumeria is not the official flower. That honor belongs to the bougainvillea, or the Puti tai nobio, which is also known as “the paper flower.” I can almost feel the tissue-thin petals between my fingertips. In this U. S Territory, slender coconut palms bent by their heavy, eponymously named fruit, plus by the cumulative effect of island trade winds were everywhere. Personnel stationed, or on temporary duty at Andersen Air Force Base enjoy one of the world’s most gloriously-situated private beach playgrounds. Tarague Beach belongs to the U.S. Department of Defense, as does the base.
Andersen was named post-World War II on October 7,1947 to honor the life and service of Wisconsin native and U.S. Army Academy graduate (Class of 1926), Brig. Gen. James Roy Andersen. Two years earlier while flying his B-24 Liberator from the island of Kwajaalein in the North Pacific to Hawaii, he and his Liberator went missing. He was presumed to have crashed and been lost at sea on Feb. 26, 1945, only days short of six months before World War II ended in the Pacific. He was 41.
Andersen could have not fathomed that the last Japanese soldier, Shoichi Yokoi-san, hid in a cave within a dense jungle on Guam, surviving on nature’s bounty for 28 years after the war ended on the island. He was found by hunters in 1972, the same year Tom and I arrived.
If you read this column two weeks ago, you know that Tom’s flight was delayed coming back from Taipei, where he attended a conference with the Taiwanese Air Force. During that week, I stayed with friends Tom met on his flight from the states. The day he left I experienced severe abdominal pains similar to those I had previously encountered a year earlier at March AFB, California, where I had sought medical attention at the emergency room. The only explanation I could think of for these repetitive sharp pains all revolved around my unfortunate experience with an IUD that I had received at March soon after we arrived there in late 1970. The attending physician on base concurred and he removed the device, an excruciatingly painful procedure. To my horror, without asking my consent, the young doctor incorrectly assumed I wanted a replacement and implanted another IUD. Loath to risk the pain of removal again so soon, I reluctantly accepted it.
The ER doctor at Andersen Base Clinic gave me a prescription for antibiotics and urged me to see the clinic’s GYN doctor as soon as possible. Fortunately, I was able to get an appointment for the next day. I don’t remember his name, but he was probably a new major. I told him my story, plus he had my medical records and x-rays, which were taken in ER, on his desk.
Apparently I had contracted a serious infection that likely caused my severe pain. I told him I had been given antibiotics for that, and I felt better as soon as I recovered from the pain I had experienced in the ER. He winced before he added he was shocked I had gotten another IUD.
“So was I,” I replied with a grimace. His eyebrows revealed further dismay. His tone changed as he asked if I had children. I told him we didn’t – yet – but we definitely intended to.
He paused, taking a deep breath and lowering his voice. “You should know, Mrs. Latino, partly because of this … um, this unfortunate event … that might not be possible.” My mind replayed his words. “You’re saying I may not be able to get pregnant?” Then I took a deep breath and replayed every word in my tumbling mind as he replied “Yes and no.”
I interrupted. “Wait a second, please. You told me, at least I think you said, or implied, that the IUD and infection were only partly responsible. What else could possibly prevent me from getting pregnant?” I was truly dumb-stuck. I remember trying not to raise my voice. “I’m confused.”
“I know you are, and that wasn’t my intention. You could possibly become pregnant, but I seriously doubt you could carry a baby to full term. Your uterus is tipped so far back, it’s practically upside down. It also bears the scars from what must have been extremely difficult periods.”
“Only since I was eleven,” I replied tersely. As I always did when I was angry or felt I had been wronged, I had resorted to sarcasm.
His next words hammered home his thoughts about my useless uterus. “Well, there’s always adoption … perhaps a child from this part of the world.”
Inconsolable, I silently screamed at his face. “But I want Tom Latino’s baby!”
As I walked to the parking lot to our Guam Bomb, dread washed over me. When Tom came back from Taipei, I had to tell him. As I drove to our friends’ apartment, I remembered the Valentine’s gift he gave me after our engagement. He had made a wooden box and painted it blue before adding a pacifier, a stuffed bear, a blue baby blanket – and a booklet about babies, which he had created. On the cover the laughing dark eyes of a curly-headed baby boy, obviously cut and pasted from a magazine, had grinned at me. Tears streamed down my face as reality struck hard. Tom had always wanted a boy. Understanding his big heart, I knew he would have loved a baby girl at least as much.
How was I supposed to obliterate the lifelong dreams of the man I adored more than all the grains of sand on Tarague Beach combined?