“Alisa Cecilia — The Name She Chose Before I Was Born” — May 21, 1971
Send us a text In this letter dated May 21, 1971, my mom, Sarah, writes to my dad, Dick, with life-changing news: she’s officially pregnant. Unlike today, a urine test in 1971 couldn’t confirm pregnancy until a certain amount of time had passed after a missed period. She had to wait. But she already knew. And when she finally could take the test, her neighbor — who worked at the hospital — ran it for her so she didn’t have to wait in line. By 12:30 that afternoon, she had her answer: right ...
In this letter dated May 21, 1971, my mom, Sarah, writes to my dad, Dick, with life-changing news: she’s officially pregnant.
Unlike today, a urine test in 1971 couldn’t confirm pregnancy until a certain amount of time had passed after a missed period. She had to wait. But she already knew. And when she finally could take the test, her neighbor — who worked at the hospital — ran it for her so she didn’t have to wait in line. By 12:30 that afternoon, she had her answer: right on.
And in the middle of all her joy and relief, she names me.
Alisa Cecilia.
That’s the name she writes in this letter — the name she and my dad had already chosen before I ever took a breath.
She even says she might call me Sissy.
And she did — until fourth grade.
Reading this now, I feel the full weight of it:
I wasn’t just wanted. I was known.
Planned.
Named.
Loved.
She talks about baby furniture, catalog shopping for dishes, how sore and growing her body feels, and how much she’s looking forward to being a mother.
She even jokes that if she keeps writing letters this long, Dick will either need glasses or they’ll have to put a cover on them and call it a book.
Well — that’s exactly what I’m doing.
This is only the middle of the first month of letters.
I’m transcribing them one by one and compiling them with scans of the originals — month by month — into a book, just like she imagined.
There’s also something else in this letter.
A quiet reference to an earlier pregnancy:
“If this pregnancy goes like before…”
I didn’t know that.
Maybe it was a miscarriage.
Maybe it was something they never spoke of again.
But now it’s here — between the lines of everything else.
This isn’t just a love story.
It’s the story of how I came to be.
And I feel so deeply honored to have been loved this much
before I ever arrived in the world.
The Allgoods: Vietnam Through the Eyes of Love is a personal podcast project based on real letters exchanged between Capt. Richard Allgood and Capt. Sarah Allgood during the Vietnam War. Photos of the original letters, family snapshots, and behind-the-scenes commentary are available for supporters.
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