I will add that I have no presidential aspirations but I appreciate the confidence indicated. The work of a representative, a mother to be and hopefully a future surrogate mom is more than enough for me. I will just try to do my best in these roles. I encourage Americans everywhere to get out, work to make your school, your church, your community, your county or parish, you state and ultimately this nation a better place tomorrow than it was today. You can do that by caring and putting that into action. These two women did it. I have been concerned that I failed and harmed someone. They have helped me through that. And it appears that Dr. Joan Butler helped at a time when I failed. I would be wrong if I tried to make political hay of a couple of acts of kindness.

I only want to thank these women for showing me again there are lots of good people in this country. With what I see day to day, I need to be reminded. We just don’t often see the media cover it.

December 16, 2004

Ten major papers and USA Today carried the letters and Peggy’s statement on the front page. They included pictures of Judith, Susie and their children with one from about six months before of Peggy in a maternity outfit. The caption read. “Peggy Kramer – Member of the US House of Representatives. Let our prayers and thoughts be for her and her babies as she works to make this a better country.” Peggy smiled when she saw the letter from Susie. The local paper had fixed the spelling errors before printing and the others copied from it.

December 19, 2004

Brenda brought another letter to Peggy. The letter was from a woman who said she was one of the four and she now had two healthy babies. She thanked Peggy for trying and wished her the best. She said she did not want any publicity and asked that the letter not be released. Peggy called her shortly after the letter came and thanked her. Peggy looked at Brenda. Three out of four. But the one that concerns me the most was the last one, the one that I made the decision on. I wonder how bad it went.

December 23, 2004

Christmas came early for Peggy. Brenda came into her office with a letter. “I know you want to see this one.” She handed Peggy a letter.

Dear Congresswoman Peggy Kramer:

I am going to ask you to keep this letter private. I saw the article in USA Today about you and I felt I had to write you. I was woman who’s egg was your fourth implant. My husband and I fought for two weeks before the implant and were still fighting about it the morning it was done. Our marriage was in trouble, big trouble and we would have had a child coming into a broken home.

That implant didn’t work. When we learned it didn’t a week later we went into a blame each other, blame me, game for about a month. Then Dave came home one night and just held me for over an hour. We started to talk and we resolved things. We decided to wait a couple months to try again. We did and it worked. The baby is here. The home it came into is far more stable. Please don’t blame yourself for doing something wrong. It was done for the right reason, it didn’t work, but I somehow believe God put it together to make it right.

Please don’t give out any information on me. Right now I don’t want to have the publicity. If you need to, give me a call first.

Paula Reston.

She called Paula and thanked her. “I really don’t see any reason why anyone else needs to know. But thanks.”

Alpha Four Chapter 01: Two Autopsies

Alpha Four Chapter 20: Some of the Rich and Famous are Responsible

Alpha Four Chapter 22: Joan Has an Audience in the Delivery Room