Things That Make Me Go "Hmmmmm"

April 2008 was a busy month for Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.  She had a budget bill to sign, polar bear protecting environmentalists to dissuade, a speech to deliver at an energy conference in Texas sponsored by oilmen, and a documentary shoot scheduled with Israeli filmmaker Elan Frank.  Her most avid supporter, blogger "Elephantman" (aka Adam Brinkley), joyfully announced the publication of her authorized biography, Sarah: How a Hockey Mom Turned Alaska's Political Establishment Upside Down.

I'll come back to the Elan Frank film in a minute. But this information, from the first chapter of the Sarah biography, was just too interesting:

Born in Sandpoint, Idaho on February 11, 1964, Sarah Louise was the third of four children born in rapid succession to Chuck and Sally Heath.  The family moved to Alaska when Sarah was two months old... Her older brother, Chuck Jr., was two years old, Heather had just turned one, and Molly was soon to come.

Chuck Jr. was two, Heather just turned one, Sarah was two months and Molly was "soon to come."  [counts fingers, scratching head]

This means that Sarah was born just 10 months after Heather.  It also sounds like Sally was pregnant again just two months after Sarah was born.

Hmmmm.  I'm wondering if Bristol inherited this rapid-repeat-pregnancy tendency from Sally.

But back to Elan Frank.  He decided to do a documentary on 'women empowerment' and chose Sarah Palin as one of his subjects.  In early March, 2008 he was in Los Angeles preparing for his trip to Alaska when Sarah called him (from LA) and said she'd like to meet.  This get-together took place about a month before Frank traveled to Alaska to do his filming.

After Sarah was announced as a VP candidate, Frank remarked, "I was elated, it's like my best friend was picked for the job," and proceeded to sell his footage to Fox News.  In September, 2008 Fox aired a documentary that used substantial portions of that footage.

Elan Frank in Sarah's office, circa April 8, 2008

I can't find a video of that Fox program.  However, there is a video about Elan Frank recording Sarah Palin in which Frank describes his experiences shooting this documentary footage.

In a related Ynetnews story titled "Sarah Palin mesmerizes Israeli filmmaker", Frank says,

"I met her in my Hollywood office and we talked for over an hour… we instantaneously clicked and we had a blast. The funny thing is," he added, "that a few days later I got an email from a friend in Alaska telling me she was seven months pregnant. I didn’t notice a thing until later, when we were filming.

"I guess she's one of those women you can't really [tell] when they're pregnant, and she was probably dressing to hide it a little. You wouldn't know to look for it."

I can understand why Frank would be confused.  On one day he filmed Sarah slapping her squarish jelly-belly.  But a day or so before, she looked like this:

The 'fashion-assisting' scarf hangs straight down

The image above is a frame from the video about the documentary footage that Frank shot.  We see Sarah, Blackberry in hand, going out of her office, down some steps, and onto the sidewalk to greet daughter Piper who gets off the school bus. The only adjustments I made to this frame were to crop it and remove the letters that ran across the bottom.

For reference, here's the original frame, about the 00:02:03 mark:

By all accounts, Elan Frank shot this roughly 10 days before Trig Palin's official birthdate.  That would mean Sarah is supposed to be 33-34 weeks pregnant here.  I scrolled through more than a hundred pictures of women who are 34 weeks pregnant, and there's no reasonable comparison.

The author of a JewishJournal.com article about Frank's filming of Palin, titled Shooting Sarah Palin, tells us,

So yes, Frank seems to have fallen under her spell.  But Frank is no [sucker or fool] himself. This is a war hero who spent seven years in the Israeli army fighting a wily foe. He knows all about deception. He doesn't trust easily. He can tell real from fake and tough from soft.

"If Sarah Palin is anything," he says, "she's real and tough."

Hmmmmm.  Was Elan Frank mesmerized or not?  Was he under Sarah's spell?  Do seven years in the Israeli army enable you to tell the difference between a real pregnant belly and a fake one?

Doing the Math

Some time ago, originally as a comment on Mudflats blog, we read a post from one "Sue Williams."  Sue told us that Bristol Palin was rumored to be pregnant.  She said she had heard it from close to 20 people who are all long-time friends of the [Palin's] family.  She goes on to state that the rumor was rampant in April 2008, issuing from Willow's boyfriend who "wouldn't shut up about how Bristol was pregnant."

Then, we also have Bill McAllister's statement (former TV reporter, now currently working for Sarah Palin) who said that Sarah approached him, at some point before she announced her pregnancy ,

She said it's not true about Bristol.

Before Sarah announced her 5th pregnancy on March 6, 2008, she approached McAllister in an effort to stem rumors that Bristol was pregnant. That means she was telling McAllister sometime PRIOR to March 6 that rumors of Bristol being pregnant were not true.

So, we have two sources that place rumors of Bristol's pregnancy at least as early as April 2008, and very likely, back to February 2008.

Let's take a look at a pregnancy chart.

Conception occurred	April 5, 2008
First Trimester ends	June 14, 2008
Second Trimester ends	September 27, 2008
Estimated Due Date	December 27, 2008

If we believe Bristol was pregnant and gave birth on December 27, she would've conceived early in April.

Unless the rumors we heard from at least two different sources were both wrong, how could there even have been any rumors in February or March or April 2008?  Based on this chart, Bristol was not even pregnant before April 5, 2008.  There would have been no need to pull her out of school in December 2007.  Nobody, not even Bristol, would know about her pregnancy before mid-summer 2008.  Willow's boyfriend could not have known in April that Bristol had just .. JUST .. gotten pregnant.

If anyone has any other explanation for the existence of the rumors, please let me know.

Weird Things Palin Said and Did...

Here are a few gems from the Dallas News (bolding is mine):

Struggling to accept that her child would be born with Down syndrome and fearful of public criticism of a governor's pregnancy, Palin had concealed the news that she was expecting even from her parents and children until her third trimester.

...Palin sent an e-mail message to her relatives and close friends about her new son, [sister Heather] Bruce said. She signed it, “Trig's Creator, Your Heavenly Father.”

...At her baby shower, Palin joked about her long months of secrecy, [friend Marilyn] Lane said. “About the seventh month I thought I'd better let people know,” Palin said.

“So it was really great,” she continued. “I was only pregnant a month.”

1. How does one keep a pregnancy secret for 7 months from one's immediate family?
2. Who assumes the persona of God when sending e-mails?
3. Is the "I was only pregnant a month" statement more revealing than she thought at the time?

And this, from Alaska Daily News (bolding is mine):

An announcement from the state said that Palin's "labor began (Thursday) while she was in Texas at the governor's energy conference, where she gave the keynote luncheon address, but let up enough for her to travel on Alaska Airlines back to Alaska in time to deliver her second son."

Adding to this, we have the following from Newsminer (bolding is mine):

The governor did not feel the need to inform the airline of her condition, Leighow said.

Palin told her staff that she would not have boarded the plane had she thought she or her baby were in danger.

Then there's this, from Alaska Daily News:

"I am not a glutton for pain and punishment. I would have never wanted to travel had I been fully engaged in labor," Palin said. After four kids, the governor said, she knew what labor felt like, and she wasn't in labor.

..."It was smooth. It was relatively easy," Palin said. "In fact it was the easiest of all," probably because Trig was small, at 6 pounds, 2 ounces.

1. So, which was it? Labor started on Thursday or she wasn't in labor?
   
2. Real labor is relentless and unstoppable.  False labor can stop and start.  However, "If you're not yet 37 weeks, don't waste precious time trying to figure out what's going on [with contractions]. If you notice any signs of labor, call your doctor or midwife right away in order to rule out preterm labor."
3. Complications from PPROM (preterm premature rupture of membrane) to the baby include the need for resuscitation, infection, cord compression, and compression anomalies to face, limbs and lungs.  On what basis did Sarah decide that she and her unborn were not in danger?  And what about the other passengers on the plane and possible inconveniences to them... do they count?
   
4. I recall reading that Sarah had no problems with her first four pregnancies, so she was not worried with the early onset of labor with Trig.  If Trig "was the easiest of all..." is this some sort of recommendation for premature, induced births?  In what way was he the easiest?  Were all her labors 26+ hours long and did they involve medical intervention to take place?
   

Such are my thoughts this chilly February evening.  I would've never said my pregnancies lasted only a month, and each labor and delivery was poignantly memorable.  One took 3 hours, one 6 and one 12... but I would never have called one easier than the other.  And I never pretended to be God when I informed friends and relatives about the birth.  But that's just me. 

Palin, Trig, and Baldwin-Johnson

A few days ago John McCain announced his surprise Vice Presidential candidate: first-term Governor from Alaska, Sarah Palin. While most of us were scratching our heads asking, "why?" others began busily taking a look at just who Sarah might be.

Lying About Abuse of Power
One of the first things that turned up was a potential debacle concerning an abuse of power charge resulting from what looks to be Sarah's unjustifiable firing of Alaska's public safety commissioner, Walt Monegan. Governor Sarah, her husband Todd, and members of her gubernatorial staff tried to pressure the commissioner to fire her sister's ex-husband, an Alaska State Trooper named Mike Wooten. When Walt wouldn't get rid of the trooper, Sarah got rid of Walt. Audio tapes and e-mails now show that Walt was pressured to fire Mike, even though Sarah initially denied any interference. You can find detailed information about this ongoing investigation online, using keywords: Wooten, Monegan, Palin. TPM Muckraker has a detailed write-up on the scandal.

Pretending Motherhood?
The next thing that turned up is a rumor that has been floating around Alaska for a few months. It has to do with the Governor's surprise 5th pregnancy and the rather strange circumstances surrounding the birth of Trig Paxson Van Palin, now a 4-month old infant with Down syndrome. The rumor goes something like this: the Governor is not the mother as she claims, but the grandmother of the baby. The mother of the baby is the Governor's daughter, Bristol. Bristol, now 17, is seen in recent campaign videos holding Trig in a tender, motherly embrace.

I honestly don't know about this — whether Sarah or Bristol or someone else entirely gave birth to the baby. But I started looking up information about the birth story itself.


Risky Behavior
March 2008: Sarah publicly announces that she is 7 months pregnant. The announcement shocked everyone — reporters, friends, and people in the Governor's office that she worked with daily. To a person, everyone expressed disbelief, since the Governor didn't look at all pregnant.

April 2008: Sarah tells this story to the media. She was supposed to give a keynote address in Texas on Thursday, April 17, 2008, so she flew from Alaska down to Texas. At 4:00 AM on the 17th she notices she is leaking amniotic fluid. At this point, she is 8 months pregnant. Such a sign is never welcome, as it portends possible fetal distress and a premature birth. However, Sarah is adamant that she wants to deliver her keynote address so she stays in Texas and gives her luncheon speech. She says she called her doctor and the doctor said, okay.

After the speech is over, she reschedules her return flight and heads back to Alaska. Again, she says she called her doctor and the doctor said, okay. She takes off on a commercial jet that afternoon. The jet makes one stopover and she arrives back in Alaska around 10:30 PM that night. Then, she and her husband drive another 45 minutes to the Mat-Su Medical Center, a small, regional hospital near Wasilla, Alaska, where she checks in. Her doctor decides to induce labor and Trig is born around 6:00 AM on the 18th. The birth is announced in local news articles.

More Than Just a Doctor-Patient Relationship
Sarah's doctor, Cathy Baldwin-Johnson, is a family practice physician. Baldwin-Johnson was named the 2002 Family Physician of the Year by the American Academy of Family Physicians, after being recommended by Sarah Palin, then mayor of Wasilla. In 2007, as governor, Sarah created the Alaska Health Care Strategies Planning Council and appointed Baldwin-Johnson to this important planning council.

The doctor practices her specialty (which I find very interesting WRT the baby-gate rumors) in a clinic she founded, the Providence Matanuska Health Care center.

Today, Baldwin-Johnson spends most of her days at Providence Matanuska Health Care center, a 38-employee facility she founded, but which became affiliated with Providence three years ago. She also spends at least a half-day per week volunteering at The Children's Place, a nonprofit organization with six paid employees that opened in March of 1999 after two years of planning.

Much of her work there involves working with children coming from physical- or sexual-abuse backgrounds. Baldwin-Johnson has received special training in working with children of abuse. Her interest in working with abused children stemmed from what she was seeing in her medical practice.

"Family physicians not only see children that perhaps have been physically or sexually abused or neglected, but also they see the long-term effects (of that abuse). There are a lot of pregnant and parenting teen-agers with a history of maltreatment, especially sexual abuse." [my emphasis]

I've been unable to confirm if Baldwin-Johnson is affiliated with the Mat-Su Medical Center. For some reason their Physicians page won't load for me. [9-1-2008 Update: the whole site is down today.] What I find interesting is that Mat-Su does not show Trig's birth on their birth announcement page and the doctor doesn't seem to have expertise in premature Down syndrome babies, and the hospital was not equipped with a neonatal intensive care unit which one would hope to have available when a Down syndrome baby is born, especially when born prematurely.

No End to Questions
I'm not sure what all this might mean. But, why would 44-yr-old Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska, risk serious complications by traveling so far, so late in her pregnancy? Why did her doctor give her the go-ahead? Why would she ask a family physician whose expertise seems to be with sexually-abused children to handle a risky birth of a Down syndrome baby, instead of seeing an OB-GYN with more specific experience? Why does Sarah go out of her way to travel to a rural hospital that doesn't have facilities to handle premature babies, when she knows there may be life-threatening birth complications? Surely she had the resources to go to the best facility Alaska (or Texas for that matter) had to offer! Why does the birth not show on the Mat-Su Medical Center's register? And why would she take this premature special needs infant to work with her 3 days after the birth?

One or two oddities does not a big deal make. But the story as told just does not add up. There are too many anomalies.

I'll leave aside for now my personal thoughts about a mother of 5 jumping in to a presidential campaign that, if successful, would transport her from Governor of a low-population state to Vice President of the United States.