Babygate recap

It ocurred to me that not everybody is familiar with babygate and as it's so much fun to write about it, I decided to produce a timeline:

• March 2008- On the 6th, Sarah Palin announced to her colleagues that she was nearly 7 months pregnant. They were very surprised because her belly was as flat as a board. Apparently our Sarah has very very tight abs. Sarah told her work colleagues before she told her own family. Only Todd knew about it. Between the announcement and the next item in the timeline Sarah flew 18,000 miles! Many of these miles were long haul flights. Third trimester, long flights? Mmmm... During her whole pregnancy, Sarah didn't seem to have missed any appointments with her favourite hairdresser to maintain her lovely, rich hair colour with attractive highlights. Hair colouring during pregnancy? Mmmm...

• April 2008- 35 weeks into her pregnancy, at 4:00 am (Texas time) on the 17th, Sarah started leaking amniotic fluid and having contractions that felt different from the Braxton-Hicks she had experienced earlier in the pregnancy, a sign that things were moving along... She was in Texas for a very important conference and had to ring her good friend Dr Cathy Baldwin-Johnson back in Alaska to tell her what was going on. We don't know what the doctor told her during the telephone examination or how she checked how dilated Sarah's cervix was at this stage. But Sarah told the doctor that she had a speech she was determined to give to the conference at lunchtime and would fly back to Alaska after she had delivered it (the speech, not the baby). Sarah and Todd very wisely decided to skip the evening reception and Todd was asked to rearrange the flights so they could leave straight after the speech. Sarah leaked through her speech but she gave it, dammit! At no point was Sarah or the baby checked by a local doctor. But they kept in touch with Dr Baldwin-Johnson for further advice. After another thorough telephone examination, the doctor concluded that things had settled. Sarah and Todd started the journey back home just after lunch. They flew to Anchorage (with a 2 hour stopover in Seattle) and arrived around 10:30 pm (Alaska time), then drove 40 miles to a lovely, cosy, warm little hospital in Palmer, which doesn't have facilities to deal with high risk deliveries (of babies, not speeches). 44 year old multipara carrying a Down's Syndrome baby, leaking amniotic fluid over many many hours, premature onset of labour, not high risk? Mmmm... Anyway, at this point Sarah was induced and baby Trig arrived 5 weeks early at 6:30 am on the 18th. Three days later they were all back to work at the Governor's office! That's right, Sarah, Todd and premature Trig with Down's Syndrome showed up for work after three days. Business as usual, they had a state to run! Aren't things grand in Sarah's Alaska? Even premature babies are born tough, ready for anything! That's why Sarah and Todd defied all odds to make sure baby Trig was born a true Alaskan! Footnote: nobody noticed the Governor's stage of pregnancy during the 2 flights and stopover from Texas to Anchorage. Mmmm... Oh, I forgot the tight abs! (apart from the sarcastic tone, this is our Sarah's very own account of Trig's birth). Life was wonderful for the Palins until...

• August/September 2008- Late August: presidential candidate Senator John McCain announced his running mate, our very own Sarah... running for the office of vice-president of the USA (whatever it is that the VP does all day when not presiding over the Senate). Sarah was so elated that she got confused and referred to the Palin/McCain ticket at a rally! But, alas, there was trouble brewing. As one would expect, those horrible anonymous bloggers started spreading vicious, salacious rumours. They said Trig wasn't Sarah's baby! She was Trig's grandmother! The real mother was Sarah's 17 year old daughter Bristol! The horrible media reported it! OMG!!! What could the campaign do to dispel these terrible rumours? Show the world Trig's birth certificate with Sarah named as the baby's true and only mother? No!!! They had a better idea! They decided to tell the WHOLE WORLD that Bristol was FIVE months pregnant! Problem solved. Do the maths: Trig was four and a half months old at this stage, Bristol was five months pregnant, so of course she couldn't conceive the new baby while still pregnant with Trig! Silly people, it's all so obvious! The candidate for the other party, now President Obama, immediately issued a statement saying that candidates' families were off limits. The media dropped the story (the bloggers didn't). Then photos of Sarah from the period she would have been very pregnant started disappearing from several websites, notably from the Governor's photo collection on her own website. But the rumours had been dispelled and all was well again.

• November 2008- Palin/McCain lost the election!!!! (sorry, not part of this timeline). Back to the plot...

• December 2008- On the 28th (or was it the 27th?) Bristol gave birth to Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston (seriously). Case closed?

• February 2009- To date, not a single person has seen baby Tripp in any shape or form. Bristol has not been seen for months.

Mmmmmm......

I tried to keep it as short as possible, this was just an attempt to help any new readers not familiar with the story to understand the posts about Bristol, Trig, etc.

If you'd like to see a proper analysis of all the ins and outs of this saga, with loads of photos, visit Palin's Deceptions. They conduct very thorough, civilized and dignified research into all aspects of Trig's birth. There's nothing vicious or salacious about it.