I really like quoting from Going Rogue when I delve into Sarah Palin's timelines.
When Track was just a couple of months old, the commercial fishing season began. Todd was low on the BP totem pole, so he couldn't take much time off to work our leased site on the shores of Bristol Bay. We depended on the season's catch as part of our annual household income, so dad and I, along with our fishing partner, Nick Timurphy, a full-blooded Eskimo, fished without our captain.
(...)
I headed to the Bay to work the site when Track was ten weeks old. Mom came along to babysit. It broke my heart to leave him for whole days at a time while I was out on the water plucking salmon from the nets, but I did what I had to do.
From the next section of the same chapter:
Todd and I shared one car, and we loved our little life together, though with the Slope and fishing schedule we still didn't see each other very much. I was surprised by how much I loved motherhood. We desperately wanted another baby right away, so I was excited when I learned I was pregnant again. We were sure it was another boy, and we decided to call him Tad, a combination of Todd and Track.
I loved the fact we had planned so well and that events were falling neatly into place in our well-ordered lives. Our babies would be a year apart, right on schedule.
We (...) fished without our captain.
Sarah obtained a Resident Crewmember license that year:
1989, 714790, BB-30, Resident Crewmember, 06/25/1989
Their fishing site:
Todd Palin has a set-net operation in Bristol Bay—he fishes close to the beach—and an informal poll of attendees suggested that he is respected in the industry. “Nushagak Bay,” Kevin Adams, a board member of the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute, said, referring to the location of Palin’s nets.
I found some interesting data about fishing in Bristol Bay:
I can't find out for sure how many weeks Sarah Palin stayed in Bristol Bay doing what she had to do, for how many of those weeks the site was closed to fishing, if she had to stay on to make up for closures or when Todd came back from the North Slope, but this statement points to Todd not being around: "We fished without our captain."
Considering that she had to take her ten week old baby to the Bay, co-opting family members to help with the fishing and babysitting, this passage sounds contradictory to me:
I loved the fact we had planned so well and that events were falling neatly into place in our well-ordered lives. Our babies would be a year apart, right on schedule.
It doesn't sound well-ordered and the planning doesn't seem so good.
Another strange passage:
...though with the Slope and fishing schedule we still didn't see each other very much.
If she had to hold the fort that season, Todd didn't have a fishing schedule to prevent them from seeing each other, just the Slope.
Never mind. They had desperately planned to have their babies right on schedule, one year apart. Track was born on April 20, which places conception around the end of July. So it follows that for Tad to be on schedule, he needed to have been conceived around the same time of the year... but Todd was on the Slope.
Does something smell fishy in Sarah's little tale?
Please read other posts about Abortiongate for better context.