I worked at regaining my non-combative posture and continued.
Sarah delivered her speech to the Texas audience, ending it with a comment about having to leave because she evidently had gone into labour. (I’m thinking Sarah and Todd went from the hall to a restaurant as there was some time to kill before the flight departed, but I could be wrong on this point.) Regardless, they took cabs and shuttles between Texas destinations and the airport, Todd jostling all the bags, Sarah looking after herself. She claims to not have been in any discomfort, which is why no one noticed she was in early labour. She says the leaking amniotic fluid was so minimal it presented her with no problems and she had no contractions. Once on the airplane, she apparently stayed in her seat. She’s quite proud of the fact that no flight attendant or passenger knew what she was experiencing. This was strictly between her and Todd and God.
Now back in Alaska, Sarah and Todd…
“WAIT WAIT WAIT!” my Oz friend bellowed. “Nobody on the plane NOTICED???”
“Apparently not. The flight crew was later identified and interviewed by reporters and they (the crew) were a bit confused to learn there had been a passenger on board who’d been pregnant at all, much less in the last moments before birth. No one seemed to recall any pregnant woman or any woman in any sort of distress on the flight.”
“Surely someone noticed a full-on pregnant belly bumping into them on her many trips to the loo? Was there never a line to get into a loo? How big was this airplane anyway? Did she have a private compartment like they have on trains?”
I shrugged my shoulders. My friend slumped back into her chair, rolled her eyes and motioned me to go on.
Ok… back in Alaska, Sarah and Todd got into the family car and drove home to Wasilla. Through a snowstorm. Or a blizzard. One accounting said it took five hours. Another quote had it at ‘two or three’. Still another occasion has Sarah saying the car ride home was nothing, so I’m not at all sure which version to give you. Suffice it to say it was Alaska cold, there was at the very least, Alaska snow on Alaska ground and it was after midnight. So reasonably, if the roads weren’t piled deep in drifts, they were at least icy and slick, and sure to provide a bumpy ride. The pair reached the Mat`Su Hospital in (or near) Wasilla, Alaska just after 5am and she had her first contraction as she entered the hospital building. Baby Trig was born a couple of hours later, a full month early but full term weight of 6+ pounds..
And there you have it. The media coined it Sarah’s Wild Ride and I think I’ve given you as close to her version of the story as possible.
I waited quietly for her reaction and finally, in a surprisingly calm voice she flatly stated:
“That’s the biggest pile of porkies I think I’ve ever heard in my entire life! Really! People believe that rubbish? That’s like an episode straight out of Desperate Housewives! Does she know the writers?”
“Well it’s odd to me that with Sarah’s overnight fame, not one person from either her Washington D.C. or Texas trip ever came forward to claim braggers rights on having helped her in or out of a taxi, a table at a restaurant, an elevator or even a flight of steps. How on earth did anyone nine months pregnant descend the portable stairs from an airplane to the tarmac, in the dead of night on icy ground with not one person coming forward to share a cute story about having helped her? That just goes against human nature. Everyone wants their fifteen minutes of fame. Sarah became a national figure only four months after this event. Surely people who’d helped or seen a very pregnant woman waddling in and out of cars, up and down stairs and on and off airplanes only four months earlier would have remembered their experience and spoken up? But no – nothing.”
We chatted about other things for a while, mutual friends, her new home and how she was (for the first time ever) wrapping her head around gardening. I gave her some clippings from a few of my more forgiving plants, and then we were standing at the door of her car.
“You know, I lived closer to my sister when she was carrying her two boys. I’m thinking it was by her sixth or maybe seventh month mum and I were driving her everywhere because even though she was in really great shape, physically, the bulk made her too uncomfortable to get behind the wheel. Even young and thin, she waddled that unmistakable pregnant waddle. You know, the one that makes it look like a woman’s balancing a watermelon between her knees whilst walking? I was actually looking forward to experiencing that firsthand.”
She put the plant cuttings in the backseat and shut the door. She gave me a hug and said calmly “I don’t think it’s right that someone gets to make up a story like this and pass it off as the truth. Not while there’s people like me who tried so hard to have a child and failed every time. I’m 37 years old and I’m running out of time and I don’t think there’s many options left for me to have a baby. So no, I don’t think this is funny at all. I think this is a very serious lie she’s telling and I hope someone in her world who knows the truth pulls their finger out and exposes this nonsense for exactly what it is. Nonsense. Hurtful nonsense.”
The End
People who have no investment in Sarah Palin see through her veil of absurdities without hesitation. The problem is, those people who are invested in Sarah Palin don’t seem to see her at all. – OzMud
====== OzMud’s note ======
The first time I heard about Sarah’s ‘Wild Ride’ was over a year ago. I’ve read other people’s versions and heard her ever-evolving version in bits of speeches and now in her book, throughout the year. Please remember that while I was relating this tale to my friend, we were sitting on my porch with sun shining and birds singing and I was attempting to be fair to Sarah and not embellish.
All of the details offered in these past three posts came off the top of my head – as good as memory allowed – and not from sitting in front of a computer where each detail could have been checked and verified. I acknowledge that in the telling, I’ve got more than one detail wrong 🙂
To those contributing comments on the road trip from the airport to Mat’Su Hospital – kudos on the energetic discussion and thanks so much for all your input. (I do appreciate everything you add.) The first version I heard had this taking place during a blizzard. I know this because I lived in the high desert of snow country for several years and immediately associated the tale with a night I’d been caught in an unexpected storm nd the visibility was so bad I got behind a snowplow on the freeway and followed it all the way home (going aprox 10 mph) for fear of going off the road and over a cliff . I was terrified and it took for-bloody-ever.
Under the best of conditions, in my humble experience, in snow country, during snow season, with or without an active storm happening, after 10pm on the best of roads there is always black ice, there are always slick spots, there is always that unexpected chunk of brownish snow that’s fallen off a car ahead that needs to be avoided at all costs because you can’t tell if the center is soft or hard and hitting it might damage your front end – and there is always the possibility of an unpredictable storm or blanket of fog that renders you suddenly and completely blind until it passes. Driving at night in snow country should always, always be approached with caution.
I’m sure it’s done, but I cannot wrap my head around anyone ‘safely’ travelling 45 miles, after midnight, in snow country, in under two hours. Especially with a passenger who’s leaking amniotic fluid and could go into hard labour at any second.
And that’s the key. Labour is not predictable. What would Todd have done if, on an isolated road in the dead of night, his wife had gone into hard labour? How would he have delivered his son? Protected his wife? What provisions did they have on hand? Hot water? Clean blankets? Could Todd have at least washed his hands? Was there light? What would he have used to clamp or cut the umbilical cord? What if the infant, born a month early, had trouble breathing? How would he have kept his son alive long enough for help to arrive? What if Sarah began to hemorrhage?
One would think Todd would have at least arranged for an ambulance to meet them at the airport in Anchorage, providing his wife and unborn child with immediate medical assistance and the safest possible passage on the last leg of what must have been an incredibly tense, gruelling trip for him.
One would think.
December 8, 2009 at 9:10 pm
“Investment” indeed promotes credulousness. If you think about it, millions of people have believed a story about a woman’s traveling in a state of advanced pregnancy that puts Palin’s to shame. It’s the second chapter of Luke, involving what I understand would have been at least a three day’s journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem on the back of a donkey — or walking, and unlike the events of first chapter, Luke presents it as neither miraculous nor even remarkable.
December 8, 2009 at 11:35 pm
To be clear, I don’t buy Sarah’s story at all, but I must say it really needs no embellishment regarding the roads.
The road to Wasilla is very heavily traveled and well-maintained. Not “piled deep in drifts”. It’s the main road heading north from Anch and is a major highway w/ so many cars & trucks that it just doesn’t fit your imagined description.
Quoting: “So reasonably, if the roads weren’t piled deep in drifts, they were at least icy and slick, and sure to provide a bumpy ride.”
Falase false false. Some little sideroads would fit this but not the Glenn Highway & we really need not make anything up regarding The Wild Ride.
And it’s about an hour to Wasilla.
December 9, 2009 at 4:36 am
I disagree. It’s at least an hour to Wasilla from the north edge of town, not the airport. Granted, everyone drives differently. I’m a moderate driver, because I’m scared of all the cool people over-driving the conditions in fancy trucks with studded tires. You can see them slide when they change lanes at 60 mph.
I’ve driven to and from Wasilla many many times when the roads WERE piled deep in drifts or plowed/scraped, but glare ice, or white-out blowing snow.
Typically in springtime in Alaska, road surfaces change dramatically from daytime to night with a drop in temperature – melting and slushy at 3 pm to a deadly slick luge run at midnight.
On April 17th, 2008, at 3:30 pm, it was 40 degrees F on the Glenn Highway. At 11:30 pm, it was 29 F. At 4 am on the 18th, temp had dropped to 20 F.
There are multiple times throughout the winter that the Glenn Highway is littered with upside-down SUVs and smashed cars every few miles. That was just such a week. I may well have actually been on the highway coming back from Wasilla that same night.
A family member drives that highway every two weeks to and from a job site. Of a 500-mile drive, that stretch is the most troublesome and takes the longest when traffic is slowed because of all the accidents. Accidents every day.
If I came in on an evening flight on an average day, not particularly bad conditions, it would take me at least two hours from the flight landing to arriving in Wasilla. If I was hurrying, an hour and a half. You have to drive completely through Anchorage, from one side of town to the other, to get to the Glenn Highway; at least 20 minutes actual driving time, not stopping for gas and making all the lights.
Two hospitals are a straight shot on the east end of the main thoroughfare to/from the airport – the airport being the farthest west point you can go.
You have to actually drive by the third hospital to get to Wasilla.
That’s the one where our baby was born. Same conditions, but much colder out. Water breaks at 11 pm. Frantic drive from south Anchorage. Flashed lights, honked horn trying to get a police car’s attention at one of the intersections. Deliberately went through the red light, hoping that the officer would pull us over. He didn’t.
Screamed into the hospital parking lot, left the car with the keys in it and headed for the ER, ignoring the scolding security guard chasing after us.
Baby was born 19 minutes later.
But let’s see how this sounds taken from the other direction.
Pretend I’m from Plano, Texas, one of the book tour/campaign appearance locations this week. According to Google, it’s roughly 32 miles from the Dallas airport, a shorter distance than Wasilla.
I’m in Anchorage, Alaska on a business trip. I’m pregnant, not due for another month. I’ve been informed that the baby has a cardiac issue.
In the middle of the night, I feel a contraction and start leaking amniotic fluid. I ignore it, go to my business luncheon at noon (during which I experience contractions) and head out to the airport afterwards for a flight back to Texas, with a layover in Seattle. When I get off the plane, I get in the car and drive out of town, past hospitals near the airport, to get to Plano.
Because I can’t have a fruit-picker being born in Alaska! Or Seattle. Or Dallas.
For you in the northern midwest, think about Minneapolis to St. Cloud. Denver to Colorado Springs. At night. On icy roads. With a layover in Seattle.
For the Idaho/Richland, WA family – how about going into labor in Alaska, taking flights to Spokane with a layover in Seattle, then heading north to Sandpoint in the car. In the winter. At night.
Nah, didn’t happen.
December 9, 2009 at 4:53 am
“…not one person from either her Washington D.C. or Texas trip ever came forward to claim braggers rights on having helped her in or out of a taxi, a table at a restaurant, an elevator or even a flight of steps…”
What’s even more amazing is that not one other patient of Dr. Cathy Baldwin-Johnson who might have had frequent office appointments — like, say, a pregnant woman going in for prenatal care — has ever come forward, or Tweeted, or posted on MySpace or Facebook, that she happened to run into Sarah Palin going in to Dr. CB-J’s office between fall 2007 and spring 2008.
But there IS a police-report-documented instance of Bristol Palin having an auto accident 2/11/08 trying to make a turn into a medical clinic parking lot.
“mlewis” posted a clear description @ MAY 31, 2009 7:11 PM of what probably transpired back in February 2008 under the topic “Bristol Palin: Homeschooler?” at Palin’s Deceptions.
December 9, 2009 at 5:06 am
It takes one hour, almost to the minute, from the airport to Mat Su Regional, where Trig was born.
December 9, 2009 at 7:17 am
Last Monday – good conditions, clear out, not snowing, plowed roads – Kinko’s on Northern Lights (that’s just east of middle of town) to the airport post office to make a midnight deadline. The airport PO closes at 11:58 pm. (Yep, really.)
Left Kinko’s at 11:23 pm. Got to the airport at 11:50, with 8 minutes to spare, watching the clock the entire time. I was sweating. That’s 27 minutes from mid-town to the airport, stopping at red lights.
My friend left at the same time as I did, driving a high-end luxury SUV with studded tires. It took her 20 minutes and she made every single light.
It WOULD take _ME_ 2 hours to Wasilla if I came in on a flight, picked up my luggage, caught the shuttle out to pick up my vehicle, got the truck warmed up, stuff loaded and paid my bill, headed across town, stopped for gas and a cup of coffee and hit the highway.
You’re obviously a much faster driver for that same activity plus driving 45 miles to somehow only take you an hour.
December 9, 2009 at 7:28 am
I can’t remember where I read it, but one of the most chilling statements about this mystery is a reporter who asked “Is Trig Sarah’s baby?’ and no one in Wasilla would answer him Yes or No.
I guess he was from somewhere in the lower 48 because he left Alaska not knowing the answer to that question.
Yikes! Now I’m feeling like Wasilla is like one of Stephen King’s little towns in Maine where spooky things happen, only no one is allowed to speak of them.
December 9, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Re: Alaska @7:17
Not sure why you’d claim that I was including time for luggage & shuttle & gas & coffee in my “about an hour” statement.
I doubt you truly believe I meant that.
I can’t even come up w/ a plausible reason why you’d want to take my ending throwaway sentence – practically a P.S. – of “about an hour” as some sort of . . .strict timeline to be dissected.
What’s the point?
I was replying to a report of as much as a 5hr ride to Wasilla.
My brother lived in Wasilla for >10 yrs and in Palmer for another 10. We always allotted about an hour for the trip, plus of course extra for any slowdown for weather or, once in town, traffic etc. It is certainly not a 5hr ride.
I don’t know what the weather was on the Glenn Highway that night & am not trying to say the trip would be done in 60min during a whiteout blizzard either.
December 9, 2009 at 10:53 pm
The thoughts about Todd – how he felt about the rather likely possibility that SP would deliver on the way to Wasilla. Scary stuff…
The other thing that intrigues me is SP’s statement that she was surprised the McCain campaign knew about Bristol’s pregnancy. I’ve always wondered if she mean they knew about her *first* pregnancy…
Which of course would mean that McCain not only knew she was lying, but was complicit in fraud. No wonder he told everyone to keep quiet when the book was released.
This is a deeply disturbing story. I really hope that now Andrew Sullivan has brought it into the mainstream, the truth will come out…
December 9, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Oops, meant to say the thoughts about Todd were very interesting – certainly a new perspective.
December 10, 2009 at 8:10 am
Any woman with any sense never gets far from a hospital/birthing room when she’s nearing her due date–or when she’s showing signs of going into premature labor. Babies can come very fast.
My first arrived after 18 agonizing hours. When I asked if it would be that hard next time, my doctor said, “Well, lets put it this way: you’re not one of those women who needs to worry about giving birth in a taxi cab.” Well, my second arrived in 40 minutes from first twinge of discomfort to first cry. I cursed that doctor all the way across town–with my husband going 100mph and me panting to keep from pushing.
Sarah Palin is either a liar or an idiot.
December 11, 2009 at 3:15 am
Candy Knight,
Sorry, can’t resist it — “a liar or an idiot” is a false dichotomy. Sarah Palin could be both. She’s no “idiot” in any literal sense, but she doesn’t think well or often, as shown by her telling lies that can be refuted with a few minutes of Googling. Let’s say she’s a liar and not smart enough to be good at it. She could have denied her father’s statement that her water broke and told him privately to shut up. Instead, she confirmed it and dug herself in deeper.
January 6, 2010 at 8:42 pm
If your friend is who I think it is, please tell her hi from me and I think of her a lot and miss her and hope she’s doing okay!