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Still, Things Were Worse In the 16th Century
Perhaps the final surprise that shouldn't be at all surprising about second pregnancies is that the end of things is often fraught.
I say this shouldn't be a surprise because the end of many first pregnancies, mine certainly, are also full of angst and have the potential for being as depressing and frightening as they do for being exciting.
The end is hard, hard, hard. Even if you've ignored as much of being knocked up as it is possible to manage, the end is hard. But I realize I've been complaining too much lately, and I keep having these encounters with people where I flail about the physical complications of the end of pregnancy and I get told that things are much worse for everyone else. ("Oh that's nothing! My friend has a toddler and a broken elbow and she's pregnant and her ulcer is bad.") So chastened, I have once again been looking backward.
Reading a book about the wives of Henry VIII, I can safely say that things were much worse. First of all, people were pregnant pretty much constantly. It is hard to believe that people could stand to be pregnant so often. Of course, they didn't have much choice and the ides was to just keep having kids because infant and childhood mortality was no joke, but still. Catherine of Aragon was pregnant for what seems like decades and managed to have only one child who made it past infancy, let alone into adulthood (the contemporary explanation for this horrible problem is that she suffered from toxoplasmosis). And on top of that is the problem that everything was public and everyone knew about every fertility quirk or issue and was more than happy to tell you that God was punishing you for something.
Oh wait, though. People still do that.
Well, anyway, here's looking forward to the Inevitable and hope that it is also uneventful.
And if you're looking for an amusing family story about a popular (though not with me, I'm afraid) New York brunch tradition, here's a little story about the invention of eggs Benedict, perfect for trotting out when your Easter dinner gets slow.
posted by Elise at 9:13 AM
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I realize this is an old post, but I had to comment. If you were Marie Antoinette, you would have given birth in front an audience. Imagine the horror!
5/04/2007 1:14 PM
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