Actually, I guess I see 3 possibilities, not just 2:

Possibility #3 - She is telling the truth. The described events, however improbable, happened as described. And that would mean she acted very irresponsibly and selfishly by putting her baby at risk just because she wanted to have him born in Alaska.

A couple more points I forgot to make clearly.

#1 - She drove past Providence Hospital in Anchorage and presented to Mat-Su regional in Wasilla.

#2 - Her doctor says she was induced and delivered at 6:30am. They must have had a damn good reason to induce at 36 weeks with a child suspected of having Down's syndrome.

Oh, and they removed her doctor's name from the Mat-Su Regional web site, but you can find it here

She drove past Providence AND Alaska Regional.

Alaska Regional has the ability to provide the emergency care for a premature infant - but they don't do the high freq ventilator (or any vent as far as I know).

My son was critically ill and they were considering sending him to Portland for (forgive my spelling) "ECHMO" - basically putting him on a heart and lung machine.

It never went that far, the high freq vent worked and he was (and remains) perfectly healthy after checking him out of Providences NICU.

I cannot imagine for a minute risking my child's life/health (not to mention quality of life) with regards to being born in the 'right State'.

I don't know a single mother who would give the birth location a moment's thought if they KNEW their child may need advanced care after a premature birth.

By the way my son was born at 35 weeks and I was told that he fell ill so rapidly because the larger babies (vs.

I'm not a doctor and know nothing about the facilities in Alaska. I do however come from a family of thirteen children (I am second oldest)and I have seen a lot of pregnant women. At present I have over sixty nephews and nieces and grand nephews and nieces. I find it hard to believe that Palin went into her seventh month and nobody in Palin's office and nobody in Alaska knew it. I also looked at the photo of Palins daughter Bristol (posted on KOS) and she sure looks pregnant to me. Not fat, pregnant. Sure looks like a baby bump to me. This flight thing would have been very risky and otherwise inexplicable unless it was a ruse.

This could all well be nonsense but it sure seems to be one of those duck things. Quack! Quack!

Needless to say the possibility is disturbing and leaves me very uncomfortable. It makes me think if Palin is capable of this then what else might be possible. It gives me the creeps. And because of what would have had to occur I could never trust the judgement of this person. Only an independently verifiable DNA test would ease my worry.

I don't know if this is some democratic supporters looking to derail Palin but if it is I am very upset with them for this tactic. The problem is the stuff provided on KOS gives this a lot of cred. Either way it creeps me out.

The reason I had commented at all on this is because I am so sick and tired of government officials lying to the American people. This has the appearance of still another instance of the same.

Were it not for the indisputable fact we are commonly lied to it wouldn't be a problem. The issue is I have grown so mistrustful of government over the years. I find this to be one of the most serious public issues we face. It has become all but impossible to obtain a truthful answer from government about anything. That being the case how can we survive as a nation? There are reasons for our public institutions crashing down around us and fundamental to that occurrence is this issue of truth. Perhaps my observations on this are erroneous but ever since the Supreme Court ruled that law enforcement, aka government, is allowed to lie to citizens, things have gone rapidly down hill.

One thing you are forgetting is that if she "leaked amniotic fluid" that doesn't necessarily mean the membranes ruptured. The outer layer could have broke and a small pocket of fluid leaked and then resealed. If it had been a "gross rupture" then yes, infection is of great concern.

Here is Palin at 7 months pregnant:
http://alaskapodshow.com/index.php/2008/02/20/my-visit-to-juneau-alaska/

Amazingly trim and un pregnant

I think we should all have a great deal of sincere empathy for what may or may not have occurred here. I've no doubt of the sincerity of Palins beliefs and how that may have influenced, if at all, sensibly or not, her conduct.

At the same time we face some serious repurcussions of how the conduct of our public officials can bring irrefutable harm to our public institutions. The conduct of the Bush presidency and that of congress makes this all too real to take lightly. Our democracy is fully and irrevocably founded upon trust. It cannot be overstated how the breaking of that trust can be viewed as a precursor to the eventual destruction of the democratic form as we know it. Turning a blind eye to the imperfections of our public officials or not assuring they are held accountable for their apparent misdeeds has the cumulative effect of creating numerous cracks which lead to eventual catastrophic failure.

The only thing between this occurrence and avoiding it is an absolute insistence by the citizenry of the truth. The truth sucks. It most often hurts. But it's all we have to save us. The paradox with this is it takes a lifetime to learn how this works and by then each of us will have made a lot of mistakes that we cannot rectify. I have to say that I find the disconnect between things we believe, for which we can offer no demonstrable proof, and those things which we can know to be very informative.

If this story turns out to be a cover-up, it should be relatively easy to figure out. There would be several people who would know and someone would talk. It shouldn't last more than a week.

I bet the McCain camp is starting to freak out just a little over this whole thing.

Christ, people! LET THIS GO!

I'm wary of this story because it feels wrong to doubt a woman's pregnancy and I feel there are a lot of other things we could pick at Palin for. But I just can't help but think that women who have had several children (say...4) tend to pop out immediately when pregnant. The skin is already stretched and the body is used to being pregnant. The 7-month photo could be a woman pregnant with her first, maybe, but not with her fifth.

Lots of photographs are still up at the Governor's official site.

Also the National Governors Association has its own photo albums up including a front row-standing shot of Gov Palin at the February meeting.

http://www.subnet.nga.org/centennial/Images/GovsPortraitNGA2008Large.jpg

The woman's judgment and decision-making should be the issue here. In addition to the judgment and decision-making of the man who made this possible, a man known for his impulsive, risk-taking, which flaunts received wisdom. (I mean John McCain, of course)

This post was written by a doc. I for one appreciate the doc's word on the strangeness of a woman's behavior as recounted by herself. (we're not even hearing this story 3rd hand... it's coming from her!) The doc is questioning the judgment of a candidate - who either acted recklessly and endangered herself, her baby, and planeloads of passengers mind you. Or we're talking someone who has not been truthful about the circumstances (for whatever reason).

In either case - we're looking at poor judgment and decision-making skills. And isn't this a legitimate thing for us to be doing? My recommendation is to make a list of all the examples of this woman's judgment and decision-making. In areas both personal and political - where she's revealed herself, put her story out there for the public. When you do that, you begin to wonder about her. There's Trooper-gate, as they're calling it. There's the Bridge to Nowhere - and differences in how she's describing her role now versus a historical record in her former statements and actions.

Keep the focus on judgment and decision-making. No matter what the topic or issue. And that's fair game!

I'm a woman. A Dem. An Obama supporter. But I'm also a mother. I distinctly recall the first time I crossed a street while pregnant. I thought: "I'm two people now!" I was 23 at the time. But my instinct was to be exceptionally careful about crossing streets and what I ate and so on. That baby was in the forefront of my mind!

Judgment. Character. Decision-making. And there should be no topic where this woman has left a public record, and which relates to her work as a politician, that is not open to scrutiny.

She herself told this story. The events happened during and after a political event. They are fair game!

As long as we focus on the facts (as told by her and gleaned from medicine or any other factual evidence, emails, eyewitness accounts, and the like) - and use those facts to evaluate her capacity for judgment and decision-making - in effect her character under stress.

This is related to the presidency potentially. It is not the Alaska State Fair we're talking here.

Frankly, having taken a lot of time to assess the available evidence on this woman, the thought of her being one step away from leading the nation scares me to death!

my sister's "water started leaking prematurely" and her doctor's immediate advice was to find her way to the nearest hospital. why? b/c the unborn child is prone to infection. now imagine knowing that this child is also down syndrome, shouldn't the automatic response be "baby first"?

this story is fishy for a lot of reasons, but it is so sensitive that i don't think the obama/biden team need to go there ever! surrogates or anyone working on behalf of the democratic campaign need to steer clear of this fishy story. the last thing we need is to have a replay of HRC saga obama/biden are unfairly called sexist even though they never ever say or do anything to promote such a backlash.

let the MSM eek this one out! if it is fishy to us, then certainly it is fishy to them...if nothing else convinces you that this story stinks of something rotten, you need to only look at Bristol's pictures. She looks more like the expectant mother to be than the proclaimed mother. That scene where she was holding the baby the other day on tv adds another punch. Add the fact that Palin, who for all practical reasons appear to be a doting mom, would accept the VP post while still nursing a down syndrome baby is just icing on the cake...

palin's judgement is turning out to be as flawed as mccain's-soulmates for sure! it is not our argument to make no matter how stinky it is. the MSM and the Obama haters would love nothing more than to make Obama a villain over this..we cannot help them....more distractions will totally derail us. Palin is well on her way to hanging herself...the more we learn of her, the more we are realizing that she is nothing more than an attractive enough librarian liar. her most important lies are fair game--bridge to nowhere and ethic screw ups, this one is NOT for obvious reasons.

I KNEW she looked familiar!

http://i392.photobucket.com/albums/pp3/Fundit/sarahpalin.gif

I've tried to follow the "false pregnancy" links to any story that could support the argument. I'll admit I did see several photos supposedly from her 7th month of pregnancy and in none of them does she look pregnant. Mono is the reason her daughter was kept out of school during that same time frame. And why fly all the way back from Texas to Alaska unless the baby, unexpectedly, was being born in Alaska?

Forgive my brief foray into conspiracy theory. Obama needs to stay well away from this. The hospital should have admission records and everyone takes a snapshot of the newborn in the sweating Mom's arms. Will Palin attempt to put this to rest, or let the rumors grow? It damn near offsets the "Obama is a secret Muslim" goofiness.

I just posted a detailed look at this here:

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/2008/08/water-breakgate-8312008-new-an.php

This is a judgment issue that unfortunately is going to hurt people as it gets fully fleshed out.

I thought Mike7 asked some very reasonable questions. Questions that most here would want answered if you were a doctor favoring keeping Schiavo on life support.

I didn't buy into the experts claiming Obama's birth certificate was forged. I didn't buy into the rumors about Michelle's "whitey" tape. I don't buy into this. Now it may be true that there's a big cover up and trig is not Palin's son but her grandson. And it may be that there's a "whitey" tape out there to be released in october by the GOP. But until I see verifiable respectable sources for these stories all it is smears and tabloid journalism.

The question I keep asking myself as these smears are spread here and as they get bumped up to the rec list. What is it about Obama that attracts so many rumormongers and sleazy low lifes to fight for him by attempting to turn tpm into the Springer show?

I mean, holy shit.

Having parsed this thread and many others on this topic, I'm with the good doctor Steevo on this one.

Shhh...wait until they nominate her first!

I hope this is all settled very soon and turns out to be much ado about nothing. Really. She seems like a great person who might have real long-term potential in public service.

But from what I've read today, this seems like a major train wreck in the making. I can see a train coming...

1. MCCAIN DISPATCHES HIS 8 AIDES TO ALASKA.

2. THEY CONFIRM THE RUMORS, AND PALIN IS ASKED TO RESIGN.

3. PALIN RESIGNS AND FALLS ON HER OWN SWORD, ABSOLVING MCCAIN, ADMITS NO WRONGDOING, AND GOES BACK TO ALASKA.

4. MCCAIN ANNOUNCES IMMEDIATELY THAT PELAWNTY IS HIS VP.

5. THE GOP CONVENTION SELECTS PELAWNTY.

6. THE MEDIA QUICKLY FORGETS ABOUT THE WHOLE THING, AND THE RIGHT BLAMES THE MEDIA.

I sure hope I'm wrong.

I'd feel better about Sarah Palin if it turned out that the child was her daughter's.

It would mean that she'd risked quite a bit to save her child's reputation and future - and to stick with her pro-life values. It really is nobody's business what her daughter was up to, I would not blame her for hiding it.

It might also be nobody's business if she put her unborn special needs child at risk of being born in the aisle at 30,000 feet, but the latter shows frighteningly terrible judgment.

I hope tourism in Alaska improves as a result of this pick. All this talk of Anchorage & Fairbanks (not Wasilla, so much) has me jonesing to hit the road...

The more recommendations this guy's post gets, the more likely it will be used by the GOP to tie it to Mr. Obama's campaign somehow. Or, to a Hillary supporter sabotage angle for a story.

Always looking for drama and gotcha out there.

http://www.politicalbase.com/profile/jnail/blog/&blogId=3422

scroll down to see strikingly obvious differences in her daughters appearance during the time in question with one prior taken at the zoo. Very apparent differences.And by the way this site offers great arguments to think about. Andrew Sullivan links to this on his blog.

I do have to say that I have more of a "baby bump" than any of these pictures show on Bristol. I'm not pregnant, that's just where I gain weight.

I don't know about the video you posted, but it would be pretty hard for Gov. Palin to look pregnant in the picture you referenced because that picture was taken at the Governor's Annual picnic in July and I believe her son was born in May.

I've been driving this weekend and probably had too much time to think -- one small part of this whole kept nagging and nagging at me, even worse than all the other parts that nagged and infuriated me.

As someone who had three pregnancies, with my water breaking on one of them, this whole leaking amniotic fluid and trekking from Texas to Alaska is simply NOT believable. The body just doesn't work that way - she would have had no control over it.

So, either nothing happened -- or she mistook leaking urine (TOO common) for amniotic fluid and was told the correct facts when she got back to AK. Either way .... WHY all this story?

None of the other stuff matters - photographs, whether the baby is hers or her daughter's (And it's more likely that a 44-year-old woman would have a Down's Syndrome child than a 16-year-old).

The one thing that Palin herself did that brings the public into this was tell this story. These are apparently the original articles:

http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/382560.html
http://www.adn.com/front/story/382864.html

So the story definitely came from her.

Why?

All I can figure is that either she made up the whole thing or that's what she *thought* happened but she neglected to add "but then when I got back here I learned that it couldn't have been amniotic fluid." ----------- SO, forget about all the rest of it. What I want to know is whether she is the kind of person who either makes up a heroic tale out of thin air or 'embroiders' a so-so story to make it into a more interesting one.

I don't even care why -- possibly to make themselves look good or to be 'interesting' but who cares -- I just want to know if that's what she DOES?

I know all this seems intrusive, and perhaps silly, and perhaps even something that could backfire ..... but SOMETHING is fishy about this story. And we're talking about the person who could, too easily, become President of this country.

Having set it out, however, since I don't have the power to force an answer, probably the best thing to is to leave it, as Nathan suggests, and concentrate on what we can do to make the question moot. None of this will matter if Obama and Biden are elected, after all.

Folks, I'm still kinda bummed that this is what takes the highest rank on the rec list -- rather than her anti-science attitude. That's going to affect the nation a whole lot more than the fact that her family may (or may not) have tried to coverup an adolescent pregnancy -- which is an old American tradition anyway.

I also wonder if her daughter and her boyfriend would have been forced to marry if this hadn't all hit the headlines.

Fine if they're happy with that, but otherwise that's an unhappy start to the rest of their young lives.

>Dr. Could you look at the baby pictures, are you sure it is Down's?

Doctor and all. I had a Down's specialist MD tell me that pictures of Trig looked like he had Down's.