Thomas Christian Anderson

Morning sickness

A final sidebar on this very successful pregnancy: In the summer and fall of 1969, Abt Associates sent me to the Republic of Ireland to do the research that came to underlie my HGSE doctoral thesis; more about that later. We’d hoped that Valerie could accompany me, but our finances weren’t quite up to the challenge, at that point.

The doctors who had attended Valerie through her miscarriages had indicated that we should see her lack of morning-sickness on those

Another view of Cambridge City Hospital.
I thought at first that was an Edsel,
parked out front.

occasions as a bad sign: the discomfort apparently reflects and betokens successful implantation of the embryo.

When I left for my longer Irish sojourn, we were aware that we were infanticipating. So I call from Dublin: “How are you feeling, sweetheart?” “Oh, I’m so sick I could die!” “Oh, wonderful, wonderful!”

That’s as close as she’s come to divorcing me, through all these years.

And a footnote: while she recovered (yes, even precipitous deliverers need to get over even easy childbirths), I had some responsibility to keep his brothers occupied. No concrete memories persist, but the boys and I did some fun things together. After them, Erik showed a gratifying degree of weariness.

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