In this novel, a woman gives birth eleven times, the first ten at home under a midwife’s care, and the eleventh at a hospital with a doctor and the technology available around World War I. The first ten are stillborn, and the eleventh also is, or so the mother thinks at first. Then the doctor calls for oxygen, and the eleventh baby is saved. (The mother notes that it’s “blue like the rest”.)
She is impregnated by at least three (possibly more) men, two of whom have healthy children by others. She doesn’t smoke and she doesn’t drink to excess. She’s eating a reasonably healthy diet, although without the prenatal care we have today. She doesn’t mention any symptoms of STDs.
Any ideas about what is happening to her babies? They are very much wanted, and she’s awake for all of the births, and they are delivered by more than one midwife and she’s married (well, as far as the midwives know she is) for all of the births, so it’s not like she’s trying to get rid of the babies, and neither is anyone else.
Very possible that the babies were deprived of oxygen during the birth process because their umbilical cords were constricted. They might not necessarily all have survived even with oxygen given after birth, if the deprivation went on for too long. But Smith makes a point of saying that Sissy’s births were all short and easy, which would suggest that the babies might have been saved if they had had medical attention.
I just reread this book recently and was thinking about Sissy’s problem! My thought was that her babies may have been born with hemolytic anemia due to Rh incompatibility. Nowadays we give a kind of vaccine so that the red blood cells aren’t attacked, leading to low oxygen states and sometimes death, but a child born with this problem could ostensibly saved with extra oxygen. I think it would need to be administered for a few days, though, till the red blood cells have a chance to turn over. Today if a child is born with this problem that has slipped through the cracks, they usually do a blood transfusion right away.
It could be something else, but I like my theory. It fits well with Sissy having been with multiple partners, too (the mother gets more sensitized in this way over time).
I found it a bigger stretch that Sissy remained cheerful, flirtatious and had a good figure after having been pregnant most of her adult life…
Katie is told by the insurance agent that one of Sissy’s babies died two hours after it was born. But when the eleventh child cries, it’s stated that “Sissy head one of her children for the first time.”
