Q: There seem to be a lot of drunk babies in this book.
A: And we’re only in Chapter 2, my friend.
Q: Aren’t babbling and stumbling fairly standard behavior for toddlers?
A: This wasn’t the normal babbling incoherent clumsiness of a two-year-old. This was the babbling incoherent clumsiness of a two-year-old bearing a mother’s mark and a father’s shame. For you see: “It is one of the most singular cases on record, and can be accounted for on no other hypothesis than that the impression of horror made on the mother’s mind [by the soused husband] was conveyed to the fetus within her womb.”
Q: See, I don’t think he quite gets what “hypothesis” means. Does he explain how this transference of drunkenness occurred?
A: Of course. It happened through the little-understood witchery of electricity. And daguerreotypes. That, my friend, is an old-fashioned term for “photography.”
Foote explains:
The fright, annoyance, or whatever it may be, produces a sudden accumulation in the brain of the electrical forces of the nervous system, and a sudden propulsion of them to all parts of the system, including the uterus, where the local currents are interfered with by the intrusion of the more powerful and instantaneous currents from the brain, bearing a daguerreotype of the object or subject which causes the fright or annoyance.
“*Hic*… this is the gal. I love this gal. C’mere, ya *hic* big silly.”
Now couple this with the mysterious properties of blood. Dr. Shannon explains,
Baby and placenta, which is apparently mostly ornamental.
Only a very delicate membrane separates the vital fluid of the mother from that of the infant in her womb. There is a constant interchange of the blood in its body with that in hers through this exceedingly thin membrane, and thus all nervous impressions which have produced an alteration of either a temporary or permanent character in the circulating fluid of the mother are communicated to the child.
Q: I thought the placenta kept the blood of the mother and the baby separate?
A: If that were so then the above wouldn’t make much sense, would it? Plus, it would put holes in our theory as to why honorable women will sometimes have children that bear no resemblance to their husbands.
Dr. Foote reports more about the strange miracle of Maternal Impression.
Prof. Britton tells us of a lady who lived in Fairfield County, Conn., and in universal esteem for her exemplary life and unblemished character but who gave birth to a child who seemed to almost perfectly resemble the minister presiding over the church of which she was a member. The child has become a tall and graceful youth, and yet resembles the parson.
Professor Simpson, of Edinburgh, gives an instance of a young woman of that city, born of white parents, whose mother, some time previous to her marriage, had a child by a mulatto man-servant, and this young lady exhibits distinct traces of the negro. Her hair, particularly, resembles that of the African.
Q: Ha… ha… how does science explain these children who strongly resemble men not their mother’s legal husband? Because I’ve got a guess.
A: Magnets.
Q: Totally.
A: You’re curious, of course, how that is possible.
Q: Oh, yeah. Bring it.
A: Well, in the case of the child looking like his mother’s handsome pastor, that’s another case of imprinting. The pastor, like a sculpture or painting, was a thing of beauty that greatly stirred the passions of the mother.
Q: Heh… I bet he did.
A: But… (if I may continue) in the case of the child bearing a resemblance to a previous lover, Dr. Foote explains the culprit is magnetism: “The womb becomes magnetized and, in many cases, permanently, by the male in copulation, and the individual magnetism so imparted to the womb, causes the organ to exercise an important influence upon the mental and physical character of the growing embryo which it contains.”
Friction, you see, creates magnetism. Like when you rub a balloon on your hair, or a penis in your vagina. Foote explains that the womb is then struck with the magnetism of the male, and if he is a very magnetic man, his presence will imprint on the babies of other men growing in the womb.
And if logic alone cannot convince you, behold this thrilling tale related by one Dr. Davis:
A woman of considerable physical courage, mounted a horse, rode side by side with her soldier-husband, and witnessed the drilling of the troops for battle. The exciting music and scene together inspired her with a deep thirst to behold a war and a conquest. This event transpired a few months before the birth of her child, whose name was—Napoleon.
Oh, yes. That Napoleon. Mrs. Bonaparte took a keen interest in battle and gave the world one of the fiercest military strategists in history.
Q: Didn’t Napoleon end up losing big, though? He died alone, banished, in exile?
A: That’s not the poi—Oh, I’m sorry. Here, let’s take a moment and you can tell me your battle plan for defeating the British and Prussians at Waterloo. I’m sure it will far surpass Emperor Bonaparte’s. The point is he was a military genius. And you’re not. So hush.
“And I woulda gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for those meddling Brits.”
Q: So. This magnetized brain-blood that… photobombs your baby with “Maternal Impressions” business seems quite dire. Are there other dangers that might imprint on my child?
A: Take care to avoid unpleasant people. Nor can you yourself ever be unpleasant.
Or as Melendy puts it,
It hardly seems necessary in this connection to advert to the importance of avoiding all exercise of malevolent feelings, such as anger, envy, jealousy, hatred, revenge, covetousness, or wrong desire of any nature, which, if indulged, may implant in the embryo the subtle germs, from which will grow in after years the bitterest fruits.
The experts agree you should avoid socializing with twits and grouchy crosspatches for the sake of your babe. Also people with unsightly moles. Stubby fingers. Hay fever so that they’re constantly sniffing in the most grating manner. Secretly we have all suspected God doesn’t curse people with dry skin or tuberculosis unless there is a deep vein of sin running through their hearts. And this very-nearly-science proves such depravity can be imparted unto your unborn child through association.
“You know your wretched attitude toward life is the reason I’m short, don’t you, Mother?”
Says Dr. Foote, “Association with deformed people, or those having birth-marks, or diseases which cause unnatural manifestations and expressions, should be avoided so far as practicable, to avert the danger of marking the unborn child with any of these peculiarities.”
In fact, continues Foote, it’s a crying shame that those… sorts… are allowed in public at all.
Accidents will occasionally happen to shock the nerves of pregnant women, but deformed people should be kept out of public thoroughfares: “[The pregnant woman] ought especially to turn away her eyes from those hideous deformities which are met with often in the streets of our great cities, where they should not be allowed to display themselves.”
Q: All right, this is not just crazy but it’s also mean, and my resulting irritation is going to imprint on my fetus. Can we talk about something more prosaic? Like, what were the maternity clothing options in Victorian times?
A: It’s a funny thing. Victorian society is thrilled you’re pregnant, truly. But they don’t want to have to look at it. If women were able, they often went into “confinement” toward the end of their terms, not just for health reasons, but for the sake of appearance. Yes, you’re glowing and all that but you’re also a grotesquely swollen reminder of the animalistic rutting nature that humans just can’t seem to get away from. Look at you, waddling down the street, a veritable billboard for sexual incontinence. Just, ew. No. Go home.
Note the slight lift of the hem in the front of the gown, a small sure sign of pregnancy. Note getting photographed while pregnant, a sure sign of being shameless.
For
most women of the era, maternity clothes were called “clothes.” Many women stitched in “pregnancy panels” to give their dresses and skirts more girth, or, if a woman expected her pregnancies to come with regularity, simply sewed her clothes with many extra inches of seam allowance that she could “let out” as she grew. Under special circumstances a woman of means who for whatever reason could not stay in confinement might commission fancy maternity wear that strove to hide the embarrassing details of her pregnant shape through extensive draping, turning her into a silky, waddling land barge.
It wouldn’t be until the early twentieth century, when a Lithuanian immigrant in dire need of cash discovered an untapped market, that the first official “maternity dress” would be designed and sold. Lena Bryant, a widow supporting herself and her young son as a seamstress, was approached by clients who needed clothes that allowed them to be both pregnant and outside of the house.
The middle class born of the industrial age had created thousands of women who needed to do their own shopping, errands, and even work outside the home while pregnant. Lena designed a dress with an elasticized waistband and an accordion-pleated skirt, which was technically the first-ever mass-produced maternity dress. In 1904 she took out a bank loan and opened a shop on Fifth Avenue. The bank employee misspelled her name on the loan application, and the error stuck.
Lena (Lane) Bryant.
At first Lane Bryant wasn’t allowed to advertise its special design, since reference to pregnancy in print was indecent. Her first advertisement didn’t run until 1911. Her stock sold out the next day. It was some years later that Lena, after measuring the body dimensions of her customer base, addressed another underserved segment of the population, “the Stout.” She sold her clothes for larger ladies from a mail-order catalog for decades. Eventually Lane Bryant dropped maternity wear from its repertoire, instead focusing on becoming what is today the nation’s number one plus-size fashion chain, with 775 storefronts, 10,000 employees, and quarterly revenues in the $200 millions. It seems “fitting” that the woman who was among the first to recognize pregnant women as actual people would lead the charge in affording “stout” women the same courtesy.
Q: What about underwear? The Victorians were quite finicky about proper undergarments, weren’t they?
A: The only really tricky thing about underclothing, remembering that the Victorians favored loose chemises and drawstring drawers, were corsets. It’s important to remember that corsets weren’t used for vanity alone in centuries past. They were support garments, used to keep the many parts of the adult female torso that tend to flap and slap secured in place. But how to continue to do so while not squishing your tiny tummy tag-along?
Lane Bryant made clothes both for the mother-to-be and the figure-that-results.
André Brochard outlined how important it was for the expectant mother to forgo modesty, at least regarding the baby bump: “Clothes of a pregnant woman ought to be ample, not tight, and they should in no way prevent the development of the abdomen, or that of the child. The stays [corset] should be loosely laced, and composed of simple elastic materials, with only one purpose, and that is, to sustain the breasts.”
But, Brochard cautioned, be careful with the breasts, too. You don’t want to push your nipples inside out. You’re going to need those. “Attention is to be paid lest the nipples be compressed by the stays. The depression of the nipples, which sometimes makes suckling so painful for both mother and child, is often solely due to this cause.”
One of the ways to counteract the offensive imagery of pregnancy was to display maternity corsets on models so slim they couldn’t have birthed gerbils.
Melendy suggested you do more than protect those little suckers… use this time to prepare your milk muskets for battle!
To Harden the Nipples—A mother sometimes suffers severely from sore nipples. Such suffering may frequently be prevented, if for six weeks or two months before confinement, the nipples are bathed for five minutes every night and morning, either with merigold ointment or with equal parts of brandy and water.
For most of the 1800s a woman was able to buy a “maternity” or “hygienic” corset for her pregnancy. This usually consisted of a corset with extra lacing above the hips, to allow growth, as well as breast cups that could by flipped down for nursing.
Q: What did Victorians expect a husband to do to help his wife’s pregnancy along?
A: He’s already done it! Filled your indolent womb with the serum of life! What more do you want of the poor man? It is true that the particularly indulgent husband can be a great help during a pregnancy. Melendy urges men to “smooth her rugged path, shade her from the burning flame of mental agitation, encourage her, and when the time comes that she lies prostrated, her face beaming with happiness at the sound of her first-born, thank God that you have been kind to her.” It might be wise for the husband to put extra emphasis on the “shade her from the burning flame of mental agitation” part. A pregnant woman’s brain is just a sloshing swamp of hormones and emotions and temporary insanity. But a loving husband will tolerate it. Dr. West reminds husbands:
Indulging the pregnant wife. Like a hat’s gonna make that gut look any smaller, but don’t tell her that.
It is always desirable to gratify the woman. These are but whims, of course, but where their gratification does no harm, it is best to humor them. It tranquilizes the mind. The whole aim should be to prevent the wife brooding over any matter, however trivial or foolish it may seem to the husband. He must remember that she is not herself, and must be as patient and forebearing with her as with a feeble child.
Q: Treat your wife like a feeble child. Huh. That is the literal definition of being “patronizing.” I guess if you’re going to treat your wife like a feeble child, no more sex, then, huh?
A: Don’t be so petty and indignant—that’s precisely how a feeble child would react. As for marital relations, thinking is divided on this. Everyone agrees restraint should be exercised, but completely denying either partner sexual intercourse could have repercussions.
Dr. Brochard, who, I might remind you again, is a Frenchman, flat out says sex should continue during pregnancy: “The rights of the husband ought not to be suspended during the pregnancy of the wife, but moderation in these is necessary.”
Dr. Foote, however, worries that sexual excess, or even a persistent sexual desire on the part of the mother, will cause you to birth a little Frenchm—ah… pervert: “During the period of pregnancy, excessive sexual indulgence unduly develops, in the unborn child, the passion which leads so many young people to a destructive vice. Even amative excitement, on the part of the mother, without indulgence, has a tendency to do this.”
He recommends she avoid spicy food and other sexual triggers, as well as sleeping in a separate bed from her husband. However,
if there’s just no putting her off, “when the impulse becomes strong—when the desire is so great as to take possession of the mind, it is then better that it should be gratified, lest the foetus be marked by this unsatisfied appetite, thereby producing the very evil sought to be avoided.”
If she’s got to have it, no matter how bloated and whiny she is, it’s your duty as a man of honor and as a future father to give it up. You’re having sex for two now. Three, even, if you include your wife as a person.
How fast these nine months fly with so much to concentrate on. The hour of birth approaches… well… many, many hours, probably. Grab your midwife, chloroform, and rubber sheets. Here comes the Little Stranger.
3
If Suffering in Birth Is Ordained by God, May I Bite a Towel During Delivery Without Offending Him?
On the Occasionally Fatal Privilege of Childbirth
How to position a “very fat” woman for birth. Hopefully she is also a yoga master.
Now it is time to talk about your “birth plan.” Where you attempt to arrange and micromanage one of the most chaotic events of your life into something akin to a structured Napa Valley w
ine tour. You may choose the place you wish to give birth, who shall be your attendant, what pain control methods you’ll use, and who you want in the room during the event.
Perhaps your unique plan details that your home birth will take place in a converted antique horse trough placed in your front yard, where the air is redolent with your posies and spice garden. And if the Hendricksons next door don’t like it they can close their dang curtains. The trough will be filled with a combination of fresh spring water and ashwagandha herbs imported from Sri Lanka. Don’t let anyone try to argue you out of it: this is all about you.
It is perfectly reasonable to require that your partner join you in stripping naked, and it will also be his/her responsibility to wave the purifying burning sage around your belly and delicately swab your damp brow with natural sponge from the Mediterranean Sea. You’ve heard that orgasms are one of the most powerful natural painkillers, and your partner is game to try. His parents should be honored to be there, and it’s certainly not your problem if they aren’t prepared to watch his attempts to comfort you. There is no place for shame in your birth plan!
You have scheduled three to five hours for labor, to be broken up with a light catered brunch. Once the child is born she shall be received and blessed by your college roommate Lisa, who is now a Wiccan priestess, then swaddled in the manner traditional to Tibetan newborns. Remember to butter his head for luck.
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