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1:08 AM
@rumtscho
or
@Stephie
I need a break from real work so I'm falling into the mystery-solving hobby. It has become more relevant now.
Can you give me any idea how prevalent abortions (back alley or otherwise) were in Germany (in and around Augsburg) in 1967?
There is a very weird not very credible story about my birth and a stillborn twin brother.
It has never made any sense and has always smelled like deep, dark secret.
It occurred to me today that a botched abortion could account for all the weirdness.
 
 
5 hours later…
6:21 AM
@Jolenealaska wow, your family really didn't have it easy.
I wouldn't believe any abortion prevalence numbers from that time - they will say more about the political convictions of the source than about the real situation.
Also, mothers hate talking about stillborn babies, with anybody. And least of all with the surviving children.
Even without any unusual circumstances, the emotions there are unimaginably dark, and there is lots of shame
so making it a deep dark secret doesn't really need any reason beyond it happening by itself.
You would have sensed the same secrecy and shame and unwillingness to talk from your mother and relatives in both cases, with or without an abortion attempt.
 
 
9 hours later…
2:59 PM
Well, what if I add to the equation the story my mom did tell. That she didn't know she was pregnant with me until just a few days(?)or weeks(?) before I was born two months prematurely. She was a newlywed, married in a rushed way to a man who was in Germany because enlisting before you're drafted sometimes can keep a potential draftee out of a war.
I was one when my father adopted me.
Mom claims I was 'misdiagnosed' as a tumor.
So Dad most likely knows the truth, whatever that is.
 
3:53 PM
Wow, that's a story and a half
if you were misdiagnosed as a tumor, why would she even attempt an abortion? One doesn't abort tumors.
and that would be a combination of very incompetent doctors
first one to misdiagnose the pregnancy as a tumor
then, I don't know if she stayed in the care of the same doctor - probably didn't, if she moved from the USA to Augsburg
so we have a second doctor who can't tell the difference between a fetus (two fetuses!) and a tumor
then she realizes she's pregnant
if she tries an abortion at that point, she has to find an illegal doctor in a foreign country which she doesn't know well, and probably doesn't speak the language
and this goes so badly that your twin dies
then you get born - we can't tell whether during that attempt or you survive it and get born later
all the coincidences together - that sounds basically impossible
if it were a film, I would hate it and accuse the screenwriter of creating an arbitrary plot with too many logical holes.
The "still birth without any abortion" version sounds much more likely.
And then there is the problem of not being able to confirm the truth, whatever it was
maybe your Dad doesn't know it - we can't know how much your mother told him
and if he does, he might decide to tell you a different version, or to refuse to talk about it
in the end, everything is possible, but I don't see how you can find out which of the possibilities happened
another question: How difficult is it for you not knowing?
and if you do come to know it, what difference does it make to your life now?
 
4:08 PM
All good questions.
 
Q1 I think she had an abortion but the abortionist missed that there was a twin. Me.
QLast - Because I am on a quest to know the truth about my mother who I didn't hate but never seemed to love me back when I was a child, and a dad with whom my relationship may be fractured beyond repair by recent events.
For real, I played a fetus in a one-act play once. She killed her twin brother with the umbilical cord.
That was the same director who brought the world me as Desdemona.
 
 
3 hours later…
7:05 PM
^ @rumtscho ‘nuff said.
 
 
1 hour later…
8:18 PM
@Jolenealaska What happened with your father?
 
@Cerberus What a fucking mess.
The last conversation with him sounded a whole lot more like a wife leaving a husband who is simultaneously screaming, "Get the fuck out!" than a father and daughter.
 
Oh, dear.
 
Yeah. Really unfortunate timing for this. It's OK though. I am realizing that hard truths uncovered about one's past are already in the rear-view mirror. Know what I mean?
It's got to be killing him how much I look like Mom now that I've lost weight.
I want so badly to make him understand me that I let some things slide that I knew were going to be problematic.
 
I don't really understand the situation, but I hope you will make peace one emotions have settled a bit.
 
I'm already there, but I don't think he is.
I'm writing to him.
He found happiness with a lovely trophy wife. I love her. She's very sweet, compassionate, and successful in her own right.
 
8:36 PM
Oh, I thought you didn't like her, hmm.
But I'm glad you have accepted her.
 
No. It was his 3rd wife I hated! :)
Keep Up!
I've always loved his current wife. "Lovely trophy wife" sounds very catty, but it's really not.
 
Oh, haha.
Noted.
 
How familiar are you with Les Miserables?
Storyline
Novel, abridgment, movie, musical - any of them
 
Not at all.
 
How about the Star Trek next generation episode darmok? Probably not.
My father was the one constant in my childhood. Other than my grandmother but my grandmother was far away.
He adopted me when I was 1 year old.
 
9:12 PM
After his first wife left him.
After he met my mom.
I don't know anything about this time but that we're in Dad's Caltech/Boulder years.
And it's 1968.
 
9:26 PM
Gotta take this call
 

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