
After his mother died, he found her secret in the freezer - wormold
https://www.riverfronttimes.com/stlouis/after-his-mother-died-adam-smith-discovered-the-secret-in-the-freezer/Content?oid=32329816&showFullText=true
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DoreenMichele
It's really about much more than just the dead baby. For me, the headline
wasn't click bait. The obvious inference was "dead baby."

It's actually a really interesting _Case Study in Serial Hidden Pregnancies_.

There's a lot of data out there on hidden pregnancies. I've read a number of
such stories.

My general impression is that they are typically a one time event for someone
really young who comes from a conservative environment, such as a Catholic
family. The event seems to frequently spur personal changes that prevent
future incidents.

They make a break with the conservative social circle they come from; or they
get educated about birth control; and/or they feel burned, stop drinking, stop
sleeping around and become more conservative and preachy than anyone else.

What's very unusual here is she continued to successfully hide pregnancies,
even after having a fallout with her Catholic family. She didn't become a
serial killer either. She gave up at least two children for adoption.

It's a strange case because she basically is a woman who had many lovers over
the years. That's much more typically male behavior.

Men fairly often pick up women randomly and may have no idea how many children
they fathered on one-night stands. Women usually can't manage to get away with
that or, if they do, it's because they are infertile and incapable of becoming
pregnant.

This is one of the elements of Mae West's life. She couldn't have children.

My sister had serious fertility problems. I had my first baby unexpectedly at
age 22 and never managed to have a real career. My sister ended up with a real
career and finally had her only child in her mid thirties after years of
intervention.

She read extensively on related topics. She concluded that infertility was a
root cause of serious careers for some women, herself included. She once said
if things had been different, she could see having four kids. But they
weren't.

So what's strange here is this woman wasn't privileged. She didn't have the
money to support a large brood. She took a long time to distance herself from
her conservative family. She wasn't infertile.

Yet she kept drinking and sleeping around. And she sometimes successfully hid
the resulting pregnancies.

Following her death, relatives are still trying to piece together the full
story. There remains at least one hidden pregnancy unaccounted for according
to the records they've been able to find.

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zxcvbn4038
The title is a little click bait-ish but the story was fun to read - like one
of the shorter Damned Interesting articles people used to post here.
[https://www.damninteresting.com/](https://www.damninteresting.com/)

I started playing the audio versions in the car during family vacations and
now they are tradition whenever we take a road trip.

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mtmail
TLDR: A mummified baby.

~~~
dang
Yes. I'd be happy to change the title to make it less baity, but couldn't
think of a dignified way to do so.

The article is much more interesting than just that detail, although it goes
to tragic places.

~~~
batmanthehorse
I’m glad it wasn’t in the title. It was a good read and a real surprise when I
got to that part.

~~~
op00to
When I was 6, my older sisters hamster died. My father put the body in a box
in the deep freezer because this was the dead of winter and we couldn’t bury
it until the ground thawed. He didn’t tell anyone. A few weeks later I was
looking for ice pops and found the frozen mummified hamster. I can’t handle
being around dead pets to this day.

