The first two photos are from March 22nd, three weeks and six days prior to Trig Palin's announced birth date.
This first picture was taken of Gov. Palin at the Alaska Governor's Prayer Breakfast on March 22nd, in Anchorage. The first thing that struck me when I saw this picture is that she looked quite rounded and definitely pregnant.
Now this picture was taken - I believe - the same day, March 22nd, at the Alaska Girls' High School Basketball tournament. However, the tournament had begun on a previous day, so it is also possible that it was taken on the 20th or 21st.
And both of these pictures were taken four days BEFORE this picture, which has been seen widely, and I first discussed in this post in December.
To my eye, it's hard to explain the differences between picture one of this series (taken on 3/22) and picture three (taken 3/26 - FOUR days later) with any known physiology of pregnancy. Jokes aside, there are no "low amniotic fluid days," and every pregnancy I've ever seen (and I've seen hundreds) gets BIGGER as the days pass, not smaller. Is it possible that at the prayer breakfast, an event Gov. Palin knew would be attended by hundreds of women (many of them mothers themselves, and far more tuned in to signs of pregnancy) she took more care to "appear" pregnant; at the Juneau Museum, doing a quick bill signing with mostly high school students, she was careless?
Here's an interesting find. On Saturday, March 29th, at the Governor's Mansion in Juneau, Gov. Palin hosted a luncheon for the spouses of the Alaska state legislators. At this luncheon, Gov. Palin signed a bill authorizing a special session, to begin in June. Here's a photo of her taken that day. This photo does not have the clarity of many of the photos I have published because we do not have an original photo; what this is is a screen shot of a pdf newsletter.
Here's a news clip showing the same day.In general, I try to be charitable. However, I have to say that, out of the panorama of Palin's maternity "wardrobe," this is the worst. She's wearing a trench coat. Inside. In her own home. At a luncheon at which she is the hostess, and most everyone else appears to be dressed rather nicely. Does this not strike everyone as odd?
The second interesting thing is that Gov. Palin is photographed here with Willow Olson, the wife of Donald Olson, who is interestingly, also pregnant. Mrs. Olson is due in mid-July (and gave birth to her second child, a son, on July 20th). Two full months after Gov. Palin's announced due date, and three months after 6 lb 2 oz Trig Palin's announced birth. Who looks more pregnant?
Here's a screen shot from the news video, taken as she bent over to sign the bill.
Trig Palin was born twenty days later.
Here's one other shot I'd like to add. In general, I have hesitated to do any photo "manipulation" beyond lightening and darkening images. However, the image of Gov. Palin with Ms. Young shows a lot, in spite of the fact that it's not very high quality. If you look carefully, you can distinguish between her black top and her black scarf. One of my helpers went in and very carefully outlined what I believe to be the scarf, then simply changed the scarf area to another color - in this case an off white. Not very sophisticated or fancy, but something anyone could try. Here it is:
Once you isolate the scarf from the shirt, it's easy to see that the line of the scarf against her body is almost straight. For those of you who are curious about the small bulge on the far side of the coat, I believe that Gov. Palin has her left hand in her pocket, but this is just a guess.
Draw your own conclusions, but mine is that this is not a woman who gave birth to a six plus pound baby twenty days later. This is also not a woman who turned into this:
in sixteen days.
