RANDOM REMINDER

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32660, 16 July 1971, Page 17

RANDOM REMINDER

DECEPTION

No doubt Dr Finlay, from his voluminous case book, could cite cases like this New Zealand one, although any attempt to put it on the screen would undoubtedly reduce Dr Cameron to apoplexy. It happened some little time ago, which makes it right and proper for our doctor friend who told us about it to reveal the thing in detail. He had a woman patient who was being treated for infertility. After a while, and considerable discussion, it was decided that she and her husband would adopt a child, and the doctor

made suitable arrangements, having in mind a young unmarried woman who was to bear a child. But his patient did not want any of her neighbours to know that she was not having a child herself, so once the date for adoption was fixed, she began a one-woman campaign to persuade everyone that she was pregnant.

It began by wearing extra clothes, then little bits of padding, and the whole thing was carefully thought out, so that her bulk increased gradually. At the end, she had a pillow beneath her clothes. It was all most convincing.

Finally, the day she was to “go to the home” and away she went, staying out of her neighbours’ sight for almost a fortnight. When she came i home with her adopted baby, her husband made some remark about how much more comfortable she must be without the pillow and the padding. She looked at him in the fashion women often reserve for their men-folk when they are guilty of a display of crass ignorance. And she was able to announce that she was, in fact, five months pregnant.