EXPLAIN THIS: Sarah Palin March 26, 2008 and two weeks later April 13, 2009
Sarah and Todd Palin Interview Trig's birth
Reporter: I was hoping you could walk us through a little bit about kind of what happened because he came earlier that you thought and not when and where.
Palin: And, uh, he wasn’t due for 4 or 5 weeks later and um, while I was at energy conference I felt perfectly fine but uh, had thought maybe a few things were starting to progress a little bit that perhaps there was an idea there that he might come early. So I called my doctor at about uh four in the morning in Texas and um I said ya know I’m gonna stay for the day here at the energy conference - have a speech that I was determined to give at one o’clock that afternoon and, um, had Todd check on a couple of flights that were earlier than we had scheduled. I decided it would be ok to, um, skip the reception that night that we’d already by that time have taken care of our meetings and my speech. So Todd checked on flights. A flight allowed us to get out a little earlier than we had planned. Skipped the reception and, um, called my doctor before I got on the plane to say, ‘Yea, we think that we will come home a few hours early,’ and, uh, she said ‘OK call when you land and I’ll check you out.’ But none of my babies had been early and being my fifth child I know what labor feels like (laughing) and if I had felt at all that I was really engaged in uh, labor activities I would not have desired to fly and, um, get back uh, to deliver in Alaska. But anyway, so no real huge labor signs. Landed in, uh, in Anchorage at about10:30. Got out to the valley at 11:30 and she met us at the hospital, checked me out and said, ‘Um, Yea you look, you may have it um tonight or in the morning.’ And it was smooth, it was relatively easy, in fact it was very easy, the easiest of all of them because he was so tiny. And, um, it’s just been absolutely wonderful. It was all, it just all seemed meant to be… the logistics and everything else just worked out so perfectly and to us he’s absolutely perfect, too.
Reporter: Of course you’re back to work already today and actually signed a bill that day, right?
Palin: That day, yeah, staff came out to the hospital and I signed a bill there so I could uh make sure we transmitted that in time and then uh here today also yeah, we have some energy updates I didn’t want to miss so that was good look and at him he’s just doing so well and it’s been easy and relaxing and again all it seems just meant to be this way.
Reporter: You said you felt some signs of labor, what were those signs?
Palin: Well not contractions so much because I had Braxton Hicks contractions for months as every pregnant woman does, and nothing real painful but just knowing that, um, it was feeling like, I may not um, be ale to be pregnant a whole nother four or five weeks knowing that it would be not a bother to call our doctor and let her know. And um she’s delivered how many babies over the year did she say?
Todd: Lots
Palin: A lot. It’s been a couple of decades of her delivering babies. We knew to call her and just get her advice and, um, from there we again decided to skip the energy conference reception and come on home and get checked out.
Reporter: So did your water break?
Palin: Well, if you must know more of those type of details, but, um…
Reporter: Well, your dad said that and I saw him say it so that’s why I asked.
Palin: Well that was again if, if I must get personal, technical about this at the same time, um, it was one, it was a sign that I knew, um, could lead to uh, labor being uh kind of kicked in there was any kind of, um, amniotic leaking, amniotic fluid leaking, so when, when that happened we decided OK let’s call her.
Todd: There’s a lot of new doctors out there on the streets in the last couple of days.
Palin: Yeah, that’s significant too. Todd said, uh, after getting a couple of comments he said that he said wow everybody’s a doctor, Everybody’s going to tell us what we could have should have done and even though these folks - especially the critics- they’re not doctors. They didn’t know the situation. They don’t know the situation. They, they certainly don’t know our doctor and the consultations that we’ve had with her. So we did nothing to put our child nor anyone else in danger, uh, going through this five times I know what labor is and, uh, I am not a glutton for pain and punishment. I would have never, um, wanted to travel if I had been fully engaged in labor.
Reporter: In the family statement that was issued by… it said through early testing you knew you would have some special needs.
Palin: Right…
Reporter: Can you explain?
Palin: Right, yeah, well, He’s got that extra chromosome, he has Down’s Syndrome. And, um, ya can’t tell at this stage by looking ya know but, um, there are some characteristics there that I think will become more apparent, but just absolutely perfect in our eyes and we’re just very, very, very blessed and, um it’s, its a perfect situation for us when we first heard it was, ya know, kind of confusing and, and at first blush hearing the news it was you know, I… it was received by me for a couple of hours there after hearing the news as, uh, very, very challenging… even sad… that day but just knowing that there’s purpose in every siutaiton… there’s certainly good purpose in every child. Just knowing that, um, we should feel blessed that, uh god would choose us...
Todd: Yeah..
Palin: …to bring this child into the world. And we have hopes and dreams for him as we have with all of our children. We look forward to seeing the hopes and the dreams for Trig fulfilled.
Reporter: What does it mean for you as parents, um, and your role as parents?
Palin: Um, well, the, you know I think very significant here is the role that family and our extended family will be playing in raising Trig. Our older kids are absolutely in love with him right off the bat, um, I was so proud of the way that the kids reacted and um, our son, especially, uh, receiving a text message from him right away when he found out that the baby was born he says ‘Ya know despite, or in spite of any kind of challenge..’ He goes ‘This is just so cool. I finally got my brother. You know, eighteen years later I finally got a brother.’ So with the kids just being very much in love with him and adoring him and already very protective of him, it seems, ah, I think the family’s role here is going to be real important in the way that, uh, Trig is raised and treated and, um, again, you know I just, it just feels like he fits perfectly. He is supposed to be here with us.
Reporter: Will he need more time, you know, um, from you all, than your other babies did, do you think?
Palin: We’ll see.
Todd: We’ll see.
Palin: Yeah…
Reporter: And you’ve got… you’ve mentioned extended family your parents, siblings…
Sarah: Yeah.
Reporter: …you’ve got a lot of people, a lot of support?
Sarah: Yeah, we sure do, um..
Todd: A lot of support and that..we’re getting tons of emails today, uh, from families with special needs children. It’s very encouraging when they give us, you know, some of their life experiences dealing with this special need children (sic) so, uh, all across the nation actually today so it’s uh been pretty fun reading those emails.
Palin: In fact Todd was reading emails from, yeah, from people throughout the United States with, with their own encouragement and encouraging stories that they have about either a child that they have or that they know with Down’s Syndrome and what a blessing the child is and Todd says, ‘OK I’m determined I’m going to read these emails instead of the blog from here on out,’ and I said, ‘Please do!’ Because the emails have been very, very nice.
Reporter: Obviously it’s hard to, you know, be in this position where you have to take care of the whole state and also take care of your family. How are you going to balance that with, you know, a new baby now?
Palin: Again with that help from the extended family and having, um, you know, big siblings for this child.. that makes kind of the practical aspects of having a new one in the house much easier, much more convenient and thankfully, you know, I have a husband who loves being a dad as much as I love being a mom and Todd really goes above and beyond with, um, all the help with the kids he always has, so I’m not worried about it at all.. not having enough hours in a day or enough energy or enough, um, motivation to do both jobs. I’m a hundred percent confident that everything is going to be taking care of.
Reporter: For Todd how does it feel to be a new daddy again?
Todd: Ah, it’s just, uh, it’s amazing. It’s a huge blessing to our family. I’m excited about having another boy. You know, our oldest turned 19 yesterday. I was trying to have her hang in there for a couple days so we could have both our boys have the same birthday so we could knock it all out in one day.
Palin: Yeah. Right, right. Yeah.
Reporter: Track’s in the service now and he texted you?
Palin: He is. He is.
Reporter: Where is he right now?
Palin: Um, in Fort Wainwright. So early yesterday morning? Two mornings ago. Yeah. He got to drive down real quick and spent a couple of hours getting to see his baby brother. He brought a couple of soldier friends with him, a couple who had never held a newborn before so that was kind of fun, seeing these big tough soldiers holding this itty bitty baby in their arms and they just thought it was really special, really neat. So it was really neat to have the whole family there.
Reporter: Are you going to take a maternity leave?
Palin: No, mm,mm. I’ll, I’ll…
Reporter: You’re gonna be…you’re obviously back today..
Palin: I’ll be able to bring Trig with me, um, to many of the, um, meetings and, and events and um, parts of the job here that I’m engaged in and just working it around Trig either being here with me in the early days as I did… the last one, with Piper, when I was mayor of Wasilla, she was with me so often. And um, between that and then, um, having help with the three different sets of grandparents and all the aunts and uncles, everything is going to be taken care of.
Reporter: I know the other kids are named after Alaskan things. How did you come up with this name?
Palin: Trig is a family name on Todd’s side, um, a Bristol Bay relative named Trig and I’ve always loved the name and it’s a Norwegian name that means true and brave victory so you know I had that name in my heart for… especially once hearing about challenges that Trig probably will be facing I knew the name would fit. And then Paxson is his middle name cause that’s an awesome..
Todd: … a good place to go riding and excellent hunting.
Palin: Yeah, it is. It’s great hunting area. It is. It’s God’s country out there. And Paxson…and then we always liked the name Van Palin.
Reporters laughing.
Palin: So we just combined it all, yeah. And the kids voted and had their own ideas and we got so many cool suggestions from across the state of course lots of Alaskata names and uh, we got an email from an official in the NRA today saying ‘Oh, they’re going to love the name Trig,’ but you know they’re interpretation of what Trig meant was, you know, it’s them, anyway…
Reporter: Just a clarification – you flew commercial Alaska Airlines?
Palin: Yeah, yeah.
Reporter: And did -- This was something else I think I heard your father say I just wanted to clarify. Did you have to hide your pregnancy because you were so far along?
Palin: Well, you know I never felt nor do some people say I ever looked like I was that far along, um, so no purposeful way or need to hide that I was pregnant. Um, some, I know that some airlines would have uh, some hesitancy on letting maybe a nine month pregnant person get on board but it wasn’t nine months so, um, it was…
Reporter: And you didn’t tell them you were feeling something when you came back on the plane?
Palin: No need to because I wasn’t feeling at all like I was in labor in fact, you know I wasn’t one or maybe two contractions an hour that felt just like Braxton Hicks which I’d been having for months. That doesn’t constitute labor, so…
Aide: And guys we got to wrap it up so that he’s got to take a quick picture so we can go…
Reporter: Was it important to you to have the baby in Alaska?
Palin: It was very important that we have…it was more important that, that Trig arrive safely and healthy and um, and that is exactly what happened. The extra blessing was that Trig was able to be born into this great state, you know, kind of like, I feel like this extended Alaskan family, that he was here, for that.
Todd: Can’t have a fish-picker from Texas.
Laughter from reporters, Palin.
