Unexpectant Mother

Captain Richard R. Lewis of the Los Angeles Fire Department interrupted his Sunday car wash last week to check on his wife, who had not felt well all morning. "Honey," said she, "I think I'm going to have a baby." In the spirit of what he thought was a jest, Lewis answered: "O.K., honey, you just go ahead and have one." Within 45 minutes she did.

Ellen Lewis, 32, was already the mother of three children, aged six to eleven. With each, she had gained a lot of weight, felt the babies kicking, and in her husband's words, "looked pregnant all over." Since the spring of 1959, she had gained a few pounds and developed "a small pot," but had no idea that she was pregnant. She appeared to have menstruated and had felt no quickening life. Ellen Lewis thought the weight gain and added girth (she had bought one dress a size bigger than usual) were probably due to a cyst, and had an appointment with a gynecologist.

This time, before Dick Lewis could get a physician, the unexpectant mother was in the third stage of labor, in their bedroom. Lewis had never delivered a baby, but he had trained rescue squads and had often shown a childbirth film. He unwound the cord from the baby's neck, laid out mother and child (a 7-lb. 9-oz. boy) side by side, .then called one of the ambulance units he had trained. An attendant cut the cord.

There was no suspicion that Ellen Lewis had tried to conceal her pregnancy, as some unmarried women (and some hysterical wives) are apt to do. Hers was one of the rare cases of genuinely unsuspected pregnancy.

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