Sybil's pregnancy

Sybil's pregnancy becomes a test of who can decide whether a young woman gives birth, and what choice means when she believes she cannot raise the child. Sybil Davison conceals her pregnancy from her parents, gives birth to a daughter, and arranges for the baby to be adopted. She wants the pregnancy to continue, but her decision to have the baby does not give her the option of keeping her.

Discovery and concealment

In mid-April, Erica Small tells Katherine Danziger that Sybil is pregnant and does not know who the father is. The baby is due in early July; Katherine counts backward and estimates that Sybil became pregnant in October. Sybil has continued attending school without missing a day. Because she is fat, she has been able to hide the pregnancy beneath loose, tent-like clothes, so her classmates and family have not noticed.

Sybil has seen a doctor, but she told him she was married and supplied a false name and address. The deception helps keep her pregnancy from her parents, whose reaction she fears: Erica says Sybil wants the baby and expects her parents would make her have an abortion if they found out. By the time the news reaches Katherine, Sybil is too far along to have one. Her secrecy therefore protects her intention to continue the pregnancy, while also leaving her to manage it without her parents knowing.

A decision without an easy outcome

Sybil's wish to have the baby is not the same as a plan to raise her. She knows she cannot keep the child and intends to arrange an adoption as soon as the baby is born. When Katherine asks why she would go through with the pregnancy if she will not keep the baby, Erica reports Sybil's answer: she wants the experience. The account presents that reason without explaining it away or supplying a fuller motive. It leaves the choice as Sybil's stated one, made under the constraint that she cannot imagine keeping the child.

The novel places this news beside Katherine's separate effort to prevent pregnancy. At a clinic, Katherine attends a group discussion about birth-control methods and tells a social worker that she considers it her responsibility to avoid becoming pregnant. The two situations are not presented as decisions Sybil and Katherine make together: rather, their contrast shows different points at which reproductive choice becomes urgent. Katherine seeks to prevent a pregnancy; Sybil, having concealed hers, is committed to giving birth but plans for someone else to raise the baby.

Birth and graduation

Katherine learns by telephone that Sybil has given birth to a girl. The caller reports that the baby weighs six pounds, one ounce. When Katherine and Erica visit, Sybil is expecting them, after Erica has phoned to check that she wants company. Katherine brings daisies and arranges them in a disposable vase, as she does while working at the hospital.

Sybil speaks quickly about the labor, describing it as less overwhelming than the dramatic scenes she had expected from films. She says she pushed until the baby was born and recalls a man giving her gas when contractions became strong, though she remembers little else. Her account is matter-of-fact rather than a detailed retelling of the birth. In the same rush of conversation, she asks whether the visitors have seen the baby, welcomes their flowers, and talks about her plans to lose fifty pounds and go to Smith.

The birth coincides with Sybil's high-school graduation. She had intended to attend, but instead her diploma will be mailed to her. The lost ceremony is a concrete consequence of giving birth at this moment, even as Sybil shifts quickly from it to her plans for the future. She also says she intends to get an IUD because she does not intend to give up sex; if she has another baby, she wants to be able to keep it. The statement makes clear that she does not treat this pregnancy as ending her sexual life, while distinguishing the circumstances of this birth from what she hopes for next time.

Adoption and separation

The baby is due to leave with her adoptive parents on Friday. Sybil hopes the girl will have a good life and says she thinks two people who very much want a child will take good care of her. Her confidence in the prospective parents sits beside the emotional difficulty of the separation: she reaches for a tissue and blows her nose, while Katherine has a lump in her throat and hopes Sybil will not cry. The scene does not depict the adoption as either uncomplicated relief or a decision Sybil regrets. It holds her hope for the child's future alongside the immediate sadness of letting her go.

Across the pregnancy, birth, and planned adoption, Sybil's agency is real but limited. She hides the pregnancy to avoid her parents' demand for an abortion, chooses to give birth, and plans for adoption because she believes she cannot keep the baby. Her intention to use contraception in the future and her hope to raise a later child underline that the adoption is not her preferred model for motherhood in every circumstance. The story gives no account of what happens after the baby leaves; its ending for Sybil rests instead on her wish that the child be cared for and on the separation about to take place.