[Verginius Rufus]

There was a couple I met once (both now deceased), who had this problem. (The husband was someone my father served under in WWII.) Their first child survived, but their second one died soon after birth—they thought the second one might have lived except for a mistake by the hospital.

[srmorton]

My mother lost her second child (a boy) also. They were afraid my older sister, who was born in 1945 and had a very severe reaction, would not live. They wanted my mother to have a tubal ligation. My father was a chaplain in the Navy and was not there to give his permission for the surgery, so I was born five years later. I also had a reaction, but they knew how to do an exchange transfusion by then so I fared pretty well. I often think about my father having to give permission when I consider that today's “modern woman” does not even have to tell the father of a baby that she decides to abort, although he would have to pay child support if she decided to keep the baby.