philomytha: airplane flying over romantic castle (Default)
philomytha ([personal profile] philomytha) wrote in [personal profile] ailis_fictive 2012-12-01 10:44 pm (UTC)

There is no easy answer to when Alys gets pregnant! I once tried to work it out, and decided that handwaving it was easier ;-). I suspect that unless you have something absolutely ridiculous, you can get away with whatever is most dramatically convenient. Working out detailed timelines for any of the books is a complete headache - I've done it for parts of 'Memory' and 'The Vor Game', and there's never enough information to be sure of anything.

Especially once you take into account day/year length differences. For one thing, given that the Barrayaran day is 26.7 hours long, pregnancy lasts 8 months intead of nine - 252 days from LMP to full term instead of 280 on Earth. And Alys then went overdue.

I expect Alys would have had access to the same sort of pregnancy test Cordelia gives Drou (she mentions Padma promised her all the best galactic doctors and care, and it would follow that she'd had that all through pregnancy), so if if wasn't an accidental pregnancy, she could have known within a few days of conception. Though how much sex education Alys has had, and how much she knows about early pregnancy symptoms... definitely open questions. It's quite possible that she made use of the sex selection pills, though, given her broadly traditionalist views.

*contemplates saying something about passion and enthusiasm in fandom, decides the content of this comment is sufficient evidence to convict me of both*

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