👩‍🌾 The Archers spoilers thread #5: Can't wait for 7.02pm? Join us here!

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

Spoiler thread for The Archers. Please keep all spoiler-related discussion in this thread and do not spill the beans on the main Archers Thread. Last thread here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/radio_addicts/3439443-keep-it-to-yourself-the-archers-spoilers-thread-4

Hmm ... No Johnny in the cast list. So, unless it's Jazzer borrowing the jalopy I may be wrong about that.

No sinkhole credited either.

Thanks, Asking!

I think it will be Alice in the terrifying situation but I am determined to get the Chrysalis dedded.

Thanks AQAAT

Thanks Asking this thread moves slowly but surely!

The jeopardy because, of course, every single soap has to have some [yawns] may be Shula kept hostage by a henchman of the notorious Victoria.

On the 25th, reality bites for Alice and Chris. Premature baby? Baby with problems?

There was the story of a Down Syndrome baby that died before birth on the World Service this morning ("Heart and Soul"). Maybe the poor child's heart will simply stop as that one did.

It was an interesting programme: not once was the actual baby/child and how it might feel about being brought into life mentioned, it was all about whether the parents ought to abort or not and how they were wickedly told by one doctor that he (they found out his sex about half way through) could have x y and z wrong, but then another doctor told them he didn't have to have these problems and anyway their religion was against abortion....

Whereas whether we were really able to look after a child and make it happy was the first question OH and I asked each other, as opposed to whether we fancied the idea. The second question was "how likely is it that a baby of yours would inherit your father's Type 1 diabetes?" and the decision that if the odds were too bad we would have to think very seriously about that.

Have Alice and Chris thought about the actual person most closely involved in this pregnancy of hers? Really thought about it, I mean? I don;t get the feeling that Chris has at all, apart from the usual male Ambridgite's obsession with breeding.

Can someone fill me in with the backstory about Alices baby please? I’ve just started registering to TA after a couple of years so am missing a fair few bits.

How pregnant is she? Is baby expected to be born with FAS/some other disability? Does she not want it?

She was 12 weeks exactly, according to her and the midwife, on 6th October, 2020.

Since she had been drinking enough for blackouts for much of the previous twelve weeks, being found passed out by the road on 15th September, 2020, and taken in to hospital, she can be assumed to be likely to have damaged the development of the foetus.

She has consistently said she was not ready to have children. This has led to one or two very edgy conversations with Chris, who like all men in Ambridge is besotted with the idea of babies.

Thanks Asking
When did she stop drinking?
Do Chris and Alice talk acknowledge that baby might have FAS? Is it only Peggy and Harrison that know about the drinking?

Sorry for all the questions.

Chris and she decided she would go cold turkey on 18th November, 2020, and she asked him to lock her in the bathroom (How? we all asked; our bathrooms having locks from the inside not from the outside). He did; she then had a horrific experience of thinking she had miscarried and the baby was in the bath, and was in such a horrible state and in pain that Chris went and found the bottle of whisky she had hidden in her red handbag and gave it to her. They decided to consult a doctor, and went to an appointment the following day.

The doctor advised a medical detoxification programme to reduce her alcohol intake gradually, and she spent two weeks between 25th November, 2020, and 7th December, 2020, in a detox centre near Bath.

Alice and Chris have frequently mentioned drink harming the baby, without specifics.

As far as we know Chris has told only Harrison, Peggy worked it out for herself, and Ed and Emma knew perfectly well that Alice was drinking excessively well before her blackout and hospitalisation but do not officially know anything and have not been told.

Thank you! With a possible premature birth coming up I thought I better find out the details.

Possible stillbirth I hope. Unless of course little Magna Chrysalis Carter has a very brief life born on Thursday died on Sunday.

I have to keep reminding myself you're talking about an entirely fictional unborn child, ILoveShula ...

(I once wished painful death upon a character in a fictional TV series and felt an entire thread had voted for my immediate lynching.)

Even so ...

Asking I totally agree with you about the terrible implications of having a badly disabled child (for both parents and baby). Alice was very jittery early on when she DID think about it (after talking to the MW and being on line). Now she seems to be in denial but IMO is still quietly worried . Peggy is talking sense.

Dispassionately I think it's a good SL well done.

The thing is that both Chris and Alice seem to have convinced themselves that so long as she doesn't drink any longer everything will be fine, but actually the worst damage done to the foetus would have been during the first few weeks of pregnancy, which is when alcohol in large quantities is most likely to do harm to a baby. At that point she didn't even know that she was pregnant and was drinking heavily every day, and the damage she did then would be irreversible.

@PursuingProxemicExactitude, only because it is a fictional baby. The implications of a severely impaired child would affect the programme too much. I had hoped that Bethany had been terminated for the same reasons.

My opinions about real babies are different.

Yes Asking Iam aware of that, but as I said IMO Alice is still worried, with justification. her over reaction about having ANY alcohol (at the stupid baby shower) is maybe part of it.

Chris is an idiot.

Gavin also knows.

I wish Bethany had never left -a fictional Downs syndrome baby growing up would have challenged the writers a little but I know a lot of Downs syndrome people who lead very good lives despite having to overcome various challenges. I do find your attitude @ILoveShula to be chilling - my children all have difficulties but I wouldn't be without them and I think the world is better off for having them. And somewhere like Ambridge should have a range of disabilities, especially over its 70 years.

On a lighter note - my bathroom door in my new house locks with a key, and you can lock it from the outside!

I would agree that people with disabilities and learning difficulties should be seen in drama and the media generally a lot more than they currently are, and not in a tokenistic way. Unfortunately, it's not easy for The Archers to do this, given the 12.5 minute episode format. We know they can tackle difficult and sensitive subjects and build up a storyline over a very long period, when they choose to, but it takes a lot of effort and commitment, and it's tricky. Maybe Baby Carter will be the focus of just such a storyline, but I'm not holding my breath. I'd rather they didn't do it at all than do it badly.

If it was done realistically it would be on the back burner. Alice being stressed everytime the baby didn't meet a development goal (even if otherwise normal). Then maybe a "chat" from nursery. And struggling to find the right school - even having to point out to Brian that even if he offers to pay school fees a private one might not take baby Carter.
with lots of guilt from Alice, and a lot of strain on the marriage.

But it doesn't have to be day after day misery just a story that weaves in and out.

@MollyButton, it's only my attitude towards fictional babies. I think a real Chris and Alice would or should have terminated the pregnancy, got help for Alice, then planned a baby.

My thoughts on terminating a pregnancies are complex, but in the case of the Chrysalis, the extremely heavy drinking in the first 10 weeks or so would not give the baby a good start, and it's a fictional character.

There is still time for Bethany to come back.

i am definitely part of the bring back Bethany campaign. There is so much potential there, and unless she goes into some kind of fabulous sheltered housing she would probably end up living with Roy eventually (or at least visiting like Reggie on Call the Midwife).

I don't really see what part Mike and Vicky would have to play in TA now, though. since Vicky was convinced that only a big city was appropriate as a place for someone with Downs syndrome to be educated; and I don't see where they would live, either.

Moike is elderly now isn't he, and Vickoi heading towards 60.

They could be dedded by COVID and Bethany could live at Willow Farm with her half-brother.

Bethany could live at Willow Farm with her half-brother
Who would then be bearing the burden of a decision in which he had no say.
Fuck that.

It would be a suitable recompense for his having done Brenda out of getting any inheritance at all.