Betty thought the new baby would improve her relationship with Don and during the pregnancy it may have. But after the baby arrived, she was dealing with a crying infant and nothing had really changed. Having her father move in represented a possibility to get closer to him and have him become closer to his grandchildren. And then he died. Don achieved additional success at SC, but was home even less than before. When Don did try to do something nice for Betty, she could not get past the fact that nothing had really changed between them.

To me this was summed up in "The Souvenir". Betty thought that an adventure would change her life. Much to her regret, she returned home and realized nothing had changed. When she sarcastically thanked Don for his thoughtful gift, she realized she no longer wanted to stay married to Don or want the life they had built together. She had been unhappy for a long time, now she knew why in a way that summarized everything- Don's infidelity, feeling trapped by a new baby, grief over the loss of her father, dissatisfaction with the life she had etc. She hated her life. I think it was at this point that she started to look for a way out.

For Betty, anticipation of positive change was replaced by the reality of no real change at all.

To your musings on Anticipation/Season 3: what comes up for me is all about Betty.

Betty wanted a dramatic change in her life in Season 2, and got it when she banished Don from the Draper home. The news that she was pregnant was her first unhappy surprise. This, for her, meant more of Life As Usual … no matter how much she still wanted something else.

In Season 3, Betty expected a baby girl. (A smaller version of herself, a connection to her lost mother, a fresh start?) But what she got was a boy: not what she'd anticipated.

Nor was her love for that child what she'd expected. That love replaced her grief for her father, reshuffled her other children, and eventually locked the two of them, Betty and little Gene, in an embrace no one else in the family could break.

Betty Draper didn't expect much of what happened in 1963: a son instead of a daughter, the appearance of a new love interest while at the Derby Day party with her husband, the loss of her father, and a couple of very public deaths.

But as Joan would say, That's life. There's what we plan for and then there's what we get. The resemblance the latter bears to the former usually ends in the outline of the plan — if we ever had one.

At the end of a few days in which I learned that my own sister — the mother of one great little daughter, and a deep planner — is expecting her first son, I gotta say: I'm a late convert to the Church of the Unexpected Blessing. At its best, life has a wild rhythm … but we can never accuse it of being anything less than true to itself first.

Good stuff, Roberta, thanks for sharing!