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8 1/2 Months was the 12th episode in Season 3 of Quantum Leap, also the 43 overall series episode. Written by Deborah Pratt, the episode, which was directed by James Whitmore, Jr. (who also appears in the episode), premiered on NBC-TV on March 6, 1991.
Synopsis[]
Sam leaps into a very pregnant teenager and must convince her father to help her keep the baby.
Episode summary[]
It's 1955 and Sam leaps into the body of 16 year old Billie Jean Crockett who is also 8½ months pregnant. Her mother is dead and her father wants nothing much to do with her. Her boyfriend, who got her pregnant, is off to college soon and wanted her to have a termination. Al tells Sam that she will have her baby within a day and give it up for adoption leading to a lifetime of regret and searching for the child. The solution is that Sam may have to give birth to the baby before he can leap again.
Storyline[]
November 15, 1955- In this episode Sam leaps into a teenaged Billie Jean Crockett (Priscilla Weems), an unwed young woman who is 8½ months pregnant, and has been experiencing birth pangs (which Sam also feels) and is to soon go into labor. Al informs him he is there to make sure that her father, Bob Crockett (James Whitmore, Jr.) accepts her child so that she is able to keep it.
When Sam and Al, first sees Willis Taylor (Phillip Linton) on a dirt road (Water Tower Road) after looking for him, they both look at Willis. Sam says "He's just a boy." Al mouths "And you're just a guy", Sam, as Billie, confronts Willis about their soon to be born child. However, when Sam as Billie Jean, tells Willis that she plans to have the baby and keep their child instead of having an abortion as he suggested, or giving it up for adoption (as she did in the original history, as her father did not accept his grandchild), he is quite upset as he tells her "Damn it! What you're gonna do? You haven't even finished high school!" as he goes on to say "Damn it! You're the one who told me to go to college...now you wan't to trap me in this stupid town!" as he made it known that although he likes her, he was still aiming to leave town for college, and that if she had any sense she would leave town too, as Billie Jean, moments after confronting Willis, who then leaves her on the dirt road, soon begins to have intense labor pains as she is able to get Dorothy "Dottie" Louise Billings (Lana Schwab), a woman who owns a beauty salon, whom Billie Jean befriends, and also has been working for, and is temporarily staying with, to rush her to the hospital.
Later, at the hospital, everyone is worried that Billie Jean will have the baby in the waiting room. Despite the obvious physical problem, Sam soon discovers the baby did not leap with its mother, and that he somehow is "pregnant"! As it turns out, Sam, who leaped into Billie Jean (who is in the Project Quantum Leap waiting room in 1999) is too busy worrying about the impossiblity of he, as a man, giving birth, which is actually biologically impossible, and that he can't at all be pregnant, until Effy (Tasha Scott), a young black girl who also works for Dottie at the salon, is able to convince Billie Jean's father Bob (who later, as future history is then altered, begins a relationship with Dottie) to accept his grandchild, as apparently, Billie Jean's womb with the soon to be born child, has been placed in Dr. Beckett the leaper (who assumes Billie Jean's body in 1955). Sam then leaps just seconds before the child is born.