I highly doubt it...I assume he sent the book to Midge or Rachel (like everyone else). But they do have a way of playing with your assumptions on this show...there was something wistful about the way Don sent that book, like it was intended for someone he missed.

Why the hell send it to her. He sees her every day. If he wanted her to have it just HAND it to her. Why waste postage?

There is obviously a deep ( not neccessarily intimate ) connection between Don and Peggy. We are going to see a backstory emerging here.

Go back to episode 1, season 1. Remember when Peggy put her hand on Don's hand in the office and he gently but firmly rebuffed her? "I'm your boss, Peggy. Not your boyfriend."

That one scene may have more significance that we realized when it was first aired.

Despite Pete's "viable" sperm test results, I'm not buying it. I think either Trudy is lying about the results, so that Pete does not know he is infertile or the results were misread.

Pete had mumps at age 12/13. Many males became sterile after contracting mumps in adolesence.

I still believe that someone else is the father of Peggy's baby and we may be shocked to find out who it is.

Oh for heavens sake!! If he wanted Peggy to have the book, he would have put it on her desk in the morning. Sheesh! Don and Peggy are confidants, but not lovers! Don would never complicate his work life by having an affair with a co-worker. The old "don't shit where you eat" thing.

Well, I wouldn't be so sure about Don not having an affair with someone he works with, especially now. He's getting a little sloppy about what he does and with whom.

However, I think he sent the book to Midge. It was not the type of book that would appeal to Rachael.

I think Trudy's going to have an affair with her old boyfriend - remember him from Season 1? He told her he wanted to have an affair with her. And then she'll get pregnant by him. Oh what tangled web we weave....

I'm not sure about the book thing, I have to go back and watch that episode again. Peggy's pregnancy and baby whereabouts get more confusing with each episode. I wrote on another thread that this better not turn out to be Don's baby. Just like MicheleKay, I remember the scene in Don's office. But there seems to always be something that is left out, later to be revealed. These writers like to keep us guessing. I'm intrigued and can't wait to see what they do with these characters next. And Laurie B, I also think Trudy will get reaquainted with her first love. This is going to be an interesting season.

The reason Don did not give her the book in the office is obvious - so no one else will see/witness it. Don gave it to her because it helped him and he thought it could help her. Also in the car when Peggy said something like "I can find a way to forget this" Don seem appeased and then we get the backstory on the "forget" line later. Mark my words!!! He sent that book to her.

>> I think Trudy's going to have an affair with her old boyfriend - remember him from Season 1? He told her he wanted to have an affair with her. And then she'll get pregnant by him.

I think you may be right.

Pete did not hear the results of his test directly from the doctor's office. TRUDY told him the results. I still think Pete is shooting blanks.

Remember, he told the doctor he had mumps in 1944, when he was 12 or 13 years old. Mumps cause sterility in adolescent males.

Trudy was upset, but I don't think it was because their inability to conceive was her "fault." Pete's sterility would put the cabash on her ability to have a baby .... unless she switched to plan B and conceived elsewhere. If Pete isn't aware that he's sterile, she can get away with it ( in 1962. )

I still don't believe that Pete is the father of Peggy's baby. The baby was likely placed for adoption which, in 1962, did not involve the legal mess and waiting period that it does now. Peggy could sign her name on a paper and it was over.

Don didn't send the book to Peggy, I think it was Midge. There is nothing sexual between Don and Peggy, but they are creating a powerful bond. Co-dependence, sweet co-dependence.

Time will tell but I still swear it was Peggy

Complications from Mumps such as infertility or subfertility are rare, not an absolute. Besides, Trudy's reaction to Pete's test results prove that his swimmers are strong.

Pete was the father of Peggy's son.

Didn't you love the magazine about war in the restroom where Pete was making a deposit? That was just too funny! Someone mentioned Pete might be shooting blanks...then I thought of the war magazine and made the connection. Right after that scene you see Roger playing with the paddle ball...bang, bang, bang... MM subliminal messages. Aren't they the funniest?

OOH, now I am thinking.
I was thinking that Pete's sperm was nil, but when Trudy told him they were viable, I dismissed it. Does Trudy have that plan with her old bf?
I went thru this, and the doctor brought both of us in to tell us about the sperm count. Do mumps always render the male sterile? What would the world be?
I thought that was because an adult male contracted mumps. Is 13 old enough?
The mags available in the doctor's office for men to produce a specimen was an odd choice for the end product. I was looking for the "Confidential" Mag I saw earlier.

I still waffle on whether or not the baby is Pete's. It's highly plausible—the birth control wouldn't be effective yet, and after the gynecologist's comments to Peggy during her exam, I'm not even sure she filled the prescription at all. However, her willingness to let Pete in the door on the first day they met suggests Peggy is loose, so perhaps she was already a week or two pregnant by then.

"Don't shit where you eat" is exactly what I was thinking when Don washed another woman off his hands in his wife's kitchen sink. I think that was a significant sign of how Don doesn't care for his little home and family in Sing Sing. Also, that book was poems by Frank O'Hara. I no longer have any books about or by him but he adored Manhattan and wrote alot about the everyday, mundane things about the city and life there in the '50's. Not a Rachel and Don sort of book but maybe a Midge and Don sort of thing. Also, O'Hara was gay. Don't know if that could have significance. It was a very loverlike thing of Don to send a poetry book with an unsigened note to someone. Maybe someone he knew and loved in his unaccounted for past. I've never had a boyfriend send a book to me that didn't have mutual significance.

Well, if Don sent the book unsigned, then there is a huge possibility he could have sent it to Peggy. I got the impression that the book was helping him through a sort of a crisis. Isn't that was Peggy is going through? Don has taken a shine to this girl. Protege is a word I'm hearing often about their dynamic. So he could have sent her a book, so what? I lend books out to friends all the time; and most of the time I get them back. Lending a book is the modern equivalent to lending out a DVD.

Tamara, I loved what you said about Peggy and Don, "co-dependence, sweet co-dependence". LOL.

@drbambee,
don didn't send the book unsigned. he signed it saying; 'This made me think of you'. and then signed it with a dash and the letter D . whoever he sent the book to, it was for them-not being lent out.

just the letter D so that makes me think the person is very intimate with don. For me, that leaves peggy out, at least for now, until maybe more unfolds.

can't wait to see what happens next on this marvelous show!

I don't recall that he signed with a letter D but that could be Don or Dick. I still think there's someone else out there in Don's past who is integral to who and why he is what he is. The misused farmboy who stole another soldiers ID isn't complex enough. Stealing someone elses name is as old as time. I think Don has even more of a past to be revealed. I'm waiting for the writers to really blow my mind.

With MM I've learned to expect the unexpected, but I don't see a romantic relationship happening between Don and Peggy, at least not now or in the recent past. They really have a mentor/protégé relationship, and they watch each other's backs, keep each other's secrets. Sleeping with Don would alter their power dynamic and ruin Peggy's journey up the corporate ladder (which is obviously the most important thing to Peggy).

Don sent the book to Rachel. He missed her and needed to have some sort of contact with her.

I don't think Don sent the book to Rachel, I think he sent it to Peggy. Sending it to Rachel is too obvious and not very thought provoking. Don wasn't happy about Rachel running away, especially after she yelled at him about running away from his problems. I'm sure losing the Menken's account was considered salt in the wound. That was a $3 million dollar account Don threw away because he couldn't keep his fly shut. Bad move, Don.

>Trudy was upset, but I don't think it was because their inability to conceive was her "fault."

No, at first she was just upset that Pete was celebrating how his "boys" are top-quality yet couldn't fathom for a moment that the test meant bad news for Trudy. Maybe he should've thrown himself a party.All about him.

Trudy is very sweet and simple - I can't see her thinking ahead to fake the test results just to -- well, to what purpose, anyway?

Pete is such a little prick. And he looks like a 12-year-old, until he puts on his jammies and then he looks like a 10-year-old. How could either Trudy or Peggy stand to get near him? Any minute I expect to see him yelling that it's Howdy Doody Time.

If Petey's shooting blanks how did Peggy get pregnant? Sterile men don't produce children. I think that's the rational I used when I had a vasectomy after I knocked up my girlfriend so that this would never happen again.

Looking back, I think the last episode with Midge Daniels was the 'Hobo Code', where they smoked weed, and Don realized she was in love with that other beatnik. I thought this was sent to Midge as sort of a farewell, since this poet is said to be in the line of poets such as Beat Poet Allen Ginsburg. Hopefully not, but maybe a farewell to the character of Midge as well.

I still think Pete is the father and she thought she was protected. This is a common misconception for women going on the pill especially during that time. I was a ob-gyn nurse in the early 70's and many people did not understand you had to use back up. Also, my husband had mumps whicfh dropped at 12 and he has 5 children who look just like him!

Apparently, posters on other sites have looked at this question from every angle. One site has developed a relationship where they post questions to a 'inside connection.' When queried about the poem, the book, and who it was sent to, the insider told them to the answer is in the words.

What words?...The words of the poem? The words Don says?...Don't ask me! I'm not sure either! So......since I don't have a copy of the book, I went to Youtube to listen to what Don was saying in the voiceover...

...Now I am quietly waiting for the catastrophe of my personality to feel beautiful again/and interesting/and modern/the country is gray and brown and white/the trees, snows and skies of laughter always diminishing/less funny/not just darker/not past gray/it may be the coldest day of the year/what does he think of that?/I mean/what do I/and if I do/perhaps I am myself again...

With this additional bit of information, in light of what we now know, it does appear that the book, indeed,could have been sent to Peggy. I will have to see the Season 1 episode to figure out the approximate date Don mailed the book. Could he have already gone to the St. Mary's to see Peggy or mailed it to her apartment (because he knew she was not going to be at work)?

I just wish the connections we have on this board could get us an insider hints, too! whine,..whine...whine...

Thank you, Greytone, for sending that verse. Wow, "catastrophe of my personality" is perfectly Don.

Please, everyone....
Mark this thread 'recommended' so it can queue higher (on the Recommended List) and be more readily accessible....

....the narrative is what bothers me..... i don't necessarily get how it relates to peggy, per se.

she is the logical choice as the intended recipient of the book, and maybe it was sent as sort of a self-help tool...

but if this were a sci-fi film or series, i would almost say draper was sending the book to himself, in the past - to dick whitman.

i know. out there.

I think the poem speaks volumes and that Don could have sent it to Peggy. Maybe Don has confided in her, his troubles with his marriage, his persona, and maybe he told her in that time period that he really isnt Don, but a man named Dick Whitman. I dont know that is just me. But the poem is obviously saying that his life is coming apart, but he or she is trying to make it better...that only points to Peggy, because like Don she has her own demons she has to face with everyday, and ignoring them is really tearing her up inside. I think sending it to Rachel is obvious, and honestly I really dont like Rachel, shes too much of a needy person. The book could have been sent to Midge as a friendship gift. I think Midge truly got Don, even though he probably never opened up to her. She liked their sex relationship, and she never wanted to push it further. When Don asked her to marry him in season 1 episode 1 Midge bluntly tells him NO! I think Midge likes her independence and she just liked Don for sex, not that is a bad thing, I mean she did care for him, but she knew since he was married it wouldnt go anywhere, where Rachel on the other hand wished and hoped that he would get a divorce from Betty. So right now I am leaning towards Peggy, but it could very well have gone to Midge, whom Weiner says is back for episodes this season.

I don't know why the subject of Pete's fertility comes up when he already fathered peggy's baby