Ever since her second trip to the nineteenth century, when she found out that Rufus was her ancestor, Dana was operating under the assumption that she was only being pulled back in time in order to keep Rufus alive long enough for him to father Hagar. When Rufus calls her for the last time, though, Hagar has already been born. Why does she still get pulled back then? The answer could have to do with the butterfly effect.
For those who don't know, the butterfly effect refers to the theory that one tiny, insignificant event could set off a chain of progressively more significant effects. The name comes from the thought that one flap of a butterfly's wings could ultimately lead to a hurricane somewhere far away from the butterfly, although its naming may have been influenced by a short science fiction story by Ray Bradbury called "A Sound of Thunder." The story follows a man who travels back in time and accidentally steps on a butterfly before returning to his own time, where it is revealed that that one butterfly's premature death led to words being spelled differently, people acting differently, and a different outcome in the recent presidential election (although, strangely, the two candidates were the same).
The butterfly effect may be more important in genealogy than in any other field. The birth of a person depends not only on each pair of that person's ancestors mating, but mating at the right time and probably under the right circumstances, in order for the right sperm to meet the right egg (this concept is explored in "Boy or Girl," by Cathleen Ward). As such, Dana's birth does not depend only on Hagar being born, but on her being raised under the exact right circumstances. Any minor change in her upbringing would probably lead to her having different children, even if she produced them with the same man.
As such, perhaps Dana did not return to the nineteenth century that last time in order to save Rufus, but rather to kill him. Being an orphan would certainly change Hagar's life enough for her to have different children - one of which, in this case, would end up being Dana's ancestor. Nonetheless, unless Dana's actions in the nineteenth century were exactly what needed to happen anyway, she would have been bound to make some mistake that would end up preventing her own birth. This tells me that Octavia Butler might not have been aware of the butterfly effect. This is definitely plausible - according to the Wikipedia page on the butterfly effect in popular culture, there were very few works exploring this concept before the 1980s.
The butterfly effect is definitely an interesting thing to consider in a lot of time travel novels, but I'm not sure it's something Dana has to worry about in this one. The reason she gets drawn back isn't ever really clear, but I get the feeling that whatever the cause is, it's something that had to happen, as in this particular type of time travel creates a stable loop. If Dana has to actually go back in time in order to ensure that she exists, then it can't be a case of her tampering with the past and creating a new timeline -- that's just what's always happened. Personally, I think the idea of someone being born only because their later self went back and saved one of their ancestors from the various ways the universe contrived to kill him is indicative of some of Butler's purpose in writing the novel. It's not quite clear in my head, but that existence makes Dana seem like much more of a construction, a fictional extension of the author who needs the life support system of the novel and the plot to exist. It feels like she's been imposed on this (presumably otherwise realistic) universe by the outside entity of Butler, and that (now-fictional) universe is itself somehow trying to remove the artificial construct that's been placed into into it... Time travel is always complicated, and so is guessing about the author's intentions, but I definitely feel like there's something connecting the way time travel works in the book and Butler's purpose in writing a surrogate of herself and sending her back into antebellum Maryland.
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