# How did you know the circumstances of your child's conception? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 13, 2011, 9:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202 "2011-02-13T09:34:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Cub\_Mistress](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ea666f/32.png) [@Cub\_Mistress](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cub_Mistress)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/21 "2011-02-14T03:14:26Z")
Like **DianaG** I felt that soft click that said “pregnant.” I remember saying to myself as I was drifting off to sleep after the first conception “you’re pregnant now” and I was right. We were try to conceive so it was all good. With the second we had made the decision to try for a second child about a month before the fateful encounter. I felt that click again and told my then-husband that he would have a son in August. He thought I was crazy but it was true. I never had this feeling except when I was pregnant, even when I had a missed period or two where I would do a pregnancy test that came back negative. I can’t explain it. ---
**Author:** ![Lynn\_Bodoni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e47c2d/32.png) [@Lynn\_Bodoni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lynn_Bodoni)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/22 "2011-02-14T03:25:53Z")
> [@](#): > > Some women “just know” when an act of intercourse leads to conception, right the minute it’s done. No, I can’t explain it, it’s totally woo and unscientific and silly, but it’s absolutely the truth. I “just knew” both times, even though the first time I was using three forms of birth control. The second time was on purpose, and again, I “just knew”. Didn’t even bother with a pregnancy test until about 7 weeks when my husband insisted. Yeah, I knew when I had conceived, in the middle pregnancy. And I know which act it was, because my husband had just come off of temporary duty and then went to another temporary duty, and we just had sex the once, so not only did I just know, but there was only the one time I COULD have gotten pregnant. Temporary duty/TDY is when a service member has a permanent station in one base but has to go to another base for a while, could be a few days, could be a few months. ---
**Author:** ![EvilTOJ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/23 "2011-02-14T08:21:24Z")
We were drunk and doin’ it in the back seat of the Bronco II. We were young, dumb and in luuuuuuv so we skipped certain things. Ahhh memories… ---
**Author:** ![WhyNot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c77e96/32.png) [@WhyNot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WhyNot)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/24 "2011-02-14T13:01:36Z")
> [@DianaG](#): > > Yup. I’m about the most pragmatic, un-'woo’y, least ‘tuned in to my chi’ person you’re likely to meet, and I knew exactly when I got pregnant with my daughter. I \*felt \*it happen, a tiny soft click into place. There was never any doubt in my mind what it signified, and I distinctly remember lying there in the middle of the night thinking “fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.” lol, yes! Exactly, a “tiny soft click” is the perfect way to describe it. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to verify that click, or figure out what it could possibly be. I mean, I know that conception doesn’t happen for at least hours, and more commonly days, from the actual act of intercourse. It takes some time for the sperm to swim up the uterus and into the fallopian tubes to fertilize the egg. So if you have sex on a Friday night, the actual moment of conception is probably when you’re standing in the elevator at work on Monday chatting to your coworker about your weekend. And yet…there’s that “click”, Friday night. What \*is \*it? I have no explanation other than metaphysical ones. That bugs me. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce7236/32.png) [@Mona\_Lisa\_Simpson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mona_Lisa_Simpson)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/25 "2011-02-14T13:17:44Z")
My son’s father and I were not getting along well and hadn’t had sex for the months of January or February. March 13th I am on the phone with my Grandmother (it was her birthday) and the ex started getting frisky with me while I was on the phone. I was ready to tell him to get lost, but I figured what the heck, its been over 3 months, and we got busy after I got off the phone. A few co workers counted on their fingers and blamed the green beer we went out for on St Patricks day a few days later. Nope. The ex said it was the ski weekend we had just before. No… well actually… take your choice, either he is your son, or he was concieved on the ski weekend. (He passed out drunk every night of that vacation) (My son looks just like his father/my ex) I know the day and hour that the deed leading to conception happened. I was so sure that on March 28th, my mother in law’s birthday I refrained from drinking wine. My period was due that day, but I hadn’t had any of my prodomal symptoms and “George” the monthly pimple on my chin hadn’t showed up. My son was born on December 11th. \*Oh and my born in March grandmother is the most fertile woman I know personally, she had 12 pregancies and 11 live births. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/26 "2011-02-14T15:15:32Z")
> [@WhyNot](#): > > lol, yes! Exactly, a “tiny soft click” is the perfect way to describe it. I wonder if anyone has ever tried to verify that click, or figure out what it could possibly be. I’m sure they’d tell us they were all imagining it, us flighty women, who don’t know our own bodies. I’ve actually heard men tell me that there’s no way women could know, it’s impossible. I think most people know I don’t have kids, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t felt that click, and it, too, was right after. Of course in my case it was all “panic ensues” but that’s besides the point. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/27 "2011-02-14T18:08:15Z")
My wife hurt her back a few days after, so it was awhile before we tried again. By the time we did, she was late. ---
**Author:** ![purplehorseshoe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/purplehorseshoe/32/2996_2.png) [@purplehorseshoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehorseshoe)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/28 "2011-02-14T18:22:27Z")
re: all the “soft click” posts… I got myself knocked up when I was in college. I was having plenty of sex with my then-BF, but one - and only one - time, right afterwards, I rolled over and said to him, “Uh-oh. Well, if it’s a boy, we’ll name it after you.” He thought I was kidding. I was not. Never made much sense to me, either - the zygote doesn’t implant immediately, I know that. But, there it is. I _knew._ (And a subsequent trip to the local women’s clinic confirmed what I already knew.) ---
**Author:** ![Lissla\_Lissar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lissla\_Lissar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lissla_Lissar)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2011, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/29 "2011-02-14T19:21:50Z")
We NFP, too. We know exactly when for both times, and both times I’ve argued with my midwife about the dates of conception, and the ultrasound has backed me up. I know when I ovulate. ---
**Author:** ![Toxgoddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Toxgoddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxgoddess)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/30 "2011-02-16T02:49:59Z")
> [@Cub\_Mistress](#): > > Like **DianaG** I felt that soft click that said “pregnant.” I remember saying to myself as I was drifting off to sleep after the first conception “you’re pregnant now” and I was right. . This happened to me too…except in my case, I said to myself, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this…” 9 months later, along came #3. ---
**Author:** ![Toxgoddess](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f08c70/32.png) [@Toxgoddess](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxgoddess)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/31 "2011-02-16T02:53:10Z")
[quote=“Anaamika, post:26, topic:571202”] I’m sure they’d tell us they were all imagining it, us flighty women, who don’t know our own bodies. I’ve actually heard men tell me that there’s no way women could know, it’s impossible. QUOTE] During my 4th pregnancy, my male ob told me there was no way I could feel the baby moving that early. The look on my face must have been eloquent because he then stammered something about since it wasn’t my first child, maybe I did have some idea what was going on. ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/32 "2011-02-16T02:56:31Z")
I don’t really care when as long as I’m in the same room. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/33 "2011-02-16T03:02:50Z")
We’d prefer to say that our daughter was conceived during the blizzard of '82 when we were snowed in for three days. However, a look at the calendar shows that my wife would have had an improbably long pregnancy were that actually the case. Still, it’s a better story than “it was probably that night we had a few drinks in us and did it in the bathroom.” ---
**Author:** ![Sattua](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sattua/32/11906_2.png) [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2011, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/34 "2011-02-16T14:56:42Z")
Hmm. FWIW, when we were trying to conceive, there was one time that I got a mystical feeling that “this is it” and told my husband so. I was wrong. We conceived on the next cycle, when I’d convinced myself it was a bust. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Woo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7c8e57/32.png) [@Dr.Woo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Woo)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/35 "2011-02-17T00:13:13Z")
For me it was my first time having intercourse (lucky me!). It was also the only time for about 18 months, so there is no doubt. March 7, 1969. And yeah, I too knew right away that I was preggers. It wasn’t in any way mystical, I just felt a LOT different right away. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/36 "2011-02-17T00:23:03Z")
Not everybody has sex every day. For us, it was also the only times we didn’t use birth control. Three times with no protection. Three pregnancies. ---
**Author:** ![Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aji_de_gallina/32/260_2.png) [@Aji\_de\_Gallina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aji_de_Gallina)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/37 "2011-02-17T01:01:22Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Not everybody has sex every day. > > For us, it was also the only times we didn’t use birth control. Three times with no protection. Three pregnancies. Dio, I salute you as we share the same record of 3 out of 3. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/38 "2011-02-17T01:23:01Z")
The first was unplanned, but we were new in the relationship and it was every morning and every night, and for lunch on weekends. So no, we don’t knew which was the lucky time. For the pregnancies (miscarriage), it was fairly soon after Ian was born, so we didn’t think it would happen that soon. For the remaining three pregnancies, (Beta-chan, then a miscarriage then DiDi) my wife was tracking her cycle. That damn thing is so accurate, we can reset the clocks to it. ---
**Author:** ![Arglefraster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@Arglefraster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arglefraster)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/39 "2011-02-17T14:43:56Z")
Oddly enough, my daughter is my only pregnancy that I _don’t_ know when exactly I conceived. I had two pregnancies before her, both resulting in miscarriage. We were trying to get pregnant, and I was tracking my fertility, so I knew the conception day both times. After my second miscarriage in a year with no apparent cause, my ob suggested several tests for genetic or hormonal or whatever problems. We were both depressed about the miscarriages and stressed about the idea of going through a bunch of tests, so we agreed to stop trying for a while. I was pregnant again, oh, about six months later. Since we weren’t trying and I wasn’t keeping track of my cycle, I didn’t even know I was pregnant until I was about 2 months along. Side note, I felt complete and utter panic when I found out I was pregnant the third time. Not only did we still not know what caused my previous two miscarriages, since I didn’t know I was pregnant I was drinking beer with dinner, not taking prenatal vitamins, etc. I still find it baffling that the two pregnancies where I did everything right failed, but the “surprise” resulted in a happy, healthy baby. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2011, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202/40 "2011-02-17T16:26:58Z")
I can’t tell you the exact _day_, but I can tell you the exact _time_: 1 AM. Here’s the story: my wife and I had been through an unsuccessful IVF the previous year, and, since she’d been given a less-than-1% chance of ever conceiving naturally, we’d given up on having a baby the old-fashioned way. So, we took foster-adopt classes, settled on the idea of adopting from China, and collected document after document. Meanwhile, my wife’s no longer bothering to take birth control. That August, we only had sex 2 times (after the IVF, the mood just wasn’t there for a while). Both times were “middle of the night urges”, and both times, when I looked at the clock, it was 1 AM. She took the pregnancy test around Sept. 8th that confirmed she was pregnant. I can’t say with 100% accuracy which of the two nights was the actual one-in-a-million shot, but I suspect…well, better spoilerbox it: I suspect it was the night that she was too sleepy to get up and “clean up” in the bathroom. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-did-you-know-the-circumstances-of-your-childs-conception/571202.md?page=3)