Is she pregnant?

The BBQ Pit
1

I think a co-worker of mine might be faking a pregnancy.

Some background:
An ex-co-worker and I got along quite well during the time he was working with me, and although he was often irresponsible and immature, he could be pretty funny, and we often had lunch or went for after-work drinks together.

About a month before he stropped working there, a young woman started working in his department, and she had quite the crush on him. She would bring him home-cooked lunches, send him overtly sexual emails, and talk constantly to anyone who would listen about how great he was.

He was mostly uninterested in her advances, and was sleeping with a different girl every weekend. But shortly after he no longer worked there, she offered to come to his place to cook dinner, he accepted, and they had sex. Over the next few months, they got together more and more frequently, with her proclaiming her undying love for him and he treating the affair as nothing beyond casual sex. Although I no longer really had anything to do with him, I somehow became her confidante and heard all about their romantic weekends, and her plans and dreams for them.

She was getting more and more attached, and had begun to want a very serious relationship, including wanting him to stop seeing many of his friends, stop some of the less savoury activities he had been involved in, and commit to her completely. He wasn’t overly cooperative, and she was getting increasingly desperate to win his affections. Then she started talking about pregnancy.

First, in mid-July, she told me that she had missed her period. She seemed very concerned and upset, and told me they had not been using condoms, and that she was not on the pill because she is epileptic. I encouraged her to go to the drug store and buy a pregnancy test and some condoms. She reported back to me that the test was negative and that she wouldn’t have unprotected sex with him anymore.

Then, near the end of August, I saw him for the first time since he had left, and he told me that she was pregnant. He said that he’d been to the doctor with her and heard the heartbeat, and that they were already picking out names together. She happened to call on his cellphone (that she had bought for him) at that moment, and she asked to speak to me and she also told me she was pregnant. Over the last month, she and I have had a lot of baby-talks, and the information she’s telling me just doesn’t seem to add up.

She told me that her due date is May 15, which by my calculations would put conception mere days before he told me they’d heard the heart beat.

She told me that the doctor said he wouldn’t need to see her until her second trimester, which seems odd; especially since she’s epileptic which I know is high-risk.

She’s told a number of people that she’s pregnant, but when people ask how far along she is, she gives inconsistent replies. In the course of a day or two she might say anywhere from 5 to 12 weeks.

When a registered nurse that works in my department asked her how she’s balancing her seizure medication, she said her doctor hadn’t mentioned anything about that.

There are other various little odd things that just sort of don’t feel quite right to me, and it’s led me to the following:

  1. She’s not very bright, and her doctors have explained how things work and the risks involved and advised her how to handle it but she wasn’t able to hear them over the dancing cats singing “meow meow meow meow” in her otherwise empty head, in which case for the love of god how is she ever going to be able to look after a baby? or

  2. Her doctors are complete idiots who don’t even know how a regular pregnancy works, let alone a high-risk one, which is just plain scary; or

  3. She’s faking it. It seems really weird that she doesn’t know her due date, or what complications she might expect from her epilepsy, or even remotely how far along she is on a given day. Given how badly she wants him to commit to her, a baby might seem to her like a smart way to “trap” him; or

  4. It’s none of my business.

Now #1, 2, and 3 all make me kind of mad, which is why I’ve put this in the pit, and I know my best option is #4, but I’m finding it difficult for a couple of reasons. First, she talks to me about the baby a lot, and I don’t really want to be rude, and also, I am actually a little worried about her well-being.

Does it strike anyone else as strange, too?

2

How do you fake this? Put alarm clocks in unusual places? :dubious:

3

Dude, you realize that if she’s not pregnant, her lover has nothing to worry about, right?

All he needs to do is refrain from making any kind of commitment (marriage, support agreement, etc.) until and unless she clearly is going to have his baby.

And if there’s any doubt at all whether she might be pregnant, and if there’s any doubt at all whether he wants her to be pregnant, he should definitely NOT be having unprotected sex with her. No point walking into a trap because he thinks he’s already in it.

That said, I really can’t figure out how she would have faked a doctor’s visit and listening to a fetal heartbeat.

4

Well I agree that it’s probably not any of your business (meaning, not anything you should be stressing over) but if the guy claims he was at the doctor, and heard the heartbeat, that’s about all you need to know. Maybe she’s not all that bright, maybe she misunderstands stuff, maybe she deliberately screws with your head. She says she’s pregnant, he says he has heard proof, what more is there to worry about?

5

DeVena, That’s about the only way you’d hear a heart beat 4 days after conception, as far as I can tell.

Seriously though, I don’t mean to suggest she is trying to fool her doctor, I only meant that I wonder if she’s not possibly lying to the father. He is known for telling strange lies (he told us all once that his stepfather had died, only to have him actually die about 5 months later catching him in his lie), so I could see him saying he’d heard the heartbeat to show how responsible and involved he was being. I apologize for being unclear on that.

And yes, Kimstu, I do realize those things. To be honest, I’m not overly concerned about her jerking him around, I just wondered whether I’m a bit crazy for doubting her word.

Again, I apologize for not being clear on the fact that I do not believe anybody’s heard any heartbeats.

Oh, and I’m not a dude. :slight_smile:

6

Another thing to consider is that she isn’t lying about the pregnancy, but lied about having epilepsy. Not being able to take birth control sure makes it a lot easier to “accidentally” get pregnant. It also would make sense why she doesn’t seem to know anything about regulating her meds during the pregnancy. I have a genetic blood clotting disorder, and I cannot take the Pill. Were I to get knocked up, I’d be damned sure I knew every minute detail of how every single thing I did would effect my pregnancy, and I’d be hightailing my pregnant ass to a specialist in high-risk pregnancies.

She also may have started out faking the pregnancy, and he got her knocked up in the meantime, leading to the various due dates she’s been telling. Honestly, it sounds as if they’re both a little fucked in the head.

Thank you, however, for the visual of “the dancing cats singing ‘meow meow meow meow’ in her otherwise empty head”. I shall cherish that forever, as it’s a quite apt description of many people I know.

7

Well, no but you probably could a couple of months after conception and in the early stages of pregnancy there can be a lot of wiggle room around conception dates. My SIL had her due date pushed back twice for a total of 6 weeks because of funny figuring.

Also, not all women miss their first couple of periods when pregnant, and not all women test positive on home pregnancy tests - one of my girlfriends took about 4 - all negative - 2 days later Dr. confirmed she was pregnant.

Finally, regarding the math - lets say she was pregnant in the middle of July as she originally thought, but had dismissed that because of the negative test - and thought she was pregnant around the middle of August - that puts the due date around the right time, and she could actually have been 6 weeks pregnant at that time.

I dunno. Personally, I would put my cards firmly in the “None of my business” category and if you’re really dying to know, watch for a bump under her tops.

8

mmmmmm… bumps under tops…

9

Pardon me, Elret, but you sound like a nosey busy body to me and maybe you should just mind your own fucking business. Am I the only one that noticed the contradiction here? How the hell would you know he wasn’t interested in her advances if you mainly had nothing to do with him? Apparently he must have been interested if they were knocking boots. Perhaps you wish he would have picked you? And if your source of information is her then I doubt she would be telling you of all these dreams only to say later to you “But he’s mostly uninterested in my advances”. Somehow became her confidante? Tell the truth you nosey bitch. You sure your name isn’t Linda Tripp?

The correct answer is: #4

M’kay?

10

It’s no win for you all the way around to get involved. She may be fooling him, but at some point the poo’s going to hit the fan anyway if she’s not actually pregnant. On the off chance she is pregnant, and if they’ve been doing it regularly it a possibility, if you cast doubt on it, you will be seen by your entire
peer group as an awful person.

She is or she isn’t. The truth will out. You don’t need to get involved.

11

I’m sorry. I don’t see a contradiction, I think maybe the parts you cut from my OP in your quote clarify the time line:

See, I was friends with him while he worked in my office, and during that time he told me in no uncertain terms that he wished she would back off. Several months after he left I was no longer really hearing much from him, and it was during the time after he left that she, completely unsolicited by me, began emailing and calling me to chat about her love life.

But you’re right, I agree it’s not my business, and I probably shouldn’t have posted this at all. I really hadn’t given it much thought til the nurse raised questions about the risks involved due to her epilepsy, and it got me overthinking. I don’t bring it up with her, and I will have to find a polite way to change the subject when she brings it up.

I really am sorry I came across to you that way, though.

12

I was actually the last to think of it, actually. Most of my other coworkers who she’s told have been speculating all along that she was maybe up to something. But yuck, I can see very plainly how ugly and gossipy that sounds and that really hasn’t been my intention and I do plan to change the subject when it’s brought up again. I really mostly wanted to know if the bits of the story that don’t feel right to me made sense to others, and it seems to so I must just be an overly suspicious person.

13

She’s probably full of crap.

And it’s not your problem.

However, the one thing that would give me pause is if she turned out to be pregnant but didn’t go to the doctor for the middle twelve weeks. That’s when they test for gestational diabetes. That’s when they test for certain birth defects. Even without those, prenatal care is important all through one’s pregnancy. No doctor would give her a free pass for the middle of her pregnancy.

It’s a non-issue if she’s not pregnant, but if she turns out to be, my last bit of butting-in would be to strongly, STRONGLY encourage her to follow her doctor’s schedule of visits.

14

If you’re asking what you should do, I think you should tell Her, whatever her name is, that this is not your problem and you don’t want to be her mother-confessor any more.

After you follow Cranky’s suggestion, of course. Pre-natal care is, indeed, crucial. But other than that, don’t let her draw you any further into this.

15

It’s probably not any of ‘your business’ in the sense of your doing something, Elret, but I don’t see how you can help wondering since this woman has piled confidences onto you. And I don’t see how your posting to ask input was in any way inappropriate either. (It could have fit in various forums but that’s a minor thing.) Nothing warranted the bile Richard Head spewed out in any case.

Given your deeper-background knowledge of the situation, the story sounds hinky to me too. It sounds like this woman has some pesky problems quite beyond a possible pregnancy. Your plan of politely discouraging confidences sounds like a winner. Don’t worry overmuch about how to change the subject; just do it, even if it sounds jarring to you. (Practice selective deafness.) You’re both at work after all. It isn’t the place to dissect Springer situations so you don’t owe her your ear.

The situation may become very nasty but you–and your employers–don’t want within a country mile of it. The law’s very distinct about what can and can’t happen in the workplace when it comes to uterine contents. Unless she files for maternity leave, or there’s a suspicion she’s misusing sick leave, her workplace must be officially blind to even the possibility that she might be pregnant. A phony pregnancy? ::shudders:: A nightmare, that one.

Opt for the corny old Hogan’s Heroes/Sgt. Schultz defense: “I know nothing, nothing!” You’d have to be dead not to be curious but just back away sloooowly, make no sudden moves…

Veb

16

Well, something is probably screwy. If she missed a period in mid-July, that would generally put conception at the beginning of July. My friends and family with kids have never gotten their first OB appointment until twelve weeks, which fits with what she told you, but in August when this guy told you he’d heard the heartbeat, she only would have been 8 weeks or so, well before when her doctor said he needed to see her.

Somebody, somewhere, is full of shit about something. I’m leaning toward him being the culprit here, frankly. I mean, he’s the one you know has a history of lying about shit and his story doesn’t hang together at all. She might also be full of shit, but her story seems fairly plausible. If she wasn’t pregnant when she missed that period in July, but got pregnant her next cycle, her due date of mid-May works out. You typically don’t get your first OB visit until 12 weeks, the second trimester, and her being epileptic doesn’t make her automatically high risk. (She might be, depending on how well-controlled her epilepsy is and what kinds of meds she’s on and other factors, but it’s not a safe automatic assumption.) Sometimes doctors do shift due dates, as others have pointed out. And let’s face it, some people can’t tell you what time it will be twelve hours from now, so I have no problem believing that someone has no idea how many weeks along they are.

17

Not to mention that if she was pregnant at the beginning of July, by the time the stated due date of May 15 rolls around she’d be almost 11 months into it.

18

song. stuck. in. head. GaaaAaaAaahhhh!!

can I bore a hole in my head and remove it from my cerebral cortex in time for the weekend?

19

I also find it highly suspect that her doctor would refuse to see her until her second trimester. For one thing, pregnancy changes how your medication is metabolized. If she is indeed high-risk, her doctor might want to see her every month as the baby develops to modify her medication and make sure enough remains in her blood stream as her blood flow increases due to the baby. As an epilleptic myself, my doctor has told me to let him know if I ever want to get pregnant (or ever get pregnant despite the birth control I’m taking) because, while not all epillepsy patients are actually “high risk,” you do sort of have to watch them more for reasons stated above. Also, many doctors do genetic testing in people with epillepsy, mainly because the cause of epillepsy in most patients isn’t known, so those doctors who do recommend testing can warn you if they think that something may be wrong with the baby due to your epillepsy.

Also, as an epilleptic I am using hormonal birth control because of the disorder (though epillepsy varies from person-to-person; however in women hormonal epillepsy is often caused by the dip in progesterone, which is frequently regulated by doctors with hormones). Anyway, it’s very possible that she’s being truthful here, though much of hormonal epillepsy is actually controlled by birth control.

Regardless of who’s lying, I don’t think the guy has a responsibility to get married, though he does have a responsibility to his kid.

Also, I agree with the people who have responded saying that this woman is putting you in an awkward position, and there’s really no way you can help her.

20

Elret, as for whether or not I think your suspicions are grounded, I believe they are. Something is screwy (so to speak - no pun intended), but I also agree that in the future, changing the subject and staying uninvolved is the way to go.

I wanted to add that while I’m not sure what Richard Head’s problem is, (based on the response he did give) the shortened version of his name is pretty apropos, no?