# pregnancy **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 1, 2013, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162 "2013-05-01T00:40:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![flatlined](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/eb9ed0/32.png) [@flatlined](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flatlined)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/21 "2013-05-01T05:15:25Z")
I have never been preggy, but I have had a lot of friends suffering during the last month. I agree with everyone else, rant away. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/22 "2013-05-01T05:32:08Z")
> [@April\_R](#): > > I am having a Girl. > Also I really feel guilty complaining when I think about how hard some women try to get pregnant and never do or who lose babies. I feel like a jerk when I realize I have two healthy children and another on the way and I am bitching about back pain. > > Thanks for the sympathy everyone And the last time, you had TWO babies pummeling you from the inside! šŸ™‚ šŸ™‚ ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/23 "2013-05-01T11:30:27Z")
My wife was absolutely miserable during her pregnancies. She still has an occasional nightmare about it. I donā€™t know how anyone survives that last month. As someone once said, a pregnancy takes 8 months and then 12 years. ---
**Author:** ![FairyChatMom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fairychatmom/32/21906_2.png) [@FairyChatMom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FairyChatMom)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/24 "2013-05-01T12:28:48Z")
Thereā€™s something about the last monthā€¦ My pregnancy was overall pretty easy - no morning sickness, no issues, minor discomfort, but generally nothing to slow me down. Till the last month. Itā€™s like she had a growth spurt and an energy injection. She took up gymnastics when she wasnā€™t rearranging my internal organs. We lived in Florida. She was due the end of August. She was born in Sept. I was massive. It was hot. Labor started then stopped, so they had to induce. Good thing she was a cute kid because Iā€™d have sold her to a passing circus in a heartbeatā€¦ šŸ˜› On the other hand, it was funny at work. I was the veteransā€™ advisor at a junior college and I had to cover 3 campuses. My assorted coworkers freaked when I would go to the more remote locations. They wanted phone numbers and contact info - oh, and this was before everyone and his dog had cell phones. They were all sure Iā€™d go into labor at work. Lucky for them, it started at 2AM. šŸ˜ƒ Anyway, enough about me. Hang in there **Apes**! Just remember that in 40 or 50 years youā€™ll get your revenge when your kids will be changing YOUR diapers!!! šŸ˜ƒ ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 12:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/25 "2013-05-01T12:49:58Z")
Lol. Cool story FCM;) ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/26 "2013-05-01T13:32:19Z")
> [@April\_R](#): > > Why canā€™t we just bud like yeast or split our cells in half like amoebas ? Youā€™re in luck ! Dracunculus Labs Inc. has been working on the problem, and we have found a solution ! Now, first you need to find a suitable host to inject your larvae intoā€¦ ---
**Author:** ![Dustin\_the\_Wind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f1d935/32.png) [@Dustin\_the\_Wind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dustin_the_Wind)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/27 "2013-05-01T14:03:44Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > Thereā€™s something about the last monthā€¦ My pregnancy was overall pretty easy - no morning sickness, no issues, minor discomfort, but generally nothing to slow me down. Till the last month. Itā€™s like she had a growth spurt and an energy injection. She took up gymnastics when she wasnā€™t rearranging my internal organs. > > We lived in Florida. She was due the end of August. She was born in Sept. I was massive. It was hot. Labor started then stopped, so they had to induce. Good thing she was a cute kid because Iā€™d have sold her to a passing circus in a heartbeatā€¦ šŸ˜› > > On the other hand, it was funny at work. I was the veteransā€™ advisor at a junior college and I had to cover 3 campuses. My assorted coworkers freaked when I would go to the more remote locations. They wanted phone numbers and contact info - oh, and this was before everyone and his dog had cell phones. They were all sure Iā€™d go into labor at work. Lucky for them, it started at 2AM. šŸ˜ƒ > > Anyway, enough about me. Hang in there **Apes**! Just remember that in 40 or 50 years youā€™ll get your revenge when your kids will be changing YOUR diapers!!! šŸ˜ƒ I remember being about 8-1/2 months pregnant with my younger son (almost exactly 23 years ago!), at work. Had to bring a full bankerā€™s box from underground to third floor. In order to push the floor button on the elevator, I had to balance the box on my tummy. My boss, when he saw me, almost had a baby himself, right on the spot! It made a great shelf. ---
**Author:** ![Silver\_Fire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e4f/32.png) [@Silver\_Fire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silver_Fire)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/28 "2013-05-01T14:13:02Z")
Iā€™m 15 weeks right now. Iā€™ve been in a ā€œthreatened miscarriageā€ state pretty much since I found out on Valentineā€™s Day, with cramping and bleeding and hcg levels that wonā€™t cooperate (and I know, I know, itā€™s not a reliable measure because of the huge range of normal; still, it shouldnā€™t go DOWN, you know?). This is my last baby, my fourth pregnancy with two boys at home and, damn it, I want it to work out (and to be a girl but we wonā€™t know that until October). I canā€™t wait to be in my last few weeks. August is going to be a total bitch, though. I know because my youngest son will turn three two days before this babyā€™s due date so Iā€™ve been that huge in August before. I must be some kind of crazy to go ahead and do it again. ---
**Author:** ![shantih](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f6c823/32.png) [@shantih](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shantih)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/29 "2013-05-01T15:10:57Z")
Preach it, sister! I loved my first pregnancy, with my son, except for the last month. I was in a permanent bad mood in my third, with my daughter (miscarriage inbetween), particularly in the last month. Canā€™t find a comfortable position, can only sleep on my left side, and then only for short bursts before I need to shift around, hot, nothing fits or feels right, even breathing takes on a new and awkward character ā€¦ Iā€™m with the other ladies above, that last month is purely to make you welcome labor and delivery because no matter how unpleasant, it means finally youā€™ll be _done_ with the pregnancy! (And good luck and sticky thoughts to you, **Silver Fire**!) ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/30 "2013-05-01T15:25:41Z")
Weā€™re sort of thinking about the whole forming babby thing - we decided we wouldnā€™t Discuss it until our first anniversary, which is in October. Because he knows, and heā€™s right, that if we talk about it there will be an imaginary baby hanging around. But so, if we decide to go for it, I suppose thereā€™s no point in waiting - Iā€™m 33 - but if we do it and it works soon Iā€™ll be pregnant as fuck in a South Carolina summer. ---
**Author:** ![Zjestika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/8edcca/32.png) [@Zjestika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zjestika)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/31 "2013-05-01T16:14:57Z")
My friend was having one of those fantastic easy pregnancies and I kind of hated her, but now she has 8 weeks left and sheā€™s so tiny that sheā€™s like 20% baby now. By 32 weeks I was just like ā€œHa! Iā€™m a whale, everyone!ā€ but my frame was supporting everything and my baby wasnā€™t protruding that dramatically- it wasnā€™t until about 37 weeks that I started to get crabby about it, and delivered a week early. Wait, maybe I had an easy pregnancyā€¦ No, I didnā€™t. Oh, the endless constipation. You know whatā€™s gross? Metamucil. Ugh. ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/32 "2013-05-01T16:22:12Z")
In _Brave New World_, babies are gestated in bottles. Only someone who has never been pregnant could see that as a feature of a dystopia rather than a utopia! ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/33 "2013-05-01T16:25:33Z")
> [@Silver\_Fire](#): > > Iā€™m 15 weeks right now. Iā€™ve been in a ā€œthreatened miscarriageā€ state pretty much since I found out on Valentineā€™s Day, with cramping and bleeding and hcg levels that wonā€™t cooperate (and I know, I know, itā€™s not a reliable measure because of the huge range of normal; still, it shouldnā€™t go DOWN, you know?). This is my last baby, my fourth pregnancy with two boys at home and, damn it, I want it to work out (and to be a girl but we wonā€™t know that until October). > > I canā€™t wait to be in my last few weeks. > > August is going to be a total bitch, though. I know because my youngest son will turn three two days before this babyā€™s due date so Iā€™ve been that huge in August before. I must be some kind of crazy to go ahead and do it again. Oh man. Hope you feel better soon and everything works out for the best! ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/34 "2013-05-01T16:27:58Z")
> [@artemis](#): > > In _Brave New World_, babies are gestated in bottles. Only someone who has never been pregnant could see that as a feature of a dystopia rather than a utopia! Who wouldnā€™t love a bottle baby ? ---
**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:** [May 1, 2013, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/35 "2013-05-01T17:10:23Z")
Iā€™ve been trying to get pregnant again for a year now. Iā€™ve had three losses including one full-blown miscarriage. Now Iā€™m capping the year off with an anovulatory cycle. Iā€™ve been through the five stages of grieving about it. I havenā€™t stopped at ā€œacceptanceā€ā€¦ I pinball around all of them. Sometimes I just feel sick to my stomach at the thought that I wonā€™t get a second chance to have a childā€¦ a chance to maybe enjoy it this time. To know what Iā€™m doing. To do it ā€œrightā€. A few more years to play with Lego and ride merry-go-rounds. But I fucking pit pregnancy. GOD I HATE IT. I dread it with every fiber of my being. I hate the bloating, the crying, the nausea, the hunger, the cramps, the aches, the sleeplessness, the fear, the exams, the depression, the agoraphobia, the constant peeing, the constipation, and the ever-present oncoming locomotive of labor and delivery. I fucking hated pregnancy and I will hate it again. When I was pregnant two months ago, I had a lot of serious ā€œOH FUCK WHAT THE FUCK HAVE I DONEā€ moments. I really hate pregnancy. ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/36 "2013-05-01T17:21:50Z")
I got a paper cut on my pinky finger today. So I can totally relate to the pain and discomfort youā€™re feeling. /kidding. ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/37 "2013-05-01T17:29:12Z")
> [@Sattua](#): > > But I fucking pit pregnancy. GOD I HATE IT. After a few recent bodily-function glitches, Iā€™ve decided this whole ā€œintelligent meat creatureā€ idea sucks in general. I am SO uploading my consciousness to an android body as soon as the technology becomes available! Or better still, transforming myself into one of those pure energy beings we used to see all the time on _Star Trek_. Reproduction, ingestion, excretion, degenerative aging - who needs any of it? ---
**Author:** ![outlierrn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/outlierrn/32/3005_2.png) [@outlierrn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/outlierrn)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/38 "2013-05-01T18:20:39Z")
> [@artemis](#): > > In _Brave New World_, babies are gestated in bottles. Only someone who has never been pregnant could see that as a feature of a dystopia rather than a utopia! IIRC, they put alcohol in some of them to make sure they had enough dishwashers in the next generation, _thatā€™s_ the dystopian aspect. Best of luck **April R**. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/39 "2013-05-01T19:01:44Z")
What it comes down to is, thereā€™s a biological, evolutionary, adaptive, differential-reproductive-success-enhancing imperative that the conception should be enjoyable. No such thing applies to gestation or the delivery. Pain is natureā€™s way of telling you it doesnā€™t give a damn how you feel. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162/40 "2013-05-01T19:10:15Z")
> [@outlierrn](#): > > IIRC, they put alcohol in some of them to make sure they had enough dishwashers in the next generation, _thatā€™s_ the dystopian aspect. And, they couldā€™ve made them all geniuses, too. But, as Mustapha Mond explains: > [@](#): > > ā€œI was wondering,ā€ said the Savage, ā€œwhy you had them at allā€“seeing that you can get whatever you want out of those bottles. Why donā€™t you make everybody an Alpha Double Plus while youā€™re about it?ā€ > > Mustapha Mond laughed. ā€œBecause we have no wish to have our throats cut,ā€ he answered. ā€œWe believe in happiness and stability. A society of Alphas couldnā€™t fail to be unstable and miserable. Imagine a factory staffed by Alphasā€“that is to say by separate and unrelated individuals of good heredity and conditioned so as to be capable (within limits) of making a free choice and assuming responsibilities. Imagine it!ā€ he repeated. > > The Savage tried to imagine it, not very successfully. > > ā€œItā€™s an absurdity. An Alpha-decanted, Alpha-conditioned man would go mad if he had to do Epsilon Semi-Moron workā€“go mad, or start smashing things up. Alphas can be completely socializedā€“but only on condition that you make them do Alpha work. Only an Epsilon can be expected to make Epsilon sacrifices, for the good reason that for him they arenā€™t sacrifices; theyā€™re the line of least resistance. His conditioning has laid down rails along which heā€™s got to run. He canā€™t help himself; heā€™s foredoomed. Even after decanting, heā€™s still inside a bottleā€“an invisible bottle of infantile and embryonic fixations. Each one of us, of course,ā€ the Controller meditatively continued, ā€œgoes through life inside a bottle. But if we happen to be Alphas, our bottles are, relatively speaking, enormous. We should suffer acutely if we were confined in a narrower space. You cannot pour upper-caste champagne-surrogate into lower-caste bottles. Itā€™s obvious theoretically. But it has also been proved in actual practice. The result of the Cyprus experiment was convincing.ā€ > > ā€œWhat was that?ā€ asked the Savage. > > Mustapha Mond smiled. ā€œWell, you can call it an experiment in rebottling if you like. It began in A.F. 473. The Controllers had the island of Cyprus cleared of all its existing inhabitants and re-colonized with a specially prepared batch of twenty-two thousand Alphas. All agricultural and industrial equipment was handed over to them and they were left to manage their own affairs. The result exactly fulfilled all the theoretical predictions. The land wasnā€™t properly worked; there were strikes in all the factories; the laws were set at naught, orders disobeyed; all the people detailed for a spell of low-grade work were perpetually intriguing for high-grade jobs, and all the people with high-grade jobs were counter-intriguing at all costs to stay where they were. Within six years they were having a first-class civil war. When nineteen out of the twenty-two thousand had been killed, the survivors unanimously petitioned the World Controllers to resume the government of the island. Which they did. And that was the end of the only society of Alphas that the world has ever seen.ā€ > > The Savage sighed, profoundly. > > ā€œThe optimum population,ā€ said Mustapha Mond, ā€œis modelled on the icebergā€“eight-ninths below the water line, one-ninth above.ā€ > > ā€œAnd theyā€™re happy below the water line?ā€ > > ā€œHappier than above it. Happier than your friend here, for example.ā€ He pointed. > > ā€œIn spite of that awful work?ā€ > > ā€œAwful? They donā€™t find it so. On the contrary, they like it. Itā€™s light, itā€™s childishly simple. No strain on the mind or the muscles. Seven and a half hours of mild, unexhausting labour, and then the soma ration and games and unrestricted copulation and the feelies. What more can they ask for? True,ā€ he added, ā€œthey might ask for shorter hours. And of course we could give them shorter hours. Technically, it would be perfectly simple to reduce all lower-caste working hours to three or four a day. But would they be any the happier for that? No, they wouldnā€™t. The experiment was tried, more than a century and a half ago. The whole of Ireland was put on to the four-hour day. What was the result? Unrest and a large increase in the consumption of soma; that was all. Those three and a half hours of extra leisure were so far from being a source of happiness, that people felt constrained to take a holiday from them. The Inventions Office is stuffed with plans for labour-saving processes. Thousands of them.ā€ Mustapha Mond made a lavish gesture. ā€œAnd why donā€™t we put them into execution? For the sake of the labourers; it would be sheer cruelty to afflict them with excessive leisure. Itā€™s the same with agriculture. We could synthesize every morsel of food, if we wanted to. But we donā€™t. We prefer to keep a third of the population on the land. For their own sakesā€“because it takes longer to get food out of the land than out of a factory. Besides, we have our stability to think of. We donā€™t want to change. Every change is a menace to stability. Thatā€™s another reason why weā€™re so chary of applying new inventions. Every discovery in pure science is potentially subversive; even science must sometimes be treated as a possible enemy. Yes, even science.ā€ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pregnancy/657162.md?page=3)