From: rxh6@po.CWRU.Edu (Randall Holt)
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban
Subject: Re: Male Pregnancies
Date: 15 Oct 1992 16:53:12 GMT
Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio (USA)
NNTP-Posting-Host: slc5.ins.cwru.edu


starfish@stein.u.washington.edu (Sarah Skovronsky) wrote:
 
>trif@bike.rad.washington.edu (To Run In Fear) writes:
 
>>In article rxh6@po.CWRU.Edu (Randall Holt) writes:
>>  ObReallyHappenedUL - A nurse I worked with once came into work, in a state 
>>  of
>>  partial shock, as her embarassingly overweight daughter had just given birth
>>  to a 9-pounder that (so she claims) she didn't know she was carrying.
 
>Do you mean the mother didn't know the girl was pregnant or the girl didn't
>know she was carrying a child?  (Kind of hard to believe.  Read Stephen King's
>"Carrie" for some insights into the latter.)
 
>This was also the plot (part of the plot, at least) of an episode of the old
>TV comedy/drama "E/R."  The girl was taken to the emergency room complaining
>of "gas pains."  Quote from mother:  "She eats the wrong stuff.  See how fat
>she is?"
 
>>MoreUL:  When I was in high school, the story went around that a basketball
>>player from another school had just given birth on the court shortly after
>>she disrupted the game by going into labor, not ever having known she was
>>pregnant.  Possible, I suppose---there was a girl who was in two of my 
>>classes whom I did not know was pregnant (she sat next to me in one of those
>>classes!) until someone told me one day that she wasn't in class because she
>>had had her baby the night before.  The baby was a month premature, and she
>>tended to wear baggy clothing, but she sure never looked pregnant.
 
>That's not too surprising to me.  Evidently a relation of mine (who was
>tall, thin, model-like) didn't look pregnant at all for most of her 9 months.
>(This from other female relatives in the family.)
 
OK. I admit that it's much more likely that an expectant mother get away
with hiding the truth from others than from herself, seeing as how cessation
of cyclic monthly inconveniences is one of the few, if not only, advantages 
to pregnancy. At the time this happened, this was the very first question 
from me to the grandmother/nurse that I worked with. She admitted it as the 
very first question that she asked her daughter, who claimed that her periods
were very light to the point of non-existance when she was on the pill (oh yeah
did I forget to mention that she was on the pill - albeit unsusccesfully ?).
If so, it might, just might, be possible to maintain the self-delusion. 
 
When recounting this tale years later over a glass of port, my lady-friend 
suggested that it was equally, if not more, possible that the 'surprised' 
mother _knew_ what was happening and did it 'cause she wanted a baby and her 
husband didn't. And that she maintained a front of personal oblivion in order 
to avoid marital squabble. Of course, my non-devious mind would never have 
suggested this scenario of duplicitous action.
 
-- 
Randall W. Holt - rxh6@cwru.po.edu     |   
Dept. Radiology MetroHealth Hosp.      | 	- Bibo ergo sum
Dept. Biomedical Engineering, CWRU     |    	
(216) 778-8296                         |	
Newsgroups: alt.folklore.urban