A doctor once told an obese woman she was pregnant, and she tried to beat the hell out of him. He was a small, frail old guy, and she was swinging at him for what she thought was an insult. He hadn’t called her anything. He just told her she was pregnant.
Same doctor, different patient, another day. He told a woman the news, and she said, “But I’ve never had real sex. ” He walked over to the window and started staring outside. She asked what he was doing.
He said, “The last time this happened, a new star lit up the sky over Bethlehem. ”
I work in an ER, and I asked a similar question last week. I asked one of the attendings how you break the news to a sixteen-year-old girl. He said, “Come with me and find out.
” So we walked into the room. Sixteen-year-old girl, grandmother sitting right next to her. First thing he says is, “Your results are back. Do you mind if your family is here when we talk about them?
” Protip from someone who learned it the hard way: always say you mind. She didn’t. He told her. She immediately started crying.
The look her grandmother gave her said a thousand words, and all of them were profanity. Not five minutes later, her mom came in screaming, cursing, threatening just about everything you can imagine. Security had to escort her out. All in all, it was a memorable way to witness my first unwanted pregnancy reveal.
My grandmother worked at the medical clinic on an army base during World War II. She sometimes got to deliver the news that a soldier’s wife was pregnant. She told one young woman, and the woman replied, “But that’s impossible. My husband has been overseas for more than a year.
” My grandmother assured her she was definitely pregnant and asked if she’d had sexual relations with anyone else recently. The woman said, “Well, yes, but you can’t get pregnant with nobody but your husband. ” The poor girl genuinely had no idea. Here’s one that hits close to home.
My mom nearly died giving birth to her first child. The doctors were so worried about her health that they told my parents they couldn’t have any more kids for the foreseeable future. Five years later, they gave the go-ahead. The second birth didn’t go perfectly either, and she had to get her tubes tied.
There were other medical problems on top of that. A little more than two years pass, and they’re happy with their little family, but my mother starts feeling sick again. It lingers. They think it’s a bad cold.
Then she starts craving ice. She only ever craved ice when she was pregnant. Her belly starts growing, and she’s pretty sure she’s pregnant. But this is impossible because her tubes are tied.
Right? She goes to the doctor who performed the surgery and tells him she believes she’s pregnant. He disagrees entirely. He refuses to believe it.
He runs all sorts of tests trying to figure out what’s wrong, but my mother is insistent. Finally the doctor says, “Fine. I’ll give you a pregnancy test. But when it comes back negative, you have to pay for it.
If it comes back positive, I’ll pay for it. ” It came back positive. The doctor walked into the room and muttered, “Well, you’re seven months along. ” My mother responded with a classy “I know.
” Apparently, when you get your tubes tied, every year after the first one adds a one percent chance of becoming pregnant. There was a two percent chance of me existing. Doctors in med school had bets going that I didn’t exist. I once admitted a woman who was pregnant and didn’t know it.
She simply wouldn’t accept it. She was in denial in a seriously strange way. I was on my psychiatry rotation, so she was admitted to obstetrics for observation, but with our team following. She thought we were performing unnecessary surgery on her when we did the ultrasound.
She didn’t believe she was delivering even while she was in active labor. She was in complete denial, having delusional thoughts. After she gave birth, she refused to accept she had a child. The ministry had to adopt the baby.
It was a very distressing case. To my knowledge, she has never accepted that the pregnancy happened. I went with my friend to the ER once because she was having issues. I offered to step out of the room when the doctor came back in, but she told me to sit tight.
Fine, whatever. The doctor tells her she’s pregnant. She denies ever having sex. She says, “That’s impossible.
My boyfriend and I only did it once, and he pulled out. ” The doctor had to explain to her how that’s not safe at all while I sat in the chair with my face in my palms. My wife was three days late on her period. I was the one who noticed, not her.
I bought her a pregnancy test, and she took it. I remember we were standing in the hallway of our first apartment together, and she was watching the results. I placed my hands on her shoulders, looked into her eyes, and told her, “You are pregnant. It is twins.
Fraternal twins, a boy and a girl. And the girl will come out first. ” She told me if I knocked her up with twins, she would knock my head off. By the time I finished speaking, a faint line appeared, positive for pregnant.
A few weeks later she was feeling sick, so we went to the ER. The pregnancy was confirmed, and they did an ultrasound. In a thick Caribbean accent, the ultrasound tech told her, “It’s tweens. Looksie, tweens.
” She didn’t understand him at first. I did. I thought about running. I didn’t.
Two months later it was confirmed they were fraternal. Two months after that, it was confirmed Baby A was a girl and Baby B was a boy. They came six weeks early. It was a tough pregnancy that ended with an emergency C-section.
The doctor pulled my daughter out first, then my son. I predicted the test result, the amount, the genders, the type, and the order of birth before I even had confirmation my wife was pregnant. I’d be a rich man right now if pregnancy betting were a real thing. ER nurse here.
A lady comes in saying she’s pregnant, but she has vaginal bleeding. Pregnancy test comes back negative. The doc asks her why she thought she was pregnant. She says, “I was having cravings for chocolate ice cream, and the last time that happened was when I was pregnant.
” Not exactly what you asked for, but I thought I’d share. I went to the doctor for a urinary tract infection a few years back. I told the male nurse that’s what I figured it was. I had to take a pregnancy test due to procedure.
Hadn’t had sex in months, so I wasn’t really worried. The nurse came back, and I imagine he picked up on my demeanor and sense of humor, because his first words were, “Well, the good news is you don’t have a UTI. But you are pregnant. ” I’m sure I turned ghost white, even though I knew it wasn’t possible.
After about thirty seconds of me thinking things over, he finally said, “I’m kidding. You actually know your body very well. You do in fact have a UTI, and you are not pregnant. ” I laughed.
I wasn’t mad. I breathed a sigh of relief. It’s just one of those things where someone in a position of authority tells you something and you go along with it because they’re in a position you’re not. I still laugh about it to this day.
And I still don’t want to be pregnant. I took a pregnancy test once, and I was bawling my eyes out because I was so nervous about being knocked up. During the blood test, the nurse said, “So, are you gonna keep it if you’re pregnant? ” with a big smile on his face.
I just cried some more. Good news was I wasn’t pregnant. I hope this thread develops. It’s interesting already.
To make this not such a waste of a comment, I’ll reference one of the best ways I’ve heard of a parent finding out the daughter was pregnant. Target sent coupons based on purchases made with their Target card. A father filed a complaint with his local store for coupons that were sent to his young daughter for prenatal vitamins, lotions, and the like. It turned out she was pregnant but hiding it from daddy.
Target knew before he did based on her purchases. The dad withdrew the complaint, but it raised issues with personalized marketing. Not a doctor, but I still thought my story was pretty interesting. I called one of the only agents that my insurance covered.
They said they couldn’t see me for like two months. I asked if they could call in a prescription for my birth control pills while I waited for my appointment. The lady refused, saying that because they hadn’t seen me in six months, they couldn’t do that. I pitched a fit, but to no avail.
The day before my appointment, I took an at-home pregnancy test, and it came up positive. So the next day, walking into the office, I pretty much knew I was knocked up. I got into the exam room, and the doctor came in. She said, “So you made an appointment for an exam to get birth control pills.
” I said, “Yeah, been waiting two months. ” She answered, “I’m sorry. We always get so backed up. I know it takes forever sometimes to get one.
” I said, “Yeah, well, I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant now, so can we test for that instead? ” The doctor got this weird look on her face, asked for a urine sample, and came back ten minutes later looking sheepish and saying, “Yep, you’re pregnant. ” For the record, I don’t blame getting pregnant on the doctor. That was my stupid move.
Still, I thought the dialogue I had with the doctor was really funny. Volunteer in an ER. I had the privilege of seeing a very obese woman admitted with severe vaginal discharge and pain. Turns out she was in labor and never knew she was pregnant.
She insisted she just hadn’t had periods because of some thyroid condition. It boggles my mind that she didn’t know. When they informed her she was pregnant, her response was, “No way in hell. ” Followed seven hours later by her giving birth to a baby girl.
I went to the emergency room for an emergency, and as I was waiting for the nurse to come into my room, there were other women in the rooms around me. They asked for a urine sample because they have to check for pregnancy prior to surgery. The nurse walked in, looked at me, and said, “Is this the pregnant one? ” I had a silent panic attack.
I couldn’t move or speak. My mind was screaming. The nurse looked at the chart again and said, “Wrong room,” and left. No apologies.
Not a doctor, but this reminded me of a pet peeve of mine. I’m female, and I’m sick of having every little cold or disease suddenly become a factor of “are you pregnant? ” I traveled on a plane and a few days later got sick from travel stress and everything. My dad’s first reply was, “Are you pregnant?
” Yes, completely ignore the fact that I didn’t get home until four a. m. , flying on two different planes, stressed and upset, breathing in everybody else’s diseases for multiple hours. Couldn’t possibly be that.
Still not pregnant. If a female in your life is sick, please don’t automatically assume pregnancy. It gets old fast. Had to cancel a woman in pre-op because her pregnancy test came back positive.
I told her, “I have good news and bad news. The bad news is we can’t do your surgery today. The good news is you’re pregnant. ” Her response was dark: “Neither of those is good news.
”
One Christmas when I was nineteen, my now mother-in-law got it in her head that I was knocked up. I had recently gone up a few cup sizes, but I was not pregnant. She would not shut up about it. She kept pulling me aside and telling me she would raise the baby.
I was about ready to hit her. I was so humiliated. It was Christmas, and it totally ruined the night. My mom was so pissed when I told her.
Not a doctor, but a few years ago one told me I was pregnant. At the time, I had just finished crying about something that doesn’t seem all that important anymore, and I was also in pain and feeling pretty miserable. The doctor left, came back, sat down in a chair, and said very seriously, “Well, happy freaking birthday. You’re pregnant.
” I replied, “For I am a teenage virgin who has never seen a penis. ” I actually laughed way harder than the situation called for, but I was pretty damn stressed at the time, and I gave a total of zero cares. They probably thought I was crazy or a liar. I asked them to run another test.
They called to say negative a week later. I practically skipped out of the office and called to tell my mom I was pregnant, laughing all the while. Needless to say, she was not amused. I started calling myself the Virgin Mary.
Three years and counting, and my Jesus spawn is yet to show its golden crown. Not a doctor, but my cousin got pregnant when she was fourteen, and everyone was very unhappy. So we’re sitting at the family table, and my aunt says, “How did you get pregnant? ” She said, “I dunno.
” To which I responded, “I know how. ” Her boyfriend, in a smartass tone, responded, “You don’t know. ” I said, “Yeah, I do. You screwed her and didn’t put on a rubber.
” He tried to deny it. So I said, “Fine. Then she screwed you. ” Apparently stating the obvious was not the best decision.
Not a doctor, but I have a pregnancy story from a pharmacy assistant colleague. My friend, we’ll call her R, was working the register in her first week of work when a young lady came in and asked how much emergency contraception costs, the morning-after pill. R told her it was about twenty-five dollars. Later the same young lady came up to the register with a pregnancy test.
R asked her if she wanted the emergency pill and explained that the test is not the same thing. The girl responded, “I know. But I only have ten dollars. ” What did not compute.
A friend of mine started having terrible cramps one night and ended up going to see a doctor in the morning with a friend she was supposed to go out for breakfast with. The nurse checked her and made her take a test just in case, even though she’d never skipped a period. She was mortified when told she was pregnant. The nurse asked her what she wanted to do.
She replied that she’d have to talk with her boyfriend. The nurse went to get a doctor because the cramps were still not normal. He came in, checked her briefly, looked nervous, and left without a word while my friend was freaking out a bit. He came back with two paramedics.
She was in labor. She gave birth to a beautiful healthy boy later that day. She had just come back from working four months in France, eating often in restaurants, so she didn’t really worry about having put on a few pounds. She regularly takes pregnancy tests now.
Not a doctor, but my grandmother was pregnant with her sixth child, and the baby died. They had to do an operation to take it out. A few weeks later, my grandma, just getting over the death of her unborn baby, told my granddad and the doctors that she thought she was still pregnant. They kept telling her she wasn’t, that it was just her being upset over losing a baby.
They had operated to take the baby out, so they wouldn’t look. They just told her to mourn and accept that the baby was gone. Fast forward to a month later when her water breaks, and they operate on her again to find that she had been expecting twins and no one knew. When the first one died, they didn’t realize there was another one hidden.
Everyone, especially my granddad, apologized for not believing her. My nan was pregnant with twins, but the only one they knew about died, and out popped my uncle a month later to the surprise of everyone other than her.