Don’t Tell Me Your Pregnancy Horror Stories!

I have already expounded on the universal law of pregnancy gravitation, which states that all people in any given universe gravitate toward the only pregnant lady in the room, even if they’ve been ignoring her for the seven years before she started showing. They want to touch and feel, to experience your pregnancy for themselves. Isn’t that sweet?

However, there is a far more insidious reason. They have come from far and wide, traveling both ways uphill in the snow, to enlighten you. You are about to become the victim of the PREGNANCY HORROR STORY.

You’ve heard them:

“My daughter was in labor for five days. After that she was just so tired, they had to deliver the baby with forceps, and he had these paddle marks on his head for months! Luckily, she was in a coma for weeks, so she didn’t notice.”

“When my niece was in labor, she was on her way to the hospital when there was an eighty car pileup on the freeway. The taxi driver tried to deliver the baby, but it was a footling breech. They had to life-flight her to the hospital!”

“The doctor told our son that his wife was carrying twins, but it turned out that it was just one baby with two heads.”

“When my wife was in labor, we had to walk five miles, uphill, through the snow, both ways to get to the hospital.”

ARGHHHH!

Strangers, unfortunately, are not the only ones to get in on the act. Basic pregnancy survival skills include avoidance of any and all family gatherings scheduled during the months that you are actually showing. Female relatives, especially distant female relatives, are the most dangerous pregnancy predators (the mother-in-law is a special case, discussed previously).

Distant female relatives feel that it is their duty to inform you of the entire pregnancy history of the extended family. This will, undoubtedly, include large numbers of pregnancy horror stories, because you have no real need to hear about the numerous completely normal pregnancies and perfectly pristine babies that your clan has managed to produce. But you desperately need to know all the bad things that happen to women in your family. That way you can prevent them, right?

Being rude to the old biddies is probably out of the question, since someday you may actually run into them again. So you have to take a sneakier approach. Nod solemnly while the first story runs its course (you don’t have to listen, after all. You just need to know approximately when it’s over). Then it’s your turn.

If the offender is a member of the older generation (and it usually is), they have probably forgotten that this is America, in the 21^st century. We have doctors, hospitals, and a vanishingly low obstetric mortality rate. Bravely stick out your chin and announce that you will accept whatever risks are involved, because you want the child so very, very badly. They will all be in tears, and while their eyes are welled up, run for it.

If the offender is younger and should know better, try this:

“I know what you mean. My husband and I don’t often talk about this, but this isn’t our first pregnancy. That ended rather badly…” Tell them the absolute worst scenario that your hormone-addled brain can manage.

If you know there’s a family event coming up, you and your friends can have a blast compiling your story. Practice it in front of a mirror. You have to look sad.

For future reference, remember this: don’t ever walk up to a pregnant woman and tell her a pregnancy horror story. Tell her toddler horror stories instead. They’re good for years, not just months, of nightmares.

Send this to the person bothering you today!

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