Born in an Elevator/Playing With

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Basic Trope: A pregnant woman enters labour while she's stuck in an elevator, usually meaning that anyone else present is forced to help her give birth.

  • Straight: Alice, who is heavily pregnant, and Bob are in an elevator when it breaks down. While they're waiting for it to restart, Alice's water breaks and she begins to give birth, meaning Bob must deliver the baby.
  • Exaggerated: Alice, Bob, Catherine, Danielle, Erin and Florence are all in an elevator that has broken down. All the women are heavily pregnant. All of them enter labour at the exact same time that the elevator breaks down.
  • Justified:
    • It is almost or on Alice's due date, meaning that she is likely to enter labour at any moment.
    • Alice is already in labour, and this is just one more unfortunate complication.
    • They were on their way to the delivery room, the elevator was the last leg of the journey.
  • Inverted: Alice and Bob have sex in a broken elevator while they're waiting for it to be fixed, during which Alice conceives.
  • Subverted:
    • Bob is riding an elevator when Alice, a heavily pregnant woman, gets on. Bob immediately starts to worry that the elevator is going to break down and Alice is going to enter labour... and the elevator gets to Alice's floor and she steps off without any complications at all.
    • Bob and Alice get on the same elevator. The elevator breaks down. Bob begins to panic that Alice is about to give birth. The elevator is fixed, and Alice gets off without any complications.
  • Doubly Subverted: The next day, Bob and Alice get on the same elevator again. This time, it breaks down. And Alice's water breaks...
  • Parodied:
    • Bob begins to scream and panic like a headless chicken, while Alice calmly and patiently sits down with her back to the wall and begins her breathing exercises.
    • Alice gives birth on an escalator.
    • Break Glass In Case of Hysterical Woman Giving Birth
  • Deconstructed: Labour usually isn't an instant process; although the elevator has broken down and Alice has entered labour, there remains plenty of time for the elevator to be fixed and Alice to be taken to hospital (or at least a better place to give birth) before the baby arrives.
  • Reconstructed: Alice's pregnancy has been fraught with complications and it is essential that she give birth with trained medical personnel present for the health and safety of both mother and infant, making it urgent that she be extracted from the elevator as quickly as possible.
  • Zig Zagged: The elevator shudders, but it makes it to the right floor. Relieved, the doctor marches out of the elevator, but the second he sets foot outside it finally breaks, making Alice and the inexperienced nurses stuck between floors with the doctor shouting instructions at them.
  • Averted: Neither the elevator breaks down nor Alice enters labour.
  • Enforced: "We want this birth scene to be really dramatic!"
  • Lampshaded: "Of all the elevators in this building, I have to get in the dud one with the lady who's about to drop!"
  • Invoked:
    • The 'pregnant woman giving birth in an elevator' scenario is a test that Bob is subjected to in order to see how he copes in a crisis situation.
    • The baby Alice is carrying is rumoured to be The Chosen One and powerful forces opposed to this have sealed Alice in an enclosed space and supernaturally induced labour in hopes of killing both mother and child.
  • Defied: Alice is superstitious and paranoid, and has made a point of avoiding elevators and enclosed spaces during her pregnancy.
  • Discussed: "One of my rules for a happy and quiet life; if I see a pregnant lady get on an elevator, I take the stairs."
  • Conversed: "Oh look, a pregnant woman on an elevator. Wonder how this is gonna turn out."
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