But I Can't Be Pregnant: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* In the last issue of the [[Hentai]] ''[[Boys Empire]]'', {{spoiler|Hitomi}} finds out she's pregnant. {{spoiler|She's all of [[Squick|twelve]], and this is her first ovulation. She had no way of knowing until it was too late. (Note that this is possible in real life as well, although the odds of miscarriage are higher.)}}

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* In ''The Great Ten'', this is part of Mother of Champions' backstory. She was incredulous when she discovered she was pregnant, for a number of reasons - one, because her husband had recently left her due to her inability to conceive, and two, because she was visibly pregnant the day after her drunken one-night stand. As it turns out, she'd developed a special, ahem, [[Explosive Breeder|gift]], giving birth to twenty five boys days later.

 

== [[Film]] ==

'''Doctor''': Then you can be pregnant. }}

 

* Examples from [[The Bible]]: Abraham and Sarah in the book of Genesis, where Sarah didn't believe it at first when Abaraham revealed that God had told her she'd be pregnant, as she was past childbearing age. Subverted with the Virgin Mary in the synoptic Gospels, since ''she'' knew beforehand that she'd be the mother of Christ, but Joseph [[Mistaken for Cheating|suspects her of infidelity]] until an angel shows up to personally set him straight. There's also the infertility example with Elizabeth and Zechariah, parents of John the Baptist. Here it's Zechariah who utters the "but that's impossible" line. He's struck with dumbness until the child is born as punishment.

* Janette Oke's ''Prairie Romance'' series, starting with ''Love Comes Softly'', develops a huge clan of children under the care and guidance of main character Marty and her husband (Davis?). Several books down the line, after Oke had "officially" finished the series, the series starts back up with Marty realizing that she is again pregnant... and thinking it beyond embarrassing that her daughter will be younger than several of her grandchildren.

* In [[Robert A. Heinlein]]'s ''[[Friday (novel)|Friday]]'', the titular protagonist is sterile by permanent (but reversible) surgery, and is therefore extremely surprised to discover that she's expecting during a long interstellar voyage. It turns out that {{spoiler|her employers pulled a fast one on her, implanting the embryo she was supposed to deliver to a wealthy couple in her rather than keeping it in a stasis capsule. She concludes from this that they plan to [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|kill her]] at the end of her mission, and decides to jump ship early. She ends up raising the child as her own.}}

 

* Charlotte Ross' [[Reality Subtext|real life pregnancy]] was written into the 11th season of ''[[NYPD Blue]]'', despite her character's being established as infertile due to complications from a teen pregnancy. This was a rather mild retcon, revealed as her doctors telling her it would be ''almost'' impossible for her to get pregnant.

* Delenn's pregnancy in ''[[Babylon 5]]'' was thought to be impossible, due to her hybrid biology. [[Word of God]] states that Sheridan was aware a child ''was'' possible, but wasn't sure if the future had been changed, and, if it had been changed, if the circumstances that led to the child were still possible. Time travel is tricky that way.

* In ''[[FlashForward]]'', Janis sees in her flash-forward that she is pregnant. She can't believe this as she is a lesbian. Eventually she does become pregnant by {{spoiler|having sex with Demetri}}.

* ''[[Married... with Children]]'' subverted this when a deceased relative's will stipulates that any family member that conceives a new child will get a $500,000 inheritance. Al and Peg naturally go for it, ''but'' Peg doesn't want to pregnant. She just wants regular sex, so she secretly takes birth control. Al finds out eventually and gets his revenge by faking Peg's home pregnancy test for a positive result. Peg goes into this mode, but Al twists the knife further by saying another relative beat them to the inheritance and reminds her of everything she went through with Kelly and Bud (morning sickness, weight gain and diaper changes). Peg effectively [[Goes Mad From the Revelation]], while Al is gleeful.

 

* In the ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' supplement ''Time of Thin Blood'', it's revealed that fifteenth-generation vampires can accidentally or intentionally reactivate various bodily functions temporarily—including the reproductive system, enabling them to produce offspring with humans.

** The [[Werewolf: The Apocalypse]] adventure ''Rage Across the Heavens'' largely revolves around a werewolf cub born of two supposedly infertile Metis werewolves (the parents are both offspring of two werewolves, rather than one werewolf and either a human or a wolf).

** [[Changeling: The Lost|Fetches]] are infertile as well, being magical constructs. Under certain exceptional circumstances, however, they may produce offspring. Fifty percent chance it's a nightmarish thing of evil, fifty percent chance it's mostly normal but with some sort of [[Ambiguous Disorder]] and with blood that poisons the True Fae.

 

* Played with in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty|Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty,]]'' when Rose tells Jack she's pregnant but {{spoiler|it's part of a surreal sequence of events where you can't trust anything that's happening}}. Also, it's possible she can't be pregnant because {{spoiler|she might not actually exist}}. It turns out she is, and, obviously, she does, but the whole of ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'' was such a [[Mind Screw]] that it takes until ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots|the fourth game]]'' for any of this to be clear.

 

* [http://twokindscomic.com/archive/?p=543 Finally confirmed] [[Longest Pregnancy Ever|after nearly four years of hints]]: In ''[[Twokinds]]'', where (as a result of literal [[Deus Ex Machina]]) feline Keidrian Flora is pregnant with human Trace's child. Though it's later implied that the real Deus Ex Machina was the lack of such hybrid pregnancies up to now (i.e. Ephemural allowed Flora's pregnancy rather than stopping it.).

* Hatsuki reacting thusly in ''[[Moon Over June]]'' is quite understandable [[Justified Trope|given that she does not have sex with men]] in either her personal or professional life. However when one's... costars... do not clean themselves up/off/out well enough between scenes then such things can happen.

* ''[[Gene Catlow]]'': This is Cotton's reaction when Tatavania tells him she's pregnant. They had never [[Power Perversion Potential|(physically)]] made love. Cotton's shock lasts all of five seconds, since [[Hand Wave|they decide]] their bond via [[Applied Phlebotinum|Sight Of The Soul]] is so powerful, their spiritual humping [[A Wizard Did It|spilled over into the physical world.]]

 

== [[Web Original]] ==

* ''[[Paradise]]'': In "Reverberations," a story in this setting, a [[Gender Bending|gender-bent]] character's unexpected pregnancy causes the [[Masquerade]] concealing her new gender from friends and family members to fail.

* Happens a couple of times in [[Chakona Space]] due to meddlesome Rakshani fertility deities.

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

* Inverted in ''[[South Park]]'', where Ms. Garrison assumes that not having a period after having a lot of random, unprotected sex with random men has made her pregnant ([[Dead Baby Comedy|she becomes excited because now she can have an abortion]]). The doctor informs her that as a transexual, she lacks both a uterus and eggs, and therefore is not physically capable of getting pregnant. Ms. Garrison claims the doctor is a bigot.

 

* Subverted in the Strikeforce Mixed Martial Arts promotion before the highly-publicized August 2009 fight between Gina "Conviction" Carano and Christine "Cyborg" Santos to crown American MMA's first female 145-lb champion. Santos' management called Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker the day before the fight and told him that the California State Athletic Comission had just informed them that Santos was pregnant and wouldn't be allowed to fight. They called back a few minutes later and informed a panicking Coker that it was just a joke.

* [[Truth in Television]]. Infertility is not the same as sterility and a sufficiently fertile female partner can compensate for a low sperm count. There have been recorded incidences where men with vasectomies have fathered children. Same thing for females who have had an operation. And at least one particularly fertile couple where ''both'' had the operation, and a child was produced anyway.

* [https://web.archive.org/web/20130818081403/http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2007359,00.html Horrifying variation from France], where "at least five" women were in such a state of denial/trauma over their pregnancies that ''they killed the newborns and hid the bodies''—in some cases ''over a half-dozen times''—and forgot it ever happened. The woman in the latest case had had a difficult pregnancy and was too scared to go to the doctor, and her husband didn't notice anything unusual (eight times) because she was chubby. The doctor quoted in the report feels that "pregnancy denial" is a legitimate psychological problem and that it's foolish to think it's exclusively French.

** There was a similar example in the summer of 1997 in New Jersey, where a young woman named Melissa Drexler, dubbed "The Prom Mom" slipped out of her prom, gave birth in the bathroom, strangled the baby and left his body in the garbage, then returned to the prom to eat and dance. No one ever remembered her even looking as though she were pregnant, not even a girlfriend who had been trying on dresses with her only weeks before. It's believed that fear of her parents' anger led her to be in denial over her pregnancy.

* The TLC show ''I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant'' is dedicated to real life examples of this, usually either couples who thought they couldn't have kids, women who had their tubes tied, or party girls who didn't want to get pregnant.

** Or, in rare cases, where women menstruated throughout their whole pregnancy, didn't gain weight, and didn't feel the baby moving. It's one in a million, but it can happen.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]

[[Category:Plots]]