But I Can't Be Pregnant: Difference between revisions

* The Czech films ''[[Divided We Fall]]'' and ''[[Little Otik]]'' both in a sense follow this trope and subvert it. Both couples in both films are infertile (in both cases {{spoiler|it seems it is HIS fault, not hers}}), and both couples get around nature to create a child, either a real one - {{spoiler|by using someone else to impregnate the wife}} (''Divided We Fall'') or a monstrous one, {{spoiler|by using a piece of wood carved into the rough shape of a child as a doll, which then comes to life and starts to devour the household}} (''Little Otik''). In each case, it is the neighbours who are forced to suspend their disbelief at the "fact" the wife is pregnant, rather than the couple themselves, who collude in trying to bring a child into the world.

* ''[[Dogma]]''. Despite having been infertile for apparently years, at the end of the movie Bethany is told by Metatron that she's [[Double Standard Rape (Divine on Mortal)|miraculously]] pregnant (necessary because she's the Last Scion - need to keep that bloodline going). It's heavily implied that because she's a descendant of the Virgin Mary her pregnancy is similar to Mary's conception of Jesus.

* A really interesting example in the French-Canadian film ''Familia'': teenage Marguerite learns she is pregnant, ''but she's never had sex.'' Though not really religious, she begins to wonder if this is a second virgin birth. {{spoiler|She eventually learns that someone slipped her a date-rape drug at a party; she thought she had just been really drunk.}}

* In ''[[Hellboy (film)|Hellboy]] 2: The Golden Army'', {{spoiler|Abe finds out that Liz is pregnant with Hellboy's children. Later, Liz is seen going through about four or five pregnancy tests, on account of the pregnancy}} being physically impossible for several reasons.

* 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.

* Subverted in ''[[The Golden Girls]]'', where Blanche's suspected pregnancy turns out to be menopause.

** Same with Helen Rosenthal on ''[[St/Elsewhere]]''

** This version was inverted on ''[[Dharma and Greg]]'', when Abby (mother of an adult daughter) thought she was entering menopause, and turned out to be pregnant.

'''Dr. Cox''': [[Nightmare Fuel|Never. They ''never'' say "ribs."]] }}

** ''[[Gilmore Girls]]'' did the same thing with Sookie and Jackson when they wrote in Melissa McCarthy's pregnancy despite having an episode two seasons earlier where Jackson had a vasectomy that he didn't want. They retconned it by having Jackson say he lied about getting it since he hadn't wanted it in the first place, and that he thought Sookie would stay on her birth control pills to keep her skin looking fresh.

* The Korean couple (Jin and Sun) in ''[[Lost]]''. Jin was sterile before he came to the island, which causes Sun to believe the baby was conceived during her extramarital affair before the plane crash. However, Juliet explains that male sperm count is five times normal on the island, and a sonogram shows that the baby was indeed conceived on the island.

** A particularly heartbreaking example, as pregnant women tend not to survive their pregnancy on the island -- if the baby was conceived before Sun came to the island, she's fine, and if the baby is miraculously her husband's and conceived after their island-inspired reconciliation, she's going to die. [[Tear Jerker|She's very happy with the result]].

'''House''': You're pregnant. }}

** Played with in the episode "Joy to the World," where a woman is pregnant even though she and her fiance are waiting till marriage, and she swears she hasn't cheated. A skeptical House runs a DNA test and returns dumbfounded to tell them that there actually is no father, and the woman is the first ever case of human parthogenesis, an incredible phenomenon... except she's not, she just cheated on her fiance, and he's lying so that they'll be bowled over with elation and gratitude and get him a Christmas present, which he bet Wilson he could get a patient to do.

* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]''. [[Half-Human Hybrid]] B'Elanna Torres is surprised when this happens with her human boyfriend Tom Paris, as the odds against a Klingon woman and a human man having children naturally is so high<ref> when we see the first such hybrid in ''TNG'' it had a human mother and Klingon father, which was also seen as surprising but not impossible</ref>. The actress playing B'Elanna had become pregnant several years earlier, which was hidden by having her [[Wrench Wench]] character wear a work smock with tools in the top pocket.

* Maude in ''[[Maude]]'' became unexpectedly pregnant at 47 while taking birth control, and later had the very first sitcom abortion.

== [[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.

 

 

* [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.