Law of Inverse Fertility: Difference between revisions

 

{{quote|''"Once on a time there was a king and a queen who had no children, and that gave the queen much grief; she scarce had one happy hour. She was always bewailing and bemoaning herself, and saying how dull and lonesome it was in the palace.

 

''The fertility of a couple is inversely proportional to their desire to have a child.''

Conversely, as soon as a woman begins to accept her pregnancy, her chances of a [[Convenient Miscarriage]] double. Or if she's simply having a pregnancy scare from a missed period, it'll turn out that she's not carrying after all, just as she starts warming up to the idea. This particular trick is common on shows where [[Status Quo Is God]]; whether the former or latter version is used depends on how much drama the writers wish to evoke.

 

 

{{examples}}

* The ''[[Dragon Ball]]'' franchise has an uneven history with this trope. Trunks was apparently the result of a one-night stand between Bulma and Vegeta. And given the amount of time Goku spends either dead, traveling through space, training in the wilderness, or bedridden with a killer virus between and during the Freeza and Android / Cell sagas, it's amazing that he and Chichi ever found time to conceive Goten.

** [[Word of God]] is that Goten was conceived in the ten day span between the virus and Goku's second death. Though whether this was planned or not is never stated. It was probably just an off-screen [[Pre-Climax Climax]].

* "[[Rapunzel]]"

* In "[[Tatterhood]]", the queen is so eager to have a child, she neglects to follow the magical directions to get them.

* See also [[Wonder Child]]

* "[[wikipedia:Momotaro|Momo-tarou]]" is the Japanese version of this fairy tale.

* Aunt Sissy in ''[[A Tree Grows in Brooklyn]]'' wants a child more than anything, but all her pregnancies result in stillbirth. She finally fakes a pregnancy and adopts the child of an unwed Italian girl, and about a year later becomes pregnant and has a healthy baby boy.

* ''A Soldier of the Great War'' references this trope. A young boy is talking to the protagonist about various fertility superstitions he's heard about. Alessandro tells him that the real rule is "Once if you're not married; a thousand times if you are."

* Federico García Lorca's ''Yerma'' is mainly about this topic: a woman who wants a child but can't get pregnant no matter what.

* Happens to Detritus and Ruby as their relationship is developed through the [[Discworld]] series. Vimes noted that their marriage was happy but childless. They do however adopt Brick later in Thud.

* A major part of Gordie's character in "The Body" (the [[Stephen King]] novella that later became the film ''[[Stand by Me]]''): his late brother Denny was born after a series of miscarriages and stillbirths and regarded as a gift from God, while he came along ten years later, when his parents didn't want another child.

* Sonea in ''[[The Black Magician Trilogy]]'' falls under this trope from the virgin side of things. And manages to get pregnant while in the very stressful situation of {{spoiler|travelling into exile into a hostile land filled with ruthless stronger magicians, who are hunting them (her and the teacher) as a prelude to the invasion the country they've just been exiled from.}} High stress isn't usually conducive to fertility.

 

 

* Theseus's father visited an oracle to find out why he was childless. Theseus was conceived on the way home.

* [[The Bible|Genesis]] is ripe with examples of this trope; in fact, the only matriarchs who don't have problems conceiving are Eve and Leah (who in fact subverts this trope, having at least seven children). Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel were all infertile, and all three required divine intervention in order to have children.

** Not just Genesis; the respective mothers of Samuel, Sampson, John the Baptist. In fact, Michal, the wife of King David and daughter of King Saul, was the only notably infertile woman in the Bible who didn't eventually give birth (her infertility being a divine punishment). Mary, the mother of Jesus, could fall under this trope as well.

** Apocryphal stories say that Mary's mother was also infertile for a number of years before having Mary at a relatively old age.

 

== Tabletop Games ==

== Webcomics ==

* Used in ''[[Arthur, King of Time and Space]]'' [http://www.arthurkingoftimeandspace.com/1484.htm here]. What kicks it up a notch is that it's the exact same people, but in different situations - one where they want to have a child, one where they don't. That particular comic makes it seem as though the desire to have a child is the one factor that keeps them from having one. Later [http://www.arthurkingoftimeandspace.com/2810.htm averted in the space arc].

* ''[[Fur Will Fly]]'' ended with Tammy and Stewart trying (without much success) to have a kid while Brad and Page end up in a [[Shotgun Wedding]].

 

** Later, when Hank and Peggy are trying to have a second child, Hank's seventy-something father Cotton winds up having a child with his forty-something wife Didi. After the baby is born and both parents are neglecting him, Peggy even miserably alludes to the fact that she can't have a child while they somehow got to have a "beautiful child they don't even ''want.''" Becomes a [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]] when {{spoiler|the episode ends with Peggy rocking the baby to sleep with her toes, despite being in a full-body cast}}.

* ''[[Up]]''. Subtly implied in the opening montage of ''Up''. It's especially heartbreaking since the buildup has Carl and Ellie making a room for the baby. [[Word of God]] says it was a miscarriage that left Ellie unable to have more children. What we see is what little they could actually show/feel comfortable putting in a kid's movie.

* In the ''[[Thundercats 2011|ThunderCats (2011)]]'' episode "Native Son" a [[Flash Back]] reveals that the king and queen of Thundera tried to have a child for years. It got so bad that the queen worried she might be infertile. Their concerns were put to rest when baby Tygra literally flew into their lives [[Moses in the Bulrushes|in a balloon]]. So of course just when the royal couple have gotten comfortable with Tygra inheriting the throne as crown prince, the queen became pregnant. {{spoiler|Then she died in childbirth, so little Tygra lost his mother and the throne in one night.}}

 

 

== Real Life ==

* A book by Mary Pride points out that some people (like the author) may get so used to "family planning"-style matter-of-course birth control that they believe that merely ''going off the birth control'' is enough to cause pregnancy in a very short period of time. This is, of course, at odds with (statistical) reality—even perfectly healthy, fertile couples can go months or in extreme cases years without a viable pregnancy while not using birth control.

** If you have gone for years with your birth control method working perfectly, it can mean that eventually you become less vigilant about using it, or worry less about whether you might be pregnant even if you do have a condom break or forget to take a pill. But yes, women in their thirties or forties can still get pregnant by accident, and just because you never have got pregnant doesn't mean you can't.

* To give a somewhat more modern example also from the [[British Royal Family]], the house of Hanover. King George III and Queen Charlotte had several children, but their sons, not so much. George IV had just one daughter, Charlotte, who was his heir apparent until her death as a young adult; after that happened, George's younger brothers (who were almost all single) sort of scrambled to marry and have children because there was the danger of a [[Succession Crisis]]. George outlived the second son, Prince Frederick, so he was succeeded by third son William IV. William had about a dozen children - but they were all illegitimately conceived with his mistress, an actress known as Mrs. Jordan; his legitimate children with his wife Adelaide all died within days of birth. Thus, when William died, the crown went to the only child of the fourth son, the Duke of Kent; you know her as [[Queen Victoria]].

* If a woman is actively pursuing a baby, there's a very good chance they're also dealing with a good amount of stress (if not the specific ticking biological clock, possibly a more generic "why isn't this working" frustration.) Stress can have some bad effects on anybody, and there are a few studies that suggest stress can affect infertility, creating a vicious cycle of "the more you obsess over a baby, the more likely you're not gonna have one."

* Women face declining fertility as they age, so by the time some women are mature enough to have a child, they often can't have one due to infertility. So if older age = greater desire to have a child, and older age = less fertile, then it makes sense that the desire to have a child would correlate inversely with the ability to have one.

* There are probably many men and women who don't want to have babies who are infertile, they just don't know it. Only when someone tries to have a baby (and therefore wants children) does fertility become an issue.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Fairy Tale Tropes]]

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]