Law of Inverse Fertility: Difference between revisions

 

== 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.

 

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[[Category:Fairy Tale Tropes]]

[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]