For a lot of women, pregnancy is something to be celebrated. For others, seeing a positive pregnancy test is something they never want to see. It's not outrageous to think that women should know their bodies well enough to suspect when they might be pregnant, and yet these ladies prove that pregnancy isn't as obvious as one thinks. Doctors took to Reddit to spill the details about the most ridiculous reactions they received when telling a patient she was pregnant. Content has been edited for clarity.
From The Nurse’s Perspective
“Nurse here: I had a fat lady trying to beat the daylight out of one of my doctors (a small and frail old guy) for ‘telling her she is easy…’
He didn’t – he just told her that she was preggo.
Same doctor later on told a patient she was pregnant. She replied, ‘But I did never do it for real.’
He goes to the window and starts looking outside. She asked what he was doing. He replied, ‘The last time this happened, a new star lit up the sky over Bethlehem.'”
Nope, Not Menopause
“I’m a midwife and usually when ladies come to see me, they already know that they are pregnant. I do have some women who are past clients who come to see me for their paps and stuff. I recently had a woman in her late 40s come in thinking she was menopausal. Turns out, she’s actually pregnant. This is the third time I have seen this (the last two were while I was a student).
When I told her, she said, ‘Shut up! Shut right up!’
Then she left the office without saying anything else. A few minutes later, she came back and we talked about it, laughed, cried, laughed some more.”
Does Anybody Plan Pregnancies Anymore?
“ED scribe here. Just got off the night shift in triage. I had to tell a 19-year old she was pregnant. I’m not allowed to talk to patients, but I do have to be present to document that my provider has informed the patient of lab results. When my provider (a PA rotating through triage) asked her if she was actively doing the deed she said, ‘Yes, but not like that,’ and I’ll admit that the PCT in the room and I shared a ‘seriously?!’ look. Then when the PA told her the positive results, she blurted out she’d only had done it through the back door, then facepalmed. I did as well. Awkward all around.
I also just realized that in my previous night shift we had to tell four different women they were pregnant. The second one was a morbidly obese woman who fell off her bike and was complaining of abdominal pain. She denied a chance of pregnancy with her boyfriend in the room, but when he left to get coffee, she waved me over and said that she cheated on him and her period was four days late. I relayed to the provider, and sure enough, she was preggo. She did fracture her hip and was admitted, so I don’t know how she broke the news to her boyfriend.
The third of the night was a ‘dancer’ who had a history of miscarriages and came in for abdominal pain. Sure enough, pregnancy test was positive, but this time it looked like a healthy pregnancy and she was estimated to be past the first trimester (still not even showing a baby bump). She then asked the PA if he could ‘take care of her pregnancy’ there so she wouldn’t have to deal with a bloody mess later…
The last one was a 22-year-old female who thought she had a UTI. When she got the news, she immediately called up her boyfriend, while my provider was mid sentence with her, and had the boyfriend schedule and appointment with an abortion clinic the next day. She hung up, calmly looked up at the PA, and told him to prescribe whatever will make her UTI go away because the pregnancy wasn’t going to be a problem anymore.
Doesn’t anyone plan a pregnancy anymore?”
Complete Denial
“In medical school, I admitted an 8-month pregnant lady who didn’t know she was pregnant. She simply wouldn’t accept that she was, and was in denial to a seriously strange way. I was on my psychiatry rotation, so she was admitted to obstetrics for observation but with our team following. She thought we were performing unnecessary surgery on her when we did the ultrasound. She didn’t believe she was delivering while she was. She was in complete denial and delusional thought (paranoia).
After she gave birth, she refused to accept she had a child and the ministry had to adopt.
It was a very distressing case. To my knowledge, she has never accepted the pregnancy. Psychotic delusions often never go away. Our working diagnosis was schizophrenia due to other symptoms as well but her psychotic denial of pregnancy was constant. It was quite a distressing situation and one I’ll never forget.”
This Poor Girl
“My grandmother worked for the medical clinic at her local army base during WWII and she sometimes got to deliver the news that a woman (usually the wife of a soldier) was pregnant.
She told one young woman, who replied, ‘But that’s impossible! My husband has been overseas for more than a year!’
My grandmother assured her that she was definitely pregnant, and asked if she had had any relations with anyone else recently.
The woman replied, ‘Well, yes! But…you can’t get pregnant with nobody but your husband!’
The poor girl actually had no idea.”
Liar Liar
“I’m a CT tech and I was to scan a woman’s abdomen for belly pain. She and her girlfriend were there. The woman in the room with the patient was her SO and they had been together a long time. The patient had given her SO permission, in writing, to allow her to hear her medical information.
I have to have a pregnancy test because I can’t radiate a fetus. I even ask nuns, so no exceptions. She denies up and down she’s pregnant, and then, after the test I did, it said she was. She denied it and demanded a blood test, since she was a lesbian and never gets with men.
Well, the blood test came back positive too (surprise!) and the argument that ensued was biblical. She was arguing with her girlfriend and the nurses and the doctor. I never ended up scanning her and they chalked up her pain to her being pregnant. The look on her girlfriend’s face when I said it came back positive was one I will never forget.
Since the patient had given her SO that permission, and I did not question sharing the results with her in the room. Had she not, I would have asked her SO to leave the room. You can give anyone you deem necessary access (or no access!) to your medical information. It’s not limited to spouses.”
Surprise Baby
“A friend of mine started having terrible cramps one night, and ended up going to see a doctor in the morning with a friend she was supposed to go out for breakfast with. Nurse checks her and makes her take a test just in case (even though she never skipped a period). She was mortified when she was told she WAS pregnant. The nurse asked her what she wanted to do and she replied that she’d have to talk with her boyfriend. Nurse went to get a doctor because the cramps were still not normal.
He comes in, checks her briefly, looks nervous, and leaves without a word. While my friend is freaking out a bit, he comes back with two paramedics – she’s in labor. She gave birth to a beautiful, healthy boy later that day.
She had just come back from working 4 months in France, eating often in restaurants, so she wasn’t really worried about having put on a few pounds. Now she regularly takes pregnancy tests.”
Army Affairs
“I spent a ton of time in military hospitals. The absolute worst was soldiers showing up pregnant in the middle of a deployment….and the spouse is at home. These situations lead into inevitable divorce, possible UCMJ/adultery charges, as well as many other ugly aspects. But the most critical is getting pregnant mothers out of theater (out of the war zone) as soon as possible to ensure the mother is safe and in a healthy environment. We legitimately had 72 hours to evacuate someone from one side of the planet to the other. It was a logistical nightmare at times.
The amount of people who would flat out deny pregnancy because of these reasons was a nightmare. Yes, we understand you haven’t seen your husband or been home in 8 months. Yes, you are two months pregnant and now we have to stop everything to get you home. No, this isn’t the immaculate conception, the pregnancy test is legit, as well as the 9 lab tests that concluded the pregnancy is real.
Even thinking about an instance where a grown woman flat out lies to an entire room of medical professionals about the legitimacy of her pregnancy is infuriating. I just wanted to scream sometimes like…’Look, we get it. You fooled around on your spouse and now you’re knocked up. It sucks for you, but we have to do our jobs here and now.'”
16 And Pregnant
“I’m an ER scribe who asked a doctor a similar question last week. I asked, ‘How do you break the news to a 16-year-old girl like that?’
He said, ‘Come with and find out.’
We go in, and it’s the 16-year-old girl with her grandma there. First thing he says is, ‘Well, your results are back, do you mind if your family is here when we talk about them?’
PRO TIP: ALWAYS SAY ‘YES I MIND’ TO THIS QUESTION.
Then, he told her and she immediately started crying. The look her grandma gave her said 1,000 words, all of which were degrading. Not 5 minutes later, her mom came in yelling at her and calling her pretty much every name you can imagine. She had to be walked out by security.
All in all, it was a fairly interesting way to witness my first unwanted pregnancy reveal.”
How Do You Not Know?
“I work in a big, busy hospital. We had a 20-ish year old obese woman come in complaining of severe abdominal pain. Before she was even examined, it became clear that she was about to give birth. Side note, my hospital does not have labor and delivery – that is at our other campus a couple of miles away.
This woman proceeded to give birth to a full-term 8lb healthy boy in our ER and denied that she was pregnant and denied that the baby was hers, even while the placenta was still in her umbilical cord not cut. The doctor said, ‘It’s a boy!’ and she said, ‘That’s not my baby!’
Needless to say, psych was called along with a team from the other hospital to take the baby over to their campus. I often wonder about that baby, and hope he is doing okay. Hopefully the mom put him up for adoption and he ended up with some great parents.”
Meet Michelle
“I was a volunteer in the ER. I had the privilege of seeing a very obese woman admitted with severe discharge and pain. Turns out, she was in labor and never knew she was pregnant. She insisted that she just hasn’t had a period for 9 months because of some thyroid condition. It boggles my mind that she didn’t know.
What did she say upon being informed she was pregnant? ‘There’s no chance in heaven.’
Followed 7 hours later with, ‘Her name is Michelle.’
I am well aware that hypothyroidism causes period irregularity. My point was that it WASN’T the reason she wasn’t having a period, it was the pregnancy. She was refusing medical advice on the grounds that she didn’t want to believe that she was pregnant. I’m not saying she was stupid, I was just amazed that she wasn’t aware that she was pregnant from the other symptoms. She had a legitimate health problem that most likely caused her weight and her lack of notice concerning her pregnancy.”
You Don’t Have To Be Married To Be Pregnant
“She had all the symptoms of pregnancy, plus two positive pregnancy tests.
She still insisted, ‘There’s 0% chance I can be pregnant. I’m not married.’
To be fair, the patient’s mother was there and this was in a very conservative country. She ended up ‘admitting’ she was pregnant when we separated her from the mom.
This was during a medical mission trip to Guatemala. No real rules about separating minors from their parents when the doctor is talking out there. I gave a very abbreviated view of the encounter, but the mother was very supportive throughout the appointment, so the attending thought it would be useful to have her there.”
A Wild Prediction
“My wife was three days late on her period. I was the one to notice this, not her. So I purchased her a pregnancy test and she took it. I remember we were standing in the hallway of our first apartment together and she was watching the results on the test. I placed my hands on her shoulders, looked into her eyes, and told her ‘You are pregnant, it is twins, fraternal twins, a boy and a girl, and the girl will come out first.’
She told me if I knocked her up with twins she would knock my head off. By the time I finished speaking, a faint line appeared showing positive for pregnant.
A few weeks later, she was feeling sick so we went to the ER. Her pregnancy was confirmed and they did an ultrasound. In a thick Caribbean accent, the ultrasound tech told her, ‘Eets Tweens! Look, see? Tweens.’
She did not understand him at first. I did; I thought about running. I didn’t.
Two months later, it was confirmed that they were fraternal.
Two months after that, it was confirmed that Baby A was a girl and Baby B was a boy. They came six weeks early. It was a tough pregnancy that ended with an emergency C Section. The doctor pulled my daughter out first and then my son.
I would be a rich man right now if pregnancy betting were a real thing.
Honestly, I am not really sure what compelled me to make the predictions. It was sort of on the spot.
If I analyze my subconscious, I think it might have been because I always wanted to have one boy and one girl. Deep down, I think maybe my motivation to say the girl would be older is because I feel like the older twin can always hold it over the other’s head, and girls already have some disadvantage in the world nowadays, so my daughter should be older…but really that might just be over analysis.
The last time I made a prediction like that, I had just met my wife. She came into my repair shop to fix her phone. I fixed it for free and didn’t even get her name, but I saw her drive off and noticed she had a Super Mario toy from the 80s on the dash of her truck (I have one too). I walked back into the store and told the sales girl that I thought I had love at first sight. I said, ‘This will be a funny story that we will tell our grandchildren someday.’
Little did I know that I would actually marry this girl.”
No, That’s Not Gas
“A college friend of mine decided she was going to start working out to get her old figure back. She was doing really well at first, but then she stopped losing weight. Then she started gaining weight. She was really frustrated and confused – she used to have some digestion problems and thought maybe it was some sort of gastrointestinal issue. She would say things like, ‘Feel my stomach, it’s HARD.’
My favorite was how she talked about the gas…’No, but you can FEEL it moving around! I’ve never had gas like this. It’s crazy!’
Her stomach pains were starting to be a problem until eventually her dad took her to the emergency room to be looked at. Apparently when the doctor came back with test results, all he said was, ‘You’re about five months pregnant and going into early labor.’
Of course, she bawled her eyes out and was horrified. She didn’t give birth that night, but ended up carrying to term and had a really healthy boy. He’s freaking adorable.
But I remember the first thought in MY mind was, ‘Geez, how many packer parties have I been to with her over the last five months?’ Not that she was getting wasted or anything, but she was definitely having a drink or two (and the bar we would all meet at gave our free jello shots for every packer touchdown).
Everything turned out great though. She was engaged at the time, so they took the wedding to the courthouse and all three are very happy, healthy people.”
The Dreaded Wait List
“I called one of the few OBGYNs that my insurance covered. They said they could not see me for like two months. I asked if they could call in a prescription for my birth control pills while I waited for my appointment. The lady refused and said that because they hadn’t seen me in 6 months (I think it was six months), they could not do that. I sort-of pitched a fit, but to no avail.
The day before my appointment, I took an at-home pregnancy test and it came up positive, so the next day, walking in to the office, I pretty much knew I was knocked up. I went into the exam room and the doctor came in. She asked me, ‘So you made an appointment for an exam to get birth control pills?’
I said, ‘Yep. Been waiting two months.’
She replied with, ‘I’m sorry we always get so backed up. I know it takes forever sometimes to get one.’
I said, ‘Yeah, well I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant now, so can we test for that instead?’
The doctor got this weird look on her face, then asked for a urine sample.
She came back ten minutes later looking sheepish and said, ‘Yep, you’re pregnant.’
For the record, I do not blame getting pregnant on the doctor. That was my stupid move. Still, I thought the dialogue I had with the doctor was really funny.
I didn’t go to Planned Parenthood because I was an idiot. I was young and was taught family planning in Texas, where they can only teach abstinence. Back then I thought Planned Parenthood was just for abortions. In the end, I kept the baby, married baby’s daddy, got divorced from baby’s daddy, and graduated from college. I’m currently getting my master’s degree. I met a wonderful guy who my daughter calls dad. She is four now. Life is very good. It was really bad for a few years though.”
Better Believe Gran
“My grandmother was pregnant with her 6th child, but the baby died and they had to do an operation to take it out. A few weeks later, my Gran, just getting over the death of her unborn baby, told my Grandad and doctors that she thought she was still pregnant. They kept telling her that she wasn’t and it was just her being upset over losing a baby. Well, as they had operated on taking out the baby, they wouldn’t let her look and just told her to mourn and accept the baby was gone.
Speed forward to a month later when her water breaks and they operate on her again to find that she had been expecting twins and no one knew. When the first one died, they didn’t realize there was another one hidden! Everyone, especially my Grandad, apologized for not believing her.
This story comes up every time someone in the family is preggers or the family history of twins comes up (which ironically comes up a lot).”
An Uncertain Pregnancy
“My mom nearly died while giving birth to her first child. The doctors were so worried about her health, they told my parents that they wouldn’t be able to have any more children for the foreseeable future.
Five years later, the doctors give them the go ahead to have another kid. Things didn’t go perfectly with the second birth and she had to get her tubes tied (there were other medical problems as well).
A little more than two years pass and they are happy with their little family, but my mother is feeling ill again. It persists for a while (they thought it was a bad cold), but then she starts craving ice (she only craved ice while pregnant). She grows in the belly region and is pretty sure she is pregnant, but this is impossible because her tubes are tied, right?
She goes to the doctor, the one who performed the surgery, and tells him that she believes she is pregnant. He disagrees entirely. He just WILL NOT believe she is pregnant. The doctor performs all sorts of tests trying to figure out what it is, but my mother is insistent she believes she is pregnant. So finally the doctor says, ‘Fine, I’ll give you a pregnancy test, but when it comes back negative, you have to pay for it. If it comes up positive, I’ll pay for it.’
It comes back positive. The doctor walks in the room and mutters, ‘Well, you’re 7 months along.’
My mother responded with a classy, ‘I know.’
Apparently when you get your tubes tied every year after the first one adds a 1% chance of becoming pregnant. There was a 2% chance of me existing.
Years later, my father jokes that he has ‘SUPER SWIMMERS!’ I die a little inside whenever he makes that joke.”
Trust Those Instincts
“I had gone to the doctor for a urinary tract infection a few years back. I told the male nurse that’s what I imagined it was. I had to take a pregnancy test due to procedure, but I hadn’t done the deed in months, so I wasn’t really worried.
The nurse comes back and I imagine that he may have picked up on my demeanor and sense of humor because his first words were ‘Well, the good news is that you don’t have a UTI, but you are pregnant…’
I am sure I turned ghost white even thought I knew it wasn’t possible. After about 30 seconds of me thinking about things, he finally said, ‘I’m kidding. You actually know your body very well. You do in fact have a UTI and are not pregnant.’
I laughed and wasn’t mad. I had a sigh of relief, even though it still couldn’t be possible that I was pregnant. It was just one of those things that someone could tell you and you’ll just go along with because they are in a certain position that you are not. I still laugh about it to this day, and no, still do not want to be pregnant.”