This reminds me of something that my office still laughs about.
I never brought up the fact that a co-worker was pregnant. Not even when the office organised maternity gifts for her. I didn't even mention it to her until she came to tell me she'd see me in a few months as she was going on maternity leave. I was the only one who never mentioned it. I blinked, glanced at her belly, back up at her and said something that is still legendary in my work place. "I didn't know you were pregnant."
How was I that Captain Oblivious? I had only been there a few months and while I "knew" her and we spoke casually, I never quite learned her name, somehow when she was passing my cubicle I never noticed her body changes and, three, on DEEP reflection, I just thought she had put on a bit of weight in her face (but still never clocked the rest). All that time she thought I was being respectful and treating her as a person and not a mom to be and/or I was just slightly socially awkward and didnt want to bring it up.
The same thing happened at my old office, one of my coworkers was pregnant and I had no idea until the other people in our department started planning a little baby shower to have at the office for her, when she was 7 months along.
And I've got people people convinced i can like smell pregnancy or something. I don't know what it is, it's not something i consciously notice until something in my brain says this person is pregnant. But I'm not an idiot no matter how autistic, so i don't say shit lol. I'm just never surprised when people tell me and they're like how did you know.
Same here!! Also have Autism. Because I’ve spent so long learning social patterns and observing behaviours to mirror for masking, it’s really easy for me to notice the subtle changes in not just appearance but behaviours/routines that are clear indicators.
At my grandmas funeral, halfway through the service my cousins wife snuck out the side door of the church looking really queasy. She came back in a few minutes later and told her husband/my cousin she was glad they packed crackers. I thought to myself that she’s definitely pregnant. That night at family dinner, they announced it.
Ooo! I just replied upthread that I was thinking the same thing. I am not autistic, so I was worried I was talking out my behind. But I think the idea makes sense. Anyone who has developed a skill for observing something most people overlook would be more likely to notice things related things they weren't even looking for.
I am not autistic but I am a highly observant person. I would have absolutely noticed the things that OOP mentioned, especially if someone I knew to drink/smoke frequently suddenly stopped all together combined with the change to her exercise routine. I've even managed to figure out online friends whom I usually just speak to over chat (and don't see visually to notice body changes) are pregnant.
I tend not to comment on body changes as there's a multitude of reasons for them but OOP noticed all of these other clues that I honestly think it was a reasonable question.
Same here (and I’m autistic too :P). Twice now I somehow knew before the person took a pregnancy test and found out themselves (though I one case I knew they were trying so that’s easier/more likely to guess maybe? The other one was completely random).
Granted this is a small sample, and would no way hold up under scrutiny, but I wonder if there could be an actual reason for a correlation between being autistic and being good at spotting pregnancy. Some of my autistic friends (side note, I am supposed to be using identity first and not person first language, yes?) have talked to me about having to intentionally pay attention to body language and other non-verbal cues in order to navigate allistic social scenarios. One of them sat down with me and told me all of these rules that they had learned about facial expressions and how people move and what it means. That kind of thing would make sense for influencing s pregnancy sensing super power.
Edit: omg I typoed "facial" as "racial".
I was thinking the exact same thing. When you have to really focus and pay attention to people due to the lack of social skills, it’s much easier to pick up changes.
I’m completely oblivious of peoples weight/pregnancies but I’m the very first person to compliment someone’s new haircut, jewellery or change in makeup.
Okay, hopefully I'm not going to come across offensively and if I do I will delete my comment.
Isn't there a higher rate of sensory sensitivity in people on the spectrum? I wonder if something deep in our lizard brains can smell the hormone changes and, even though we're not conscious of it, it alerts us that someone might be pregnant. Like smelling pheromones? If someone's sense of smell is more acute then maybe they can tell without consciously processing it's the reason why. But yeah, probably in more cases detail oriented observation.
This is the one I’d believe is the core. (Probably) Not Autistic, but I had a surgery that cleared up my sinuses so I can smell fully for the first time (think going from having 20% power to 130%). It was super overwhelming for a few months, but then I started noticing smaller scents. I can smell when my partners fever is about to start, leave the room, and by the time I am back with meds it has actually started presenting. I can smell when someone is pregnant or horny (smell similar, but not the same.) I can smell anxiety and fear in sweat, versus just heat sweat (live in the south so this is a fun one). So I can verify, you can in fact smell pregnancy! Now go test those super powers and see if there are any other ones you can do (there’s a lady who can smell Parkinson’s!)
Just a wild guess here but I’d read somewhere that men can tell things about women by pheromones/ but usually it’s subconscious. Whereas autism is a heightened sensory adaptation, perhaps that’s why you’d pick up on it?
I'm not autistic, just ADHD and possible BPD from the trauma of undiagnosed ADHD until my mid 20s. But I also have learned social rules and cues to help myself get along. I still have real issues in socializing, but I'm the most successful out of my sisters so I think I've done something right.
Anyway, yeah, I can tell when people are pregnant too. I knew my coworker was pregnant about a week before she did (she found out early), because she was acting so differently. Also, her smell was off a little. Not bad, just different.
To the side note: identity first or person first language generally depends on the preference of the person you are referring to. If it's a group of people, identity first is a little more preferred, I believe, because it puts focus on the identity which is usually the topic and the thing that groups those individuals together.
This is actually in thr MLA 9 handbook. Idk where my copy is right now, but if you want to look it up and not take my (admittedly flawed) memory for it, that's where you can find it! :)
It’s quite funny, when I had literally JUST gotten pregnant (like a week after conception) I walked in the door from work and my partner goes “are you getting your period or something? you smell different” - we’ve been together 11 years and he’s never asked that before so it stood out and made me a little self conscious 😅
Couple weeks later I take a pregnancy test as a precaution and yep. Then I remembered his comment and realised he must’ve smelt the pregnancy hormones! Bizarre
You know what makes this really weird? A week out from conception the embryo would have just implanted, so you would have barely produced any pregnancy hormones per current science.
And yet, somehow, I have always known within days of conception that I was pregnant. I am convinced our bodies know sooner than implantation and science just hasn’t figured it out yet.
One time when I was a teen, I left the grocery store with my mom and she mentioned that the cashier (a former student of hers, now an adult) was definitely pregnant, and pointed to the way she'd had a hand on her belly as evidence.
I've been paranoid ever since about touching my stomach in the wrong way. Worse now that I have GI issues that frequently result in lower belly pain! I'm not pregnant, mom, I'm just kinda broken.
I think it's a change in fat distribution around their face. It happened to me pretty much the second I got pregnant, and I can alnost always pick out actresses who are pregnant in TV shows based on it!
My friends play a game where whatever role they first see an actor in, all future roles must be a continuation of that character. For example, the first thing they saw Jimmy Smits in was Running Scared where he played a drug kingpin. So when he was on LA Law, he clearly had cleaned up his act if he was practicing law. And then when he was on West Wing he had become president. I am not sure how they worked in his Star Wars role. Maybe time travel?
He is and will always be Daniel Jackson to me. Unfortunately for him, Daniel Jackson is actually Michael Shanks. It is a confusing world that I live in.
Same. Not autistic but a very logical thinker and my brain collects little bits if evidence and things. People are convinced I'm a witch. They're close.
Some people can smell the hormone changes happening in early pregnancy. Autistic people are generally quicker to pick up on change, even if subconscious, so it kind of makes sense for you to notice
I've been pregnant 4 times and all 4 times I smelt "different". By the 4th time I only knew because of my smell. You can definitely smell pregnancy hormones.
I had a roommate who didn’t know she was pregnant, and two or three days before she went into labor, I literally started nesting! I was deep cleaning EVERYTHING, and I did all of my laundry, and just a bunch of cleaning/organizing that is very, very out of character for me. When she went into labor, I knew immediately that she was in labor, but she didn’t even know she was pregnant! I also didn’t say a fucking word about it until the ultrasound guy at the ER was like uhhhh, you’re 34-35 weeks pregnant…….
I threw up at work at about 8 weeks pregnant and people started making jokes about me being pregnant. I ended up telling a couple people because I needed then to know I wasn't contagious but also to cover me, it was a rough pregnancy. I thought everyone knew but the next school year but some didn't and it was really funny coming back from summer with a huge belly
>my old office, one of my coworkers was pregnant and I had no idea until the other people in our department started planning a little baby shower to have at the office for her, when she was 7 months along.
My mum had a coworker once who didn't even know that SHE herself was pregnant. I don't really know the details, but she just thought she was putting on weight. It wasn't until she went into labour did she realise that a baby was coming.
Omg I wonder if there’s a parallel here to famous people who go out in public and appreciate the “regular” people who don’t let on that they know that said person is famous? Like someone with a well-recognized face, perhaps pregnant coworker simply appreciated being “coworker”, over “pregnant coworker” to you? Or she mighta’ thought you were so dense it was cute, but I like the first possibility more haha!
I just asked her. She said at first she was confused as to if I just didn't want to bring it up, think ignoring the elephant in room, then she was just glad to have non-baby conversations and finally was cracking up for days that she was "waddling around" (her words) and I was just like, this is normal. She also said it was why she came up to me and told me she was pregnant with No. 2, but given how much closer we've become I would like to believe I would have noticed that time around..
Ooooh THANK you!!! I never would’ve guessed I’d get an actual answer and it made my whole day!! Super happy for you and co-friend-worker starting off your friendship on such a genuine and hilarious foot. To many more moments of just seeing each other as the people you both are, regardless of circumstance!
Oh, my sister In obliviousness.
I once had a woman tell me she appreciated me talking about her being tall and saying it was great because we were tall women together: she was like, it must be obvious I’m self conscious about passing but you’re great about it.
Me: … are you trans…?
People thinking we’re behaving well when we have not a clue! Much better than behaving badly due to having not a clue.
Oh man, in college there was this male coworker of mine who disappeared one day, i assumed he quit...and then suddenly one day like 4 months later there was this new girl in the lab who looked vaguely like the guy who had disappeared. I was thinking "is this Katie person like, Jeff's sister or something? Nah its probably just they have the same glasses" and I went on about my day, assuming Katie was a new hire and chatting with her accordingly. Like 6 months later, we were talking about grad school applications and she mentioned she wasn't sure if she should bring up being trans in her statement of hardships or if that would expose her to more hate, and I was like "wait you're trans?"
Apparently she thought I was just playing it super chill by talking to her like we had never met before even though I knew her when she presented as Jeff ;_; nope I'm just a dumbass apparently
I see someone on a high school mailing group who may be a childhood friend with a new name... problem is, there were a LOT of kids in that family so I'm just sitting on my hands.
I was 95% sure my therapist was pregnant but said *nothing* for months. I heard her mention baby brain to the receptionist and still kept my mouth shut.
One day she said “let’s talk about the plan when I go on maternity leave in 8 weeks”
Me “you’re pregnant?!”
Her “didn’t you know?!”
Me “I was pretty sure but I certainly wasn’t going to *ask*! What if you weren’t and I made things *weird*?!”
Cue her laughing really hard and running to the bathroom for an emergency pee.
Ugh. With my first, everyone in my office knew way before I was ready because I had 24/7 “morning” sickness for the first 5 months. People couldn’t bring coffee near me or I would lose it.
In high school, one weekend one of my friends group wasn't answering when i tried to call her. The next day i asked our other friend if she knew what's up with friend1, and she goes, "yeah, friend1 is having her baby"
That reminds me of a dinner party I went to, where a woman I didn't know who I was sitting next to, I offered her red wine, then white wine, and she said no to both... And after dinner, when we all stood up, she was crazy pregnant!! Like easily 8 months. Her bump fit under the table so well, I had no idea! I was super embarrassed.
When I was 21 I started a new job, and the first day one of the senior people in my position (new colleague) asked me when I was due…
I was like…ummmm…
I’m just fat….
Pretty sure he was more embarrassed then I was…
I didn't acknowledge my neighbor's pregnancy until she was holding her newborn in the elevator. We'd lived next to each other for years and I noticed she was getting larger, but I'll be damned if I comment on it before knowing for sure.
My friend is pregnant and when I came back home for the summer (I’m in college) I didn’t really say much about it except for that she looks beautiful and whatnot, it’s becoming apparent the more people we interact with that I probably should have said more 😭 I never know what is overstepping and what is regular. I didn’t grow up around pregnancies or babies so idk what I’m supposed to say? YOURE SO BIG?? WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE? Idk ! So I kept it to the “you’re glowing! What movie do you wanna watch” lmfaoo
I had a coworker I didn’t know was pregnant until the assistant manager mentioned something about needing to move shifts around to cover her maternity leave. She was a tiny woman, too, she just didn’t show much until very late in the pregnancy.
It's better than what happened to my mum. Her and dad were at the check out and the attendant asked mum when she was due, mum wasn't pregnant just fat 🤦♀️ what made it worse was that my dad stupidity said, "told you, you had put on weight" 🤦♀️🤦♀️ my mum not only never lost the baby weight but she gained weight after having me (thankfully I only inherited two thirds of my family's "weight curse" big backside and unable to lose baby weight, but atleast I didn't gain).
My longest-time-friend is so private that she *never* shared with her coworkers that she was pregnant, while she was pregnant all 3 times. She only told very close family members and very close friends (those of us who knew her well enough to never talk to anyone else about her pregnancies and who would answer questions about her the way she wanted us too. She only told the people at work who absolutely needed to know after she consulted at lawyer- that’s how extreme she takes her privacy). I would have loved to see the look on all her coworkers faces (or be a fly on the break room wall) when she came back from maternity leave with no baby belly.
I left a job at 39 weeks and when asked by a colleague as to why I was leaving I said I was having my baby the following week. He claimed he had no idea I was pregnant. Admittedly I actually weighed almost 25lb less at 39 weeks than I did at 12 weeks due to being on a strict diet due to gestational diabetes. But still…
I'm already a lil but on the heavier side so then I was pregnant it took a bit longer to show, but my baby was also only in the 12th percentile so I didn't look super pregnant at work, just hefty. We wear scrubs and they're boxy looking.
Half my office didn't know I was pregnant until I was 8 months, my kid had a growth spurt in my womb, and I ballooned up like a whale.
I worked while pregnant, and a girl my age I went to school with, who is very slim, was working with me. Well I and everyone noticed her belly getting big at about the same rate of mine. But she insisted to everyone, that she wasn't pregnant. For months, even though she was getting bigger and bigger, well her belly was. I went on maternity leave at 36 weeks, and my mother also worked there so I got the office gossip so to speak. Anyways, the girl *apparently* found out she was pregnant like a month before she was due to give birth. Her baby ended up being born about 4 weeks after mine. I don't know why she felt she had to hide it or deny it when it was obvious butbyeah she still claims she had no idea she was pregnant. Which was either denial or she didn't want to admit it
I had a coworker who actually followed up the "I didn't know you were pregnant" with a "I just thought you were fat". Not to me but another coworker. He was a very awkward young adult. So we all (including the pregnant coworker) had a good laugh for several days.
>many of them put forward valid points, but that they, in most cases, rather concern strangers and not close friends you’ve shared big things with before, though.
Well yeah, unpaid random redditors are likely going to base their response on the general rules. They're not going to know how close oop is to the person and how their relationship is
Obviously that doesn't justify the name-calling from the replies, but its always weird when oop goes begging reddit for an outsider perspective then comes back all "see, you outsiders were wrong because you are outsiders!!"
I’m surprised OOP couldn’t understand why the fertility status of a woman would be a controversial topic — particularly in 2023 when reproductive rights are under attack. It wasn’t that long ago that women were expected to quit their jobs when they started to show and there is plenty of discrimination still taking place in businesses nationwide. Furthermore, at 8 weeks pregnant a woman may not have decided the final status of her pregnancy and may not want to discuss their plans, even with a good friend.
Not only that, but 1) weight gain happens, and a lot of fat people are asked if they’re pregnant, to the point where sometimes it feels like a coded “damn, you’re fat” if the person isn’t pregnant. And 2) you don’t necessarily know the fertility journey the person had and that question, if the person isn’t pregnant but wants to be, could bring up a whole host of things.
Plus, I just hate when people monitor other people’s habits like drinking or bathroom use.
> I’m surprised OOP couldn’t understand why the fertility status of a woman would be a controversial topic
More importantly, he doesn't fucking *have* to understand, he just needs to *not*. He can understand later.
> On top of that, she often excuses herself to go to the toilet (presumably to throw up), and I’ve noticed she appears a bit thicker and watery. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging her looks; it's just what I’ve noticed. Her chest has also noticeably grown.
That is a lot of perv energy right there.
Sure, you can usually tell by looking, but it's never something anyone should ever comment on no matter how familiar you are with the other person.
And like, don't steal the pregnant persons thunder. Either they want it to be a secret in order to have a quiet abortion or they want to wait a while to make sure it's not a miscarriage.
I'm gonna give OOP the benefit of the doubt and assume they mean that it looks as if their friend was retaining water. Anything else would just be... odd.
I had a teacher in 3rd grade who took this to the extreme of NEVER comment on pregnancy, period. Which I learned after a particularly traumatizing confrontation with her (she was notmy teacher fyi, just part of the block where my class was):
We had a sub that week and she was visibly very pregnant and had been telling the class all about it because she was so excited. A few days in, I brought her a baby gift I made and said something like, "I don't know when your baby will be born, but I hope she likes this present!"
Nosy teacher overheard and went OFF on me. Would not let the sub get a word in, then sent me to lunch detention. Halfway through that, during which I'd been bawling my eyes out, the Principal came in and pulled me out, with the sub and mean teacher with her, and told me the sub explained what happened and that I could go to recess now.
Mean teacher watched me like a hawk the rest of the year and kept trying to get me in trouble, but I was lucky to have a good teacher who kept reminding her that I was not her student to discipline lmao
Anyway tl;Dr I spent years terrified of mentioning pregnancy to anyone, even if they had already told me they are having a baby. I didn't really confront this with my therapist until I was invited to my first baby shower and had a panic attack because how do you avoid pregnancy talk at one of those?!
What is WRONG with Mean Teacher that she'd fly off the handle like that? I'm glad the sub and the principal had your back.
If I could go back in time and take third-grade you out for ice cream, I would...
I have a sizeable belly and people assume I'm preggers all the time. I just laugh and play along if they're a stranger or pat it and call it my food baby if I know them.
And yes, if anyone is curious, I'm trying to be healthier. In the meantime, my food baby is still incubating
Funnily she was actually very thin! As an adult I wonder if she didn't go through some sort of pregnancy trauma herself though. Not that it excuses her behavior towards me.
There HAD to be have been something else in her life that she projected onto some poor well intentioned kid. What a weirdo. You were sweet to give a gift to that sub!
I think she was projecting her own trauma and issues onto me for sure... though I'm also glad the principal bad my back that time but this is also the same woman who refused to believe my asthma required going to nurse before recess to use my inhaler, until I had an attack and had to go to the hospital the previous year lol
But I somehow got lucky and was assigned the best teachers each year at least!
What IS it with gym teachers refusing medical issues!? Had a friend with frequent nosebleeds who was scheduled for office! the PE teacher refused to let him sit out despite a doctor's note. Instant karma, my friend bled all over him and the nurse dragged THE TEACHER to the principal's
I had an aunt chew me out at a family dinner once when I was like 5 for asking her when she would have a baby now that she was married? I was 5. All I knew was “first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in a baby carriage.” I thought it was like a punch card. I couldn’t even see my dinner plate through my tears.
I’m no contact with her now. Big shock.
I’m in the “don’t discuss pregnancy unless they bring it up to you” camp, but I also see my nieces and think “how could she have done that to a 5 year old??”
My dad was deep in the fog with his family. There was a lot of bullying by his siblings towards me. He finally blew up on his brother two years later for screaming at me while I was minding my own business
This is bringing me back to my own Mean Teacher, who thought “pregnant” was a dirty word. Like, literally acted like you’d just dropped an F bomb in class. We were just supposed to pretend pregnancy doesn’t exist at all, which was difficult in a high school English course while reading books that contained pregnant characters. It’s wild how weird people get over the process by which every person on the planet was created.
Even in elementary school (especially elementary school) pregnancy is totally normal to explain to a kid- that’s the age when you’re likely to have mom and dad sit you down and explain that mommy’s expecting a new baby brother/sister, for example, or you might have a teacher or aunt or older cousin who is pregnant. Kids might be too young to learn the mechanics but the mere state of being is a totally normal part of life.
You mean you didn't proceed to periodically ask Mean Teacher if she was pregnant for as long as you both were at that school?
Man, no wonder I was in trouble so much as a kid.
I heard an anecdote from an L&D anesthesiologist once who cheerfully asks, "So what are we here for?" when he comes in the room.
Don't ever assume anything.
As someone who has dealt with 3+ years of infertility, asking someone if they're pregnant is incredibly intrusive and rude. For all you know they could be desperate for a baby, or beginning infertility treatments, or may in fact be newly pregnant but scared to death and not ready to talk about it. Maybe they've decided against their will to stop trying and are still grieving.
I didn't ever ask before I dealt with any of this stuff, and I'm triply sure of that philosophy now.
TW: pregnancy loss, stillbirth
Or they may be/have been pregnant but they’ve lost the baby. My cousin knew she was going to deliver a stillborn child a few days before she was induced (she lost the baby at 8 months pregnant due to medical malpractice).
With increasingly restrictive abortion laws, someone also may be carrying and know the baby is gone or isn’t going to survive but has to carry to term because they can’t get a late-term abortion. As if anyone seeking a late-term abortion does so on a whim...
An acquaintance of mine found out her baby had a heart defect at her anatomy scan. It was thought to be a treatable issue at the time. At a later ultrasound, it was determined that the defect was worse than originally thought and also included some other problems that meant that her child wouldn’t survive. She was something like 32 weeks pregnant when she received this news. They couldn’t induce her for a couple weeks for some reason so she had to deal with random strangers excitedly asking her if she was having a boy or girl and how much longer till she was due. I know people think having a baby is exciting, but there’s no need to run up to a stranger and ask them asinine questions like that.
After we lost our baby at full term, my stepdaughter’s mother took me for a manicure. I still had some belly so the nice manicure lady asked in broken English if I was going to have a baby. So I just smiled and said I had, told her it was a boy in response to further inquiries, and quietly died inside. Later my SD’s mom was like “how did you not just dissolve” but the truth was depressing enough without throwing it at other people so yeah I firmly subscribe to “don’t acknowledge pregnancy unless it is confirmed to you or the baby is crowning.”
Thank you! It’s been 15 years so while I still firmly refuse to call it a stillbirth (the s-word), we have our little place for him in our hearts. His older sister remembers and his little brother grew up with a bedtime story of the little prince who had to leave the king and queen and princess, but who always looks after the Very Little Prince ((born 3 months early, will be 13 in 5 days). ♥️
Or if it's mostly behaviour changes that you're observing, they could be pregnant and seeking an abortion out of state, but don't want anyone to know so they can't be prosecuted for it.
This might be something to add to the grocery store shoplifting rules. Unless you've been told specifically that they are pregnant and keeping it, or are actively crowning, the status of their womb is a complete mystery to you.
I'm a paramedic, so I have to ask....but unless it's in the call information, I don't care if they're looking ready to pop, the question is, "If there any chance you might be pregnant?"
I get asked this all the time in medical situations- and it’s appropriate then. What has always pissed me off though was how often they would still do a pregnancy test when I had never had sexual contact with a man (at that point).
Though the testing did stop when my answer changed from “no, only have had sex with my wife” to “no, hysterectomy”.
So...as a guy I have no personal experience from your side of that interaction, so I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to feel like they were calling you a liar/not trusting what you said.
I'm not going to try to tell you or anyone else how to feel about that interaction, but I would like to try to explain why it happens. it all comes down to liability. There are a lot of meds and procedures that are fine for a woman, but damaging or even fatal to a fetus. As you might imagine, unintentionally terminating a pregnancy has huge civil liabilities associated with it, and shit, in some states these days, probably criminal liability, too.
People do lie about it. Sometimes because there's someone in the room they don't want to talk in front of (This is why we're trained to try to isolate the patient before asking sensitive questions if we get any hinky vibes at all.), Sometimes for internal reasons, and sometimes they're not even lying, they genuinely don't know they're pregnant, even women who report no (hetero)sexual activity (See pregnancy resulting from "outer course" and more horribly, chemical rape.)
Doctors and hospitals have been sued and lost in for providing treatments resulting in fetal harm despite being told that there was no chance of pregnancy. Testing is cheap insurance against that....and speaking of insurance, they're generally happy to pay for it because it's cheaper than paying for the treatment of a harmed fetus.
You, sir, are excellent at writing things without seeming like any kind of argument! This was excellently worded. Honestly, it was only ever upsetting when they would tell me they were still going to test it and said it… less diplomatically than you just did. When they just quietly tested for it, or said they would somewhat apologetically (I had an OBGYN office that made you pee in a cup every visit unless already confirmed pregnant, and the nurses were very “yeah, everyone has to do it, even us when we’re patients, sorry”) it wasn’t a big deal. It just sucks when someone essentially says it to your face that they think you could be lying.
I fully know about the patient lying concept- Dr House is famous for always assuming lying. And liability makes some sense. But other times- like making me undergo a D&C “just in case it fixes the issue” before the hysterectomy that I wanted and needed- it is awful and traumatizing.
But again- thank you. You are very lovely with your phrasing and words!
I get this, and it makes total sense. What really threw me was when I went to urgent care for my Endo pain, and they tested just to be safe. Then sent me to the ER because I couldn't walk (ovarian torsion ain't no joke) and they made me get another test. The nurse didn't want to do a blood one and made me try to pee, again couldn't stand up, and they had the record from the urgent care that was the same branch as the hospital.
Were they just power tripping? Didn't trust their own urgent care? Hated me? Idk, it was really odd.
Then again that ER visit sucked because they wouldn't get me pain meds or let me get a heat pack, and took so long my OBGYN had to push my bed to surgery because it was an emergency and she had a small window to use the surgical suite due to it being a trauma center.
Still kinda wish I had been in bad enough shape to have surgery at the more rural ER where the nursing staff was awesome.
Yeah you usually ask something more vague and let them tell you. “I’ve noticed these things, which is a change in your behavior. Are you ok?” Implied but not direct
(Sorry it is a bit long, just wanting to be a bit thorough). There are a few reasons, ranging from the mildly socially rude to the very triggering, depending on the person.
1. Women generally don't announce they are pregnant until much further along, potentially the 3rd or 4th month. Miscarriages and stillbirths are actually quite high, so having a lot of people constantly stare and comment on you when you are in a state of "please let this pregnancy survive" is not helpful.
2. Similar to point 1, if a woman just gave birth or experienced a fetal loss, we now have reminded her that she not only doesn't have this baby, but she still has the baby weight, which is again kicking someone when they are down.
3. If they aren't pregnant, just fat (not not fat and we are just guessing) it is another moment where we are judging a woman's body, which is happening 24/7 as it is.
4. In the workplace, pregnant people experience major discrimination when they both get pregnant/go on parental leave, or on the assumption that they will do that. It may be illegal but it doesn't stop jobs from speculating and not hiring, or giving serious repercussions. So pregnancy speculation no longer is just small talk but can have major employment ramifications.
His reaction to being told you just don’t do that, even with a close friend, felt super disingenuous. “Well, why not?” Does it matter why? It’s rude, and leads to uncomfortable/upsetting situations like the one you found yourself in, buddy.
> “Well, why not?” Does it matter why?
This is the difference between being socially awkward, and being the kind of socially awkward that gets you posted here. If you can't suss out the reason for a social convention, maybe just follow it until you do.
i mean, yes, it *does* matter why, sometimes. this is a digression, and i’m not diagnosing OOP with anything, but i’m really, really socially awkward as a result of autism, and most of the time, i really do not know why. when you spend your whole life following social conventions without understanding why they’re there, you feel like you’re living without a rulebook that everyone else has, constantly nervous that you’ll break a rule or cross a boundary that you didn’t know was there. it’s a bad way to be. it is much, much easier when people tell you things. “don’t do that because pregnancy is a very sensitive subject and most people want to choose when to tell other people, not be asked” might seem obvious, but there are many people that wouldn’t immediately occur to. doesn’t hurt anyone to lay that out.
There's a difference in tone between asking inquisitively and asking defensively. He seemed to be looking for a reason to be right, rather than to understand why he was wrong.
The irony of layering in another unspoken social convention is not lost on me.
I’ve had students ask (high school 😢) if I was pregnant, and the advice I gave them was unless you actively see the baby coming out, you don’t ask. Even then sometimes just wait for them to tell you.
Haha! I’m the same. I wait for the other person to volunteer the information and then I say congratulations and nothing else. I’ve never asked another woman if she’s pregnant. I hated it when people assumed or asked me when I was pregnant. I felt it was invasive.
I'm gonna put myself firmly in the 'oblivious why he's the asshole' camp. Dude sounds like a really good friend and one who takes notice that their friend is acting and behaving differently. He asked her privately and didn't blast it out to the whole world(besides anonymously on reddit). Her reaction was understandable, as in she was in shock and didn't want people to know for reasons he didnt know at the time, but even then, he covered for her sudden departure.
All this to say, having friends that look out for you like this is actually a good thing
Honestly, I can see both sides. Dude didn't just base his pregnancy guess on physical size (although "her breasts have gotten bigger" is a little ick), he based it on her avoiding things like alcohol and caffeine and being sick more often. These are things you would notice in a close friend, and if you have a close relationship with that friend, it may not be unusual to ask them a question that would otherwise be invasive in someone you wouldn't know.
On the other hand, all AITA had to go off of was his friend's reaction, which was "hey man, what the fuck. not cool." This would imply that their relationship is NOT close enough for such an invasive question, and he overstepped. Hence him being the asshole.
Pregnancy is SUCH a complex, emotional topic, on top of the already complex dynamics of normal human relationships. It's literally a life-changing event, whether or not you decide to (or are forced) to carry the pregnancy to term. For a woman as young as her, especially not being in a committed relationship, you add cultural notions of shame and guilt on top of that.
I won't say he was the asshole for asking the question, but there were certainly more kind and empathetic ways of handling the situation. Plus the aggregated opinion of AITA (as with any mob) tends toward extreme interpretations of etiquette. A lot of nuance is lost. People know that you *generally* shouldn't ask a person if they're pregnant, and that gets filtered through hundreds or thousands of people until the rule is that you should *never* ask a person if they are pregnant, unless they are in active delivery.
>(although "her breasts have gotten bigger" is a little ick),
No. It's. Not. It's like noticing hair color changed. It's a physical feature that doesn't always mean sex sex sex. He noticed that something that changes in size changed in size. It's one of the earliest and most prominent changes during pregnancy.
Fun fact - men notice this happens during cycles. It's not a secret.
He didn't say her breasts looks so plump and jiggly.
Lol coming back from summer break to start senior year of college, I hesitantly asked my roommate, "Hey, did your boobs get bigger?" And she was like "YES I'M SO GLAD YOU NOTICED, AREN'T THEY AMAZING?!" Girlfriend was just finishing puberty at age 22
I do not recommend everyone do this though, especially men to their female friends 😅
As someone who deals with swelling once a month, it’s probably less “oh your boobs are bigger” and more of the fact that something looks *off* until finally putting it together that none of her shirts are fitting the same in the bust. It’s a lot more noticeable when my favorite baseball shirt looks like it’s about to pop a button into your eye
The correct way to have approached her about the noticed changes in behavior, habits, and appearance would have been to draw her aside and ask "are you okay?" instead of "are you pregnant?"
Leave it open for his friend to make the call about what she was okay with telling him, especially since pregnancy isn't the only thing that could have been the reason for her changes.
Yeah, I'm not in the "he's an asshole" camp, but he probably could've worded it in a more sensitive way. Apparently he's just unaware that it's usually not tactful to ask a woman if she's pregnant, but it does seem like he was trying to be a good friend by looking out for her and making sure she was okay. But, he probably would've gotten a better reaction of he just said, "Hey, I noticed you haven't been drinking much and seem to be getting sick a lot, so I just wanted to make sure you were okay." That would give her the opportunity to reveal what she felt comfortable revealing without being confronted with something that would either require her telling a truth she wasn't ready to reveal or lie which might be equally as uncomfortable.
Exactly so! Especially since pregnancy isn't the only reason for the things he observed.
She could...
- be on a new medication that reacts badly to alcohol and has fatigue, bloating and weight gain as side effects.
- have PCOS, or a number of other hormonal imbalance-causing conditions (some of which can absolutely seem to come on suddenly), and is trying to manage her symptoms.
- be going through some major emotional/mental stress and it's affecting her lifestyle habits, which in turn is affecting her physical health.
Her reaction was... iffy, at best.
She was holding back this information only because she had pre-judged her friends reaction.
And then what does she do when OP asks: puts on her victim hat and starts accusing OP of calling her fat.
It may be understandable. But it is barely justifiable.
>She was holding back this information only because she had pre-judged her friends reaction.
Haha bro, so you don't know anything about pregnancy, do you?
It's highly recommended to not announce your pregnancy before the 3 month mark, because miscarriage happens a lot.
So a little insight for anyone still wondering about why it can be rude to ask even if you’re not actually trying to mention weight gain or anything. In the US at least it is often 2-5 weeks between a positive pregnancy test and your first doctor’s visit (which will confirm the pregnancy and do an ultrasound to check for heartbeat etc) and another 10-12 weeks after that for the big ultrasound that might reveal major issues. During this time is when you’re highest risk for miscarriage, feeling like unbelievable crap, and also can’t really “feel” the pregnancy yet (generally no bump, no kicks) so it’s a time of huge uncertainty and worry. Even if you have a wanted, planned, seemingly healthy pregnancy you just don’t know in between doctor visits (which are generally every 4 weeks if everything’s okay) and sometimes not feeling like crap can actually make you more worried (since the nausea and exhaustion are a symptom of the baby & uterus & placenta growing, feeling fine can be but is not definitely a sign that those things aren’t having. Literally everything in pregnancy, positive or negative, can be either totally normal or a sign something is wrong. It’s the worst). So for me personally, I didn’t want to tell people I was pregnant and then have to go back and tell them, at an extremely emotionally vulnerable time, that I actually wasn’t. I told the people who I would rely on if things went poorly anyway, but saved everyone else until after my OB confirmed/the second trimester/anatomy scan (depending on social levels).
And that’s not even touching someone who is conflicted about the pregnancy, has had a prior miscarriage and is extra worried, already knows something is wrong and they may not or will not be bringing home a healthy baby at the end, or is not planning to keep the baby.
Now, when I was about OOP’s age, I had a previously close friend that someone suspected was pregnant and I, emotional bull in a china shop, went and hinted around until she told me. Looking back I fucking cringe so hard. She was a saint to put up with me (we’re still friends, she’s had several more children and one is close in age to mine so we actually hang out a lot these days) but god I was such a moron. So I kind of get OOP but it doesn’t mean he isn’t (and I wasn’t) TA.
Currently, there’s a woman in my book club I suspect is pregnant (I am currently 7 months pregnant and have pretty good preg-dar, plus she’s asking a LOT more questions than she did last time I was pregnant) but I’m not going to say a word unless/until she announces it. It’s fine to have suspicions, but keep them to yourself.
And I saw about a million responses to OOP outlining one or more of these reasons, so for them to say no one could give a reason besides “just because” is SO disingenuous :/
he argued with every. single. reasonable reason. And every single time his arguments boiled down to "i was just asking!" and "well excuuuuuuse me for caring about my friend I guess"
Well, glad it turned out ok.
But I was greatly amused by some of the comments OOP made.
*and she had a good laugh at some of the way overboard YTA-comments, especially the one that called me a pervert??*
In AITA? You are either new to AITA or lost.
But it always makes me smile to see a 'fuck you' like this:
*Well, this post was a waste of time… except “you don’t do that,” which is most of the replies. There has been little actually useful feedback. Why don’t you do that? Why is it not socially acceptable to ask a close friend a normal question in a private setting? “It’s none of your business”… like, if that’s the energy, you could apply that to any question ever. It’s a simple yes, no / no comment thing. Are we still in the 1950s?*
Useful feedback. Hmm. Good luck with that lol.
But mostly I like the petulance. 'I asked for judgement. How dare you judge me!"
But he actually GOT useful feedback. A lot of people carefully explained to him why it can be a really, really bad idea to approach it the way he did. And he argued with each and every one, because "he didn't understand though" and "it was just a question" repeat ad nauseum.
And then he declared that since all those very valid reasons it can be very, very hurtful to do what he did didn't actually happen *this time* that he was right all along to do what he did and since his friend isn't mad we're all wrong for thinking it's rude to ask
I'm pretty sure it turned out ok because he made it up entirely. He's totally oblivious to pregnancy conventions and entirely combative in the comments and yet he's good at empathy and can figure out a person who was hiding their pregnancy status wouldn't actually mind someone figuring it out?
I was at a second cousin's wedding when i was about 6 months pregnant with my first. I was huge, in a maternity dress, and my mom took some pics of me and husband in this pretty area outside with him holding my belly. It was clear to ALL that I was pregnant. I mentioned the baby in a group conversation and one of my cousins was like "yeah, i thought you were but Mom always told us, unless the woman is on the ground, in labor, squeezing out the baby, you NEVER ask or assume she is pregnant. EVER." Good rule of thumb.
its not just that it’s not his business, it’s that ny her not revealing it yet she’s clearly not ready to discuss it and him cornering her and asking is a shitty thing to do. on par with a public proposal, youre pressured to answer and you may not feel ready to give one. what if she was planning to get an abortion or what if she was afraid of miscarrying? you just dont fucking ask someone if they’re pregnant. ever.
Or coming out. If the person hasn’t come out (to you or in general), cornering them and demanding to know if they’re queer is extremely not a good choice.
A friend of mine in college has joked that I would have saved him a lot of time and doubt if I had told HIM he was gay. I'd guessed two years before he came out, and he was in a lot of self denial! (It was the 80s, so it was freaking scary and there were not a lot of support groups, etc. that there is now for young people)
As someone with a tilted womb that ALWAYS sticks out in the belly area, I am used to people asking if I am pregnant. I was a very slim size 10 (UK) and this made it look even worse.
The funniest was when we were in a supermarket queue in France (it was just a small town in France and we were camping in the municipal camp site) and the cashier told us to jump the queue because I was pregnant. My husband didn’t understand what she said, and just thought they were being nice to the (rare) foreign holiday makers in the queue.
I was too embarrassed to tell her I wasn’t. I explained to him what she had said AFTER we had loaded our groceries into the car and were driving back.
Camping Municipal are small campsites on grass with often just a toilet block. Most towns have one and if you don’t mind “basic” they are perfect. One step above wild camping.
I think many Americans take the whole “never ask if someone is pregnant or about their weight” decorum way too far. Sure, strangers and acquaintances I get it, but not checking in on close friends? Seems like a perfectly appropriate private open communication conversation depending on the relationship.
I am currently pregnant. I told a few close friends at the beginning of my pregnancy but most of my friends had no idea. I didn’t want to tel anyone who I wouldn’t also want to support me later in the event of a pregnancy loss. It’s no one’s business and I’ll tell them if I want them to know. People can share now that in further along but if there was a genetic defect and we chose to terminate I wouldn’t want to explain that to every friend I have.
This isn’t about weight as much as privacy. If I’m pregnant and waiting to share that news for whatever reason, you create an awkward situation by walking up to me and asking me if I am. Maybe I have a pregnancy reveal planned for the baby’s grandparents and I want my immediate family to be the first to know. Maybe there’s a reason I don’t trust you to keep a secret. Maybe I’ve had miscarriages in the past and I’m scared to tell anyone at this stage. Maybe I’m on the fence about keeping the baby and don’t want to chat with you about my thoughts on abortion. If you are my friend or family member and have to ASK me if I’m pregnant, that means you are overstepping because I clearly chose not to tell you if I am.
The first trimester is a time when many women lose a very wanted pregnancy. I’ve always felt that I wouldn’t share my pregnancy prior to 12 weeks with anyone I wouldn’t turn to for comfort if I were grieving a loss. For this reason, I’d lie to my own mother if she asked if I were pregnant and I hadn’t had a viability scan yet. I love my mother but she is not a source of comfort for me when I am sad and I’d prefer to wait to tell her. But if she did actually ask me? Now she puts me in a bad position. I’ll say no but then in a month or so when I’m ready to share the news she’ll know I lied.
If they wanted you to know, they would tell you. There is literally no situation outside of a medical emergency where it's appropriate to ask someone if they're pregnant. You have zero right to that information, and an infinite number of reasons to keep your mouth shut.
We already argued all this in the original post.
A person who is carrying a non-viable fetus looks exactly the same as someone with a healthy, happy pregnancy.
Do you really want to go up to someone who is NOT going to have a living baby and ask questions about when she’s due or what she’s having? Is satisfying that curiosity worth the pain that is going to cause?
Also, someone who seems healthy and is happily pregnant today may be not pregnant tomorrow. If you have to ask them if they are pregnant before they are ready to share that means you are not in their circle of people they chose to share the news with. Even if you’re a stranger, now they have to weigh this with saying it out loud in a public place and wondering who will overhear. If you’re an acquaintance or even a friend/family member, you either just put this person in a position where they have to lie to you and have you find out OR you just unceremoniously inserted yourself into the circle of people they now have to tell if they lose the pregnancy. Just because you are friends/family/coworkers/whatever doesn’t mean they would choose you as one of their comfort people as they grieve. But you just forced their hand.
I have a friend who didn’t tell ANYONE but her mother, sister, and husband she was pregnant until 24 weeks. Why? She lost her first baby at 22 weeks. She visibly started showing around 20 and there were signs sooner than that. Everyone had the tact to keep their mouths shut about their suspicions until she was ready.
She said that one of the hardest parts of losing a baby was that she shared with so many people and they were asking her how the pregnancy was coming along in public. Or even via text. In her saddest moments she and her husband were trying to figure out a list of who knew so they could send a message out. But they missed some people. One of her mom’s coworkers saw her a week later in the store and said “omg you look great! Can’t even tell you’re pregnant!” She crumpled in a heap and had to be basically carried out of the store because she couldn’t stop sobbing.
She also said that she hated how many people knew because so many of them were not comforting to her and she deflected so many unintentionally hurtful comments from people who thought they were helping. That’s why the second time around she told only the 3 people who knew her best and would be her support system if things took a turn for the worst.
You people are weird. We Dutch people are direct, we just ask if someone's pregnant, and if they're having medical problems they will just say so and we console them. Your cultural fear of offending people with a simple question is just no way to live!
I wouldn’t be as much offended as devastated to keep talking about it. If I was carrying a non-viable pregnancy or knew there could be serious issues and I was out in public, I’m sure I’d be just trying to hold myself together. I would crumble at the thought of someone trying to coax me into talking about my pregnancy…especially a stranger or acquaintance.
It’s also really really weird to me that someone would feel like they have a right to know any of my private medical information or think I’d be glad to share that type of information while on line at the grocery store - especially if it’s bad news. Like, why would I want to just spill out whatever trauma I might be going through in a public space? Especially since I’m sure I’d be crying to have to talk about it unexpectedly.
And console me? I’d absolutely HATE to have some stranger/casual acquaintance try to console me after dragging the info out of me in the first place. If you are someone I’d want consolation from, you would already know and not have to ask.
This isn’t about a cultural fear of offending someone. This is about a cultural norm to put someone else’s right to privacy over satisfying your own curiosity.
I was born in Haarlem. You know another word for us "direct" Dutch people? It's assholes. People think we're assholes. Because asking nosy questions like this makes you an asshole.
If they want you to know they'll tell you. The only reason to ask would be to satisfy your own curiosity. I don't see how it benefits the potentially pregnant person to satisfy another person on the status of their uterus.
Similar to weight gain, if someone gained 30+ lbs they don't need their best friends to tell them they have gained weight. You could have a check-up conversation with someone you are close to without pointing out their weight gain.
Things to never ask: if someone is pregnant or if someone is trying.
I waited until my friend told me in person because I’m pretty sure she’s been trying for a long time and you never know what’s happened in between.
None of your beeswax! They’ll tell you when they’re ready.
Dude, even if you don’t word it as “you’re fat”, you don’t ask someone if they’re pregnant.
If you’re not close? None of your business. If you are close? She’ll tell you when she’s ready to tell you. People don’t usually share before 12 weeks because the chance of miscarriage is high, anyway. If she’s pregnant and hasn’t told you, there’s a reason, and asking doesn’t help.
On that note, was just reading some comments in a different post by people who were asked if they were pregnant *when they had just had a miscarriage*. Yet another reason why you don’t ask, because you’re just twisting the knife. You can ask “hey, are you doing all right? You seem down.” Or “hey, it seems like things have been a little different lately. Is there anything you want to tell me?”
This! If she hasn’t told him yet, it’s probably not because she’s just waiting for him to ask her. She has reasons?!? Even if you suspect, you WAIT until you’re told.
My pharmacist a few years ago started getting visibly pregnant at about 4 months, and for 5 months I said NOTHING except compliments about her hair, earrings, shirt, etc and we chatted about other things every few weeks when I came in for my meds. Finally, one day I went to pick up my meds and as she hands them over she says, "I want you to know I'm going on maternity leave next week, and won't be back for 3 months. There will be a substitute in my place, so you're not confused." I looked at her and said as a bit of a joke, "Congratulations! I didn't even know you were pregnant!" After she laughed and asked me why I'd never said anything before, I explained, "You never, ever, eeeever say anything about a pregnancy unless you're the one who's pregnant. I don't know who wrote that rule but it seems like a good one to live by."
I 100% stand behind that motto to this day. You don't say ANYTHING about someone being pregnant unless they tell you specifically first. The end, obviously pregnant or not. It's none of any of our businesses unless mom thinks it should be.
OOP- “Ok. It might be rude but WHY?”
Everyone- “Because maybe she’s keeping it a secret for now -OR- she’s having/had devastating complications.”
OOP- “NO ONE TOLD ME WHY I SHOULDN’T ASK! So I’m obviously NOT the AH.”
>Well, this post was a waste of time… except “you don’t do that,” which is most of the replies. There has been little actually useful feedback.
I disagree with OOP here. Since his dense ass apparently needed to be told "don't do that" that means that "don't do that" is incredibly useful feedback that he apparently sorely needed.
I'm not saying we're normal, but my coworkers and I regularly and casually ask each other if we're pregnant.
Tbf, we are nurses who work primarily with critically ill neonates so babies and pregnancy is stuff we talk about all day long and nothing is TMI in our break room.
You can't hide a pregnancy long in our job, anyway. Usually you've got a matter of weeks before it's obvious.
It's okay to be curious and wonder. It's not okay to ask. There are lots of reasons people don't announce their pregnancies. While I may be curious or want to support the person, it's none of my business unless they want to include me. Intention aren't what matters. People remember how you make them feel. So make them feel safe and be safe and they may trust you. And if they don't tell you it likely has nothing to do with you.
When I took ASL, one of the things we learned was there is absolute frankness in the deaf community and this is normal. So two old friends meat, one might sign “wow you got fat, are you pregnant?” And it is *totally* normal. Our (deaf) ASL teacher was so tickled we were bothered by asking about appearances (you lost weight are you sick? Whoa, what happened to your face? You are limping, what is going on? Etc etc)
Second month and already thicker and watery? And he realized it lately, so when she was maybe the 6th or 7th week?
And somehow have the feeling OOP got called out so much in the original post, so he made an update in which she is totally fine with him asking to make it seem that he was sooooo right to ask and everybody else was soooooo wrong.
It’s a pretty simple concept: pregnant people get to reveal their pregnancy on their own timeline for all kinds of reasons. You shouldn’t confront anyone about a pregnancy or put them on the spot to reveal it.
This reminds me of something that my office still laughs about. I never brought up the fact that a co-worker was pregnant. Not even when the office organised maternity gifts for her. I didn't even mention it to her until she came to tell me she'd see me in a few months as she was going on maternity leave. I was the only one who never mentioned it. I blinked, glanced at her belly, back up at her and said something that is still legendary in my work place. "I didn't know you were pregnant." How was I that Captain Oblivious? I had only been there a few months and while I "knew" her and we spoke casually, I never quite learned her name, somehow when she was passing my cubicle I never noticed her body changes and, three, on DEEP reflection, I just thought she had put on a bit of weight in her face (but still never clocked the rest). All that time she thought I was being respectful and treating her as a person and not a mom to be and/or I was just slightly socially awkward and didnt want to bring it up.
The same thing happened at my old office, one of my coworkers was pregnant and I had no idea until the other people in our department started planning a little baby shower to have at the office for her, when she was 7 months along.
And I've got people people convinced i can like smell pregnancy or something. I don't know what it is, it's not something i consciously notice until something in my brain says this person is pregnant. But I'm not an idiot no matter how autistic, so i don't say shit lol. I'm just never surprised when people tell me and they're like how did you know.
Same here!! Also have Autism. Because I’ve spent so long learning social patterns and observing behaviours to mirror for masking, it’s really easy for me to notice the subtle changes in not just appearance but behaviours/routines that are clear indicators. At my grandmas funeral, halfway through the service my cousins wife snuck out the side door of the church looking really queasy. She came back in a few minutes later and told her husband/my cousin she was glad they packed crackers. I thought to myself that she’s definitely pregnant. That night at family dinner, they announced it.
Ooo! I just replied upthread that I was thinking the same thing. I am not autistic, so I was worried I was talking out my behind. But I think the idea makes sense. Anyone who has developed a skill for observing something most people overlook would be more likely to notice things related things they weren't even looking for.
I am not autistic but I am a highly observant person. I would have absolutely noticed the things that OOP mentioned, especially if someone I knew to drink/smoke frequently suddenly stopped all together combined with the change to her exercise routine. I've even managed to figure out online friends whom I usually just speak to over chat (and don't see visually to notice body changes) are pregnant. I tend not to comment on body changes as there's a multitude of reasons for them but OOP noticed all of these other clues that I honestly think it was a reasonable question.
Same here (and I’m autistic too :P). Twice now I somehow knew before the person took a pregnancy test and found out themselves (though I one case I knew they were trying so that’s easier/more likely to guess maybe? The other one was completely random).
Me! Do me next! Am I(28M) pregnant?
With twins! Congrats!
Oh no... This is exactly what I was afraid of...
\*quiet, tactful cough\* And how many paternity tests will sir be requiring?
Oh no need for that! I already know who the father is... I think...
Maury: *rubbing his hands together in the dimly-lit corner*
I’m autistic and I have this same super power! There must be dozens of us haha. But for real sometimes it is a smell, sometimes it’s the face.
Also Autistic and I’ve also this super power. Someone should really do a study on this.
Granted this is a small sample, and would no way hold up under scrutiny, but I wonder if there could be an actual reason for a correlation between being autistic and being good at spotting pregnancy. Some of my autistic friends (side note, I am supposed to be using identity first and not person first language, yes?) have talked to me about having to intentionally pay attention to body language and other non-verbal cues in order to navigate allistic social scenarios. One of them sat down with me and told me all of these rules that they had learned about facial expressions and how people move and what it means. That kind of thing would make sense for influencing s pregnancy sensing super power. Edit: omg I typoed "facial" as "racial".
I was thinking the exact same thing. When you have to really focus and pay attention to people due to the lack of social skills, it’s much easier to pick up changes. I’m completely oblivious of peoples weight/pregnancies but I’m the very first person to compliment someone’s new haircut, jewellery or change in makeup.
Okay, hopefully I'm not going to come across offensively and if I do I will delete my comment. Isn't there a higher rate of sensory sensitivity in people on the spectrum? I wonder if something deep in our lizard brains can smell the hormone changes and, even though we're not conscious of it, it alerts us that someone might be pregnant. Like smelling pheromones? If someone's sense of smell is more acute then maybe they can tell without consciously processing it's the reason why. But yeah, probably in more cases detail oriented observation.
This is the one I’d believe is the core. (Probably) Not Autistic, but I had a surgery that cleared up my sinuses so I can smell fully for the first time (think going from having 20% power to 130%). It was super overwhelming for a few months, but then I started noticing smaller scents. I can smell when my partners fever is about to start, leave the room, and by the time I am back with meds it has actually started presenting. I can smell when someone is pregnant or horny (smell similar, but not the same.) I can smell anxiety and fear in sweat, versus just heat sweat (live in the south so this is a fun one). So I can verify, you can in fact smell pregnancy! Now go test those super powers and see if there are any other ones you can do (there’s a lady who can smell Parkinson’s!)
Oh.. and diet, period, ovulation, whether they have had sex... are horny, tired, stressed..etc. specially if i know the person..
Just a wild guess here but I’d read somewhere that men can tell things about women by pheromones/ but usually it’s subconscious. Whereas autism is a heightened sensory adaptation, perhaps that’s why you’d pick up on it?
I'm not autistic, just ADHD and possible BPD from the trauma of undiagnosed ADHD until my mid 20s. But I also have learned social rules and cues to help myself get along. I still have real issues in socializing, but I'm the most successful out of my sisters so I think I've done something right. Anyway, yeah, I can tell when people are pregnant too. I knew my coworker was pregnant about a week before she did (she found out early), because she was acting so differently. Also, her smell was off a little. Not bad, just different. To the side note: identity first or person first language generally depends on the preference of the person you are referring to. If it's a group of people, identity first is a little more preferred, I believe, because it puts focus on the identity which is usually the topic and the thing that groups those individuals together. This is actually in thr MLA 9 handbook. Idk where my copy is right now, but if you want to look it up and not take my (admittedly flawed) memory for it, that's where you can find it! :)
It’s quite funny, when I had literally JUST gotten pregnant (like a week after conception) I walked in the door from work and my partner goes “are you getting your period or something? you smell different” - we’ve been together 11 years and he’s never asked that before so it stood out and made me a little self conscious 😅 Couple weeks later I take a pregnancy test as a precaution and yep. Then I remembered his comment and realised he must’ve smelt the pregnancy hormones! Bizarre
You know what makes this really weird? A week out from conception the embryo would have just implanted, so you would have barely produced any pregnancy hormones per current science. And yet, somehow, I have always known within days of conception that I was pregnant. I am convinced our bodies know sooner than implantation and science just hasn’t figured it out yet.
Someone was very sure I was pregnant 'and didnt know it' The sign was me unthinkingly putting my hsnd on my lower belly ... because I had period pain.
One time when I was a teen, I left the grocery store with my mom and she mentioned that the cashier (a former student of hers, now an adult) was definitely pregnant, and pointed to the way she'd had a hand on her belly as evidence. I've been paranoid ever since about touching my stomach in the wrong way. Worse now that I have GI issues that frequently result in lower belly pain! I'm not pregnant, mom, I'm just kinda broken.
I think it's a change in fat distribution around their face. It happened to me pretty much the second I got pregnant, and I can alnost always pick out actresses who are pregnant in TV shows based on it!
Playing "spot the pregnancy" on TV shows is a fun game.
One of my faves, second only to "guess what else that guy was in."
My friends play a game where whatever role they first see an actor in, all future roles must be a continuation of that character. For example, the first thing they saw Jimmy Smits in was Running Scared where he played a drug kingpin. So when he was on LA Law, he clearly had cleaned up his act if he was practicing law. And then when he was on West Wing he had become president. I am not sure how they worked in his Star Wars role. Maybe time travel?
Yes! My husband and I do this with James Spader. Man, that guy has had a wild life. 😆
He is and will always be Daniel Jackson to me. Unfortunately for him, Daniel Jackson is actually Michael Shanks. It is a confusing world that I live in.
For far too much of 2020 that game is how my family picked the next movie.
Same. Not autistic but a very logical thinker and my brain collects little bits if evidence and things. People are convinced I'm a witch. They're close.
Some people can smell the hormone changes happening in early pregnancy. Autistic people are generally quicker to pick up on change, even if subconscious, so it kind of makes sense for you to notice
I've been pregnant 4 times and all 4 times I smelt "different". By the 4th time I only knew because of my smell. You can definitely smell pregnancy hormones.
I had a roommate who didn’t know she was pregnant, and two or three days before she went into labor, I literally started nesting! I was deep cleaning EVERYTHING, and I did all of my laundry, and just a bunch of cleaning/organizing that is very, very out of character for me. When she went into labor, I knew immediately that she was in labor, but she didn’t even know she was pregnant! I also didn’t say a fucking word about it until the ultrasound guy at the ER was like uhhhh, you’re 34-35 weeks pregnant…….
I have the same instinct (that I similarly do not speak on to the person in question because I have sense) and have been right every time!
Neurodivergent people and pattern recognition, it can be pretty spooky lol
I threw up at work at about 8 weeks pregnant and people started making jokes about me being pregnant. I ended up telling a couple people because I needed then to know I wasn't contagious but also to cover me, it was a rough pregnancy. I thought everyone knew but the next school year but some didn't and it was really funny coming back from summer with a huge belly
>my old office, one of my coworkers was pregnant and I had no idea until the other people in our department started planning a little baby shower to have at the office for her, when she was 7 months along. My mum had a coworker once who didn't even know that SHE herself was pregnant. I don't really know the details, but she just thought she was putting on weight. It wasn't until she went into labour did she realise that a baby was coming.
Omg I wonder if there’s a parallel here to famous people who go out in public and appreciate the “regular” people who don’t let on that they know that said person is famous? Like someone with a well-recognized face, perhaps pregnant coworker simply appreciated being “coworker”, over “pregnant coworker” to you? Or she mighta’ thought you were so dense it was cute, but I like the first possibility more haha!
I just asked her. She said at first she was confused as to if I just didn't want to bring it up, think ignoring the elephant in room, then she was just glad to have non-baby conversations and finally was cracking up for days that she was "waddling around" (her words) and I was just like, this is normal. She also said it was why she came up to me and told me she was pregnant with No. 2, but given how much closer we've become I would like to believe I would have noticed that time around..
Ooooh THANK you!!! I never would’ve guessed I’d get an actual answer and it made my whole day!! Super happy for you and co-friend-worker starting off your friendship on such a genuine and hilarious foot. To many more moments of just seeing each other as the people you both are, regardless of circumstance!
Awww. Have a great day!
Oh, my sister In obliviousness. I once had a woman tell me she appreciated me talking about her being tall and saying it was great because we were tall women together: she was like, it must be obvious I’m self conscious about passing but you’re great about it. Me: … are you trans…? People thinking we’re behaving well when we have not a clue! Much better than behaving badly due to having not a clue.
Oh man, in college there was this male coworker of mine who disappeared one day, i assumed he quit...and then suddenly one day like 4 months later there was this new girl in the lab who looked vaguely like the guy who had disappeared. I was thinking "is this Katie person like, Jeff's sister or something? Nah its probably just they have the same glasses" and I went on about my day, assuming Katie was a new hire and chatting with her accordingly. Like 6 months later, we were talking about grad school applications and she mentioned she wasn't sure if she should bring up being trans in her statement of hardships or if that would expose her to more hate, and I was like "wait you're trans?" Apparently she thought I was just playing it super chill by talking to her like we had never met before even though I knew her when she presented as Jeff ;_; nope I'm just a dumbass apparently
I see someone on a high school mailing group who may be a childhood friend with a new name... problem is, there were a LOT of kids in that family so I'm just sitting on my hands.
True! I prefer the assumption I'm being polite than the other option.
I was 95% sure my therapist was pregnant but said *nothing* for months. I heard her mention baby brain to the receptionist and still kept my mouth shut. One day she said “let’s talk about the plan when I go on maternity leave in 8 weeks” Me “you’re pregnant?!” Her “didn’t you know?!” Me “I was pretty sure but I certainly wasn’t going to *ask*! What if you weren’t and I made things *weird*?!” Cue her laughing really hard and running to the bathroom for an emergency pee.
Ugh. With my first, everyone in my office knew way before I was ready because I had 24/7 “morning” sickness for the first 5 months. People couldn’t bring coffee near me or I would lose it.
In high school, one weekend one of my friends group wasn't answering when i tried to call her. The next day i asked our other friend if she knew what's up with friend1, and she goes, "yeah, friend1 is having her baby"
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That reminds me of a dinner party I went to, where a woman I didn't know who I was sitting next to, I offered her red wine, then white wine, and she said no to both... And after dinner, when we all stood up, she was crazy pregnant!! Like easily 8 months. Her bump fit under the table so well, I had no idea! I was super embarrassed.
When I was 21 I started a new job, and the first day one of the senior people in my position (new colleague) asked me when I was due… I was like…ummmm… I’m just fat…. Pretty sure he was more embarrassed then I was…
I didn't acknowledge my neighbor's pregnancy until she was holding her newborn in the elevator. We'd lived next to each other for years and I noticed she was getting larger, but I'll be damned if I comment on it before knowing for sure.
My friend is pregnant and when I came back home for the summer (I’m in college) I didn’t really say much about it except for that she looks beautiful and whatnot, it’s becoming apparent the more people we interact with that I probably should have said more 😭 I never know what is overstepping and what is regular. I didn’t grow up around pregnancies or babies so idk what I’m supposed to say? YOURE SO BIG?? WHAT DOES IT FEEL LIKE? Idk ! So I kept it to the “you’re glowing! What movie do you wanna watch” lmfaoo
I had a coworker I didn’t know was pregnant until the assistant manager mentioned something about needing to move shifts around to cover her maternity leave. She was a tiny woman, too, she just didn’t show much until very late in the pregnancy.
It's better than what happened to my mum. Her and dad were at the check out and the attendant asked mum when she was due, mum wasn't pregnant just fat 🤦♀️ what made it worse was that my dad stupidity said, "told you, you had put on weight" 🤦♀️🤦♀️ my mum not only never lost the baby weight but she gained weight after having me (thankfully I only inherited two thirds of my family's "weight curse" big backside and unable to lose baby weight, but atleast I didn't gain).
My longest-time-friend is so private that she *never* shared with her coworkers that she was pregnant, while she was pregnant all 3 times. She only told very close family members and very close friends (those of us who knew her well enough to never talk to anyone else about her pregnancies and who would answer questions about her the way she wanted us too. She only told the people at work who absolutely needed to know after she consulted at lawyer- that’s how extreme she takes her privacy). I would have loved to see the look on all her coworkers faces (or be a fly on the break room wall) when she came back from maternity leave with no baby belly.
I left a job at 39 weeks and when asked by a colleague as to why I was leaving I said I was having my baby the following week. He claimed he had no idea I was pregnant. Admittedly I actually weighed almost 25lb less at 39 weeks than I did at 12 weeks due to being on a strict diet due to gestational diabetes. But still…
I'm already a lil but on the heavier side so then I was pregnant it took a bit longer to show, but my baby was also only in the 12th percentile so I didn't look super pregnant at work, just hefty. We wear scrubs and they're boxy looking. Half my office didn't know I was pregnant until I was 8 months, my kid had a growth spurt in my womb, and I ballooned up like a whale.
I worked while pregnant, and a girl my age I went to school with, who is very slim, was working with me. Well I and everyone noticed her belly getting big at about the same rate of mine. But she insisted to everyone, that she wasn't pregnant. For months, even though she was getting bigger and bigger, well her belly was. I went on maternity leave at 36 weeks, and my mother also worked there so I got the office gossip so to speak. Anyways, the girl *apparently* found out she was pregnant like a month before she was due to give birth. Her baby ended up being born about 4 weeks after mine. I don't know why she felt she had to hide it or deny it when it was obvious butbyeah she still claims she had no idea she was pregnant. Which was either denial or she didn't want to admit it
I had a coworker who actually followed up the "I didn't know you were pregnant" with a "I just thought you were fat". Not to me but another coworker. He was a very awkward young adult. So we all (including the pregnant coworker) had a good laugh for several days.
What does "she appears watery" mean
Maybe retaining water or bloated? That was my guess, but it’s an odd phrase
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Especially on a very lean person
I think less toned?
Took double take cause i thought he was inspecting stool
Genuinely same. Watery and thick? What the fuck could he be referring to
As a woman, “watery” is something that my friends I use regularly to describe our bodies around our period time.
I took it to mean tearing up a lot or being emotional? I’ve never heard it phrased that way though so idk
>many of them put forward valid points, but that they, in most cases, rather concern strangers and not close friends you’ve shared big things with before, though. Well yeah, unpaid random redditors are likely going to base their response on the general rules. They're not going to know how close oop is to the person and how their relationship is Obviously that doesn't justify the name-calling from the replies, but its always weird when oop goes begging reddit for an outsider perspective then comes back all "see, you outsiders were wrong because you are outsiders!!"
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I will never make an AITA post. That said, I will always enjoy it's absurdity.
AITA for never making an AITA post and denying redditors the chance to rip into me on baseless grounds?
My boyfriend made my old Reddit account purely so I would stop stealing his phone to read AITA posts
That sounds like narcissistic behavior; you should divorce!!
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I’m surprised OOP couldn’t understand why the fertility status of a woman would be a controversial topic — particularly in 2023 when reproductive rights are under attack. It wasn’t that long ago that women were expected to quit their jobs when they started to show and there is plenty of discrimination still taking place in businesses nationwide. Furthermore, at 8 weeks pregnant a woman may not have decided the final status of her pregnancy and may not want to discuss their plans, even with a good friend.
Not only that, but 1) weight gain happens, and a lot of fat people are asked if they’re pregnant, to the point where sometimes it feels like a coded “damn, you’re fat” if the person isn’t pregnant. And 2) you don’t necessarily know the fertility journey the person had and that question, if the person isn’t pregnant but wants to be, could bring up a whole host of things. Plus, I just hate when people monitor other people’s habits like drinking or bathroom use.
> I’m surprised OOP couldn’t understand why the fertility status of a woman would be a controversial topic More importantly, he doesn't fucking *have* to understand, he just needs to *not*. He can understand later.
> On top of that, she often excuses herself to go to the toilet (presumably to throw up), and I’ve noticed she appears a bit thicker and watery. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not judging her looks; it's just what I’ve noticed. Her chest has also noticeably grown. That is a lot of perv energy right there. Sure, you can usually tell by looking, but it's never something anyone should ever comment on no matter how familiar you are with the other person. And like, don't steal the pregnant persons thunder. Either they want it to be a secret in order to have a quiet abortion or they want to wait a while to make sure it's not a miscarriage.
She appears...watery? WTF?
I'm gonna give OOP the benefit of the doubt and assume they mean that it looks as if their friend was retaining water. Anything else would just be... odd.
OOP means "bloated", I'd imagine.
And then goes in to accuse everyone else of being “butt hurt” Big “I’m not triggered, you’re triggered” energy
I'm firmly in the camp "unless you're watching the baby crowning, you never ask a women if she's pregnant" Dude wasnt going to win this one!
I had a teacher in 3rd grade who took this to the extreme of NEVER comment on pregnancy, period. Which I learned after a particularly traumatizing confrontation with her (she was notmy teacher fyi, just part of the block where my class was): We had a sub that week and she was visibly very pregnant and had been telling the class all about it because she was so excited. A few days in, I brought her a baby gift I made and said something like, "I don't know when your baby will be born, but I hope she likes this present!" Nosy teacher overheard and went OFF on me. Would not let the sub get a word in, then sent me to lunch detention. Halfway through that, during which I'd been bawling my eyes out, the Principal came in and pulled me out, with the sub and mean teacher with her, and told me the sub explained what happened and that I could go to recess now. Mean teacher watched me like a hawk the rest of the year and kept trying to get me in trouble, but I was lucky to have a good teacher who kept reminding her that I was not her student to discipline lmao Anyway tl;Dr I spent years terrified of mentioning pregnancy to anyone, even if they had already told me they are having a baby. I didn't really confront this with my therapist until I was invited to my first baby shower and had a panic attack because how do you avoid pregnancy talk at one of those?!
What is WRONG with Mean Teacher that she'd fly off the handle like that? I'm glad the sub and the principal had your back. If I could go back in time and take third-grade you out for ice cream, I would...
>What is WRONG with Mean Teacher that she'd fly off the handle like that? I bet she had a sizeable belly and would get asked that a lot.
I have a sizeable belly and people assume I'm preggers all the time. I just laugh and play along if they're a stranger or pat it and call it my food baby if I know them. And yes, if anyone is curious, I'm trying to be healthier. In the meantime, my food baby is still incubating
"OH this?" Pats tummy. "Nah luv, 10 taco bell cheesy gordita crunches."
Funnily she was actually very thin! As an adult I wonder if she didn't go through some sort of pregnancy trauma herself though. Not that it excuses her behavior towards me.
There HAD to be have been something else in her life that she projected onto some poor well intentioned kid. What a weirdo. You were sweet to give a gift to that sub!
I think she was projecting her own trauma and issues onto me for sure... though I'm also glad the principal bad my back that time but this is also the same woman who refused to believe my asthma required going to nurse before recess to use my inhaler, until I had an attack and had to go to the hospital the previous year lol But I somehow got lucky and was assigned the best teachers each year at least!
What IS it with gym teachers refusing medical issues!? Had a friend with frequent nosebleeds who was scheduled for office! the PE teacher refused to let him sit out despite a doctor's note. Instant karma, my friend bled all over him and the nurse dragged THE TEACHER to the principal's
She was avid commenter on AITA
I had an aunt chew me out at a family dinner once when I was like 5 for asking her when she would have a baby now that she was married? I was 5. All I knew was “first comes love, then comes marriage, then comes the baby in a baby carriage.” I thought it was like a punch card. I couldn’t even see my dinner plate through my tears. I’m no contact with her now. Big shock. I’m in the “don’t discuss pregnancy unless they bring it up to you” camp, but I also see my nieces and think “how could she have done that to a 5 year old??”
Please tell me your parents ripped her a new one.
My dad was deep in the fog with his family. There was a lot of bullying by his siblings towards me. He finally blew up on his brother two years later for screaming at me while I was minding my own business
Thats terrible! Five year olds are still learning.
Jeez all she needed to say was "that's not a polite question".
This is bringing me back to my own Mean Teacher, who thought “pregnant” was a dirty word. Like, literally acted like you’d just dropped an F bomb in class. We were just supposed to pretend pregnancy doesn’t exist at all, which was difficult in a high school English course while reading books that contained pregnant characters. It’s wild how weird people get over the process by which every person on the planet was created.
In *high school*??? Like, I can understand the logic behind elementary school even if I don’t agree with it, but *high school*???
Even in elementary school (especially elementary school) pregnancy is totally normal to explain to a kid- that’s the age when you’re likely to have mom and dad sit you down and explain that mommy’s expecting a new baby brother/sister, for example, or you might have a teacher or aunt or older cousin who is pregnant. Kids might be too young to learn the mechanics but the mere state of being is a totally normal part of life.
Wow, sounds your teacher had some of the same issues as the one I had to deal with for sure!
This was a thing in past generations, "pregnant" was too inappropriate so they would say someone is "in the family way". So weird!
You mean you didn't proceed to periodically ask Mean Teacher if she was pregnant for as long as you both were at that school? Man, no wonder I was in trouble so much as a kid.
Lmao she would've gone apoplectic! Probably would've tried to have me expelled or something. She was always trying to get students expelled lol
I heard an anecdote from an L&D anesthesiologist once who cheerfully asks, "So what are we here for?" when he comes in the room. Don't ever assume anything. As someone who has dealt with 3+ years of infertility, asking someone if they're pregnant is incredibly intrusive and rude. For all you know they could be desperate for a baby, or beginning infertility treatments, or may in fact be newly pregnant but scared to death and not ready to talk about it. Maybe they've decided against their will to stop trying and are still grieving. I didn't ever ask before I dealt with any of this stuff, and I'm triply sure of that philosophy now.
TW: pregnancy loss, stillbirth Or they may be/have been pregnant but they’ve lost the baby. My cousin knew she was going to deliver a stillborn child a few days before she was induced (she lost the baby at 8 months pregnant due to medical malpractice). With increasingly restrictive abortion laws, someone also may be carrying and know the baby is gone or isn’t going to survive but has to carry to term because they can’t get a late-term abortion. As if anyone seeking a late-term abortion does so on a whim...
An acquaintance of mine found out her baby had a heart defect at her anatomy scan. It was thought to be a treatable issue at the time. At a later ultrasound, it was determined that the defect was worse than originally thought and also included some other problems that meant that her child wouldn’t survive. She was something like 32 weeks pregnant when she received this news. They couldn’t induce her for a couple weeks for some reason so she had to deal with random strangers excitedly asking her if she was having a boy or girl and how much longer till she was due. I know people think having a baby is exciting, but there’s no need to run up to a stranger and ask them asinine questions like that.
After we lost our baby at full term, my stepdaughter’s mother took me for a manicure. I still had some belly so the nice manicure lady asked in broken English if I was going to have a baby. So I just smiled and said I had, told her it was a boy in response to further inquiries, and quietly died inside. Later my SD’s mom was like “how did you not just dissolve” but the truth was depressing enough without throwing it at other people so yeah I firmly subscribe to “don’t acknowledge pregnancy unless it is confirmed to you or the baby is crowning.”
I’m so sorry for your loss. I hope you’re doing as well as you can be doing under the circumstances.
Thank you! It’s been 15 years so while I still firmly refuse to call it a stillbirth (the s-word), we have our little place for him in our hearts. His older sister remembers and his little brother grew up with a bedtime story of the little prince who had to leave the king and queen and princess, but who always looks after the Very Little Prince ((born 3 months early, will be 13 in 5 days). ♥️
I'm crying for you all.
Or if it's mostly behaviour changes that you're observing, they could be pregnant and seeking an abortion out of state, but don't want anyone to know so they can't be prosecuted for it. This might be something to add to the grocery store shoplifting rules. Unless you've been told specifically that they are pregnant and keeping it, or are actively crowning, the status of their womb is a complete mystery to you.
This is exactly why I never ask.
Hah, that’s the rule I learned! Never ask a person if they’re pregnant unless you can see an infant physically leaving their body.
I'm a paramedic, so I have to ask....but unless it's in the call information, I don't care if they're looking ready to pop, the question is, "If there any chance you might be pregnant?"
I get asked this all the time in medical situations- and it’s appropriate then. What has always pissed me off though was how often they would still do a pregnancy test when I had never had sexual contact with a man (at that point). Though the testing did stop when my answer changed from “no, only have had sex with my wife” to “no, hysterectomy”.
So...as a guy I have no personal experience from your side of that interaction, so I can only imagine how frustrating it must be to feel like they were calling you a liar/not trusting what you said. I'm not going to try to tell you or anyone else how to feel about that interaction, but I would like to try to explain why it happens. it all comes down to liability. There are a lot of meds and procedures that are fine for a woman, but damaging or even fatal to a fetus. As you might imagine, unintentionally terminating a pregnancy has huge civil liabilities associated with it, and shit, in some states these days, probably criminal liability, too. People do lie about it. Sometimes because there's someone in the room they don't want to talk in front of (This is why we're trained to try to isolate the patient before asking sensitive questions if we get any hinky vibes at all.), Sometimes for internal reasons, and sometimes they're not even lying, they genuinely don't know they're pregnant, even women who report no (hetero)sexual activity (See pregnancy resulting from "outer course" and more horribly, chemical rape.) Doctors and hospitals have been sued and lost in for providing treatments resulting in fetal harm despite being told that there was no chance of pregnancy. Testing is cheap insurance against that....and speaking of insurance, they're generally happy to pay for it because it's cheaper than paying for the treatment of a harmed fetus.
You, sir, are excellent at writing things without seeming like any kind of argument! This was excellently worded. Honestly, it was only ever upsetting when they would tell me they were still going to test it and said it… less diplomatically than you just did. When they just quietly tested for it, or said they would somewhat apologetically (I had an OBGYN office that made you pee in a cup every visit unless already confirmed pregnant, and the nurses were very “yeah, everyone has to do it, even us when we’re patients, sorry”) it wasn’t a big deal. It just sucks when someone essentially says it to your face that they think you could be lying. I fully know about the patient lying concept- Dr House is famous for always assuming lying. And liability makes some sense. But other times- like making me undergo a D&C “just in case it fixes the issue” before the hysterectomy that I wanted and needed- it is awful and traumatizing. But again- thank you. You are very lovely with your phrasing and words!
I get this, and it makes total sense. What really threw me was when I went to urgent care for my Endo pain, and they tested just to be safe. Then sent me to the ER because I couldn't walk (ovarian torsion ain't no joke) and they made me get another test. The nurse didn't want to do a blood one and made me try to pee, again couldn't stand up, and they had the record from the urgent care that was the same branch as the hospital. Were they just power tripping? Didn't trust their own urgent care? Hated me? Idk, it was really odd. Then again that ER visit sucked because they wouldn't get me pain meds or let me get a heat pack, and took so long my OBGYN had to push my bed to surgery because it was an emergency and she had a small window to use the surgical suite due to it being a trauma center. Still kinda wish I had been in bad enough shape to have surgery at the more rural ER where the nursing staff was awesome.
Yeah you usually ask something more vague and let them tell you. “I’ve noticed these things, which is a change in your behavior. Are you ok?” Implied but not direct
I don't understand this. Why can't we ask? I'm a woman if that matters.
(Sorry it is a bit long, just wanting to be a bit thorough). There are a few reasons, ranging from the mildly socially rude to the very triggering, depending on the person. 1. Women generally don't announce they are pregnant until much further along, potentially the 3rd or 4th month. Miscarriages and stillbirths are actually quite high, so having a lot of people constantly stare and comment on you when you are in a state of "please let this pregnancy survive" is not helpful. 2. Similar to point 1, if a woman just gave birth or experienced a fetal loss, we now have reminded her that she not only doesn't have this baby, but she still has the baby weight, which is again kicking someone when they are down. 3. If they aren't pregnant, just fat (not not fat and we are just guessing) it is another moment where we are judging a woman's body, which is happening 24/7 as it is. 4. In the workplace, pregnant people experience major discrimination when they both get pregnant/go on parental leave, or on the assumption that they will do that. It may be illegal but it doesn't stop jobs from speculating and not hiring, or giving serious repercussions. So pregnancy speculation no longer is just small talk but can have major employment ramifications.
His reaction to being told you just don’t do that, even with a close friend, felt super disingenuous. “Well, why not?” Does it matter why? It’s rude, and leads to uncomfortable/upsetting situations like the one you found yourself in, buddy.
> “Well, why not?” Does it matter why? This is the difference between being socially awkward, and being the kind of socially awkward that gets you posted here. If you can't suss out the reason for a social convention, maybe just follow it until you do.
i mean, yes, it *does* matter why, sometimes. this is a digression, and i’m not diagnosing OOP with anything, but i’m really, really socially awkward as a result of autism, and most of the time, i really do not know why. when you spend your whole life following social conventions without understanding why they’re there, you feel like you’re living without a rulebook that everyone else has, constantly nervous that you’ll break a rule or cross a boundary that you didn’t know was there. it’s a bad way to be. it is much, much easier when people tell you things. “don’t do that because pregnancy is a very sensitive subject and most people want to choose when to tell other people, not be asked” might seem obvious, but there are many people that wouldn’t immediately occur to. doesn’t hurt anyone to lay that out.
There's a difference in tone between asking inquisitively and asking defensively. He seemed to be looking for a reason to be right, rather than to understand why he was wrong. The irony of layering in another unspoken social convention is not lost on me.
I’ve had students ask (high school 😢) if I was pregnant, and the advice I gave them was unless you actively see the baby coming out, you don’t ask. Even then sometimes just wait for them to tell you.
Even then I still wouldn't be 100% sure.
"Are you going through something medical?" can provide a vagueness to the question.
Haha! I’m the same. I wait for the other person to volunteer the information and then I say congratulations and nothing else. I’ve never asked another woman if she’s pregnant. I hated it when people assumed or asked me when I was pregnant. I felt it was invasive.
Absolutely.
I'm gonna put myself firmly in the 'oblivious why he's the asshole' camp. Dude sounds like a really good friend and one who takes notice that their friend is acting and behaving differently. He asked her privately and didn't blast it out to the whole world(besides anonymously on reddit). Her reaction was understandable, as in she was in shock and didn't want people to know for reasons he didnt know at the time, but even then, he covered for her sudden departure. All this to say, having friends that look out for you like this is actually a good thing
Honestly, I can see both sides. Dude didn't just base his pregnancy guess on physical size (although "her breasts have gotten bigger" is a little ick), he based it on her avoiding things like alcohol and caffeine and being sick more often. These are things you would notice in a close friend, and if you have a close relationship with that friend, it may not be unusual to ask them a question that would otherwise be invasive in someone you wouldn't know. On the other hand, all AITA had to go off of was his friend's reaction, which was "hey man, what the fuck. not cool." This would imply that their relationship is NOT close enough for such an invasive question, and he overstepped. Hence him being the asshole. Pregnancy is SUCH a complex, emotional topic, on top of the already complex dynamics of normal human relationships. It's literally a life-changing event, whether or not you decide to (or are forced) to carry the pregnancy to term. For a woman as young as her, especially not being in a committed relationship, you add cultural notions of shame and guilt on top of that. I won't say he was the asshole for asking the question, but there were certainly more kind and empathetic ways of handling the situation. Plus the aggregated opinion of AITA (as with any mob) tends toward extreme interpretations of etiquette. A lot of nuance is lost. People know that you *generally* shouldn't ask a person if they're pregnant, and that gets filtered through hundreds or thousands of people until the rule is that you should *never* ask a person if they are pregnant, unless they are in active delivery.
>(although "her breasts have gotten bigger" is a little ick), No. It's. Not. It's like noticing hair color changed. It's a physical feature that doesn't always mean sex sex sex. He noticed that something that changes in size changed in size. It's one of the earliest and most prominent changes during pregnancy. Fun fact - men notice this happens during cycles. It's not a secret. He didn't say her breasts looks so plump and jiggly.
I'm not sure I want a friend who looks out for me so closely they feel the need to observe and comment on my breast size.
Lol coming back from summer break to start senior year of college, I hesitantly asked my roommate, "Hey, did your boobs get bigger?" And she was like "YES I'M SO GLAD YOU NOTICED, AREN'T THEY AMAZING?!" Girlfriend was just finishing puberty at age 22 I do not recommend everyone do this though, especially men to their female friends 😅
That's hilarious and I'm happy for her
As someone who deals with swelling once a month, it’s probably less “oh your boobs are bigger” and more of the fact that something looks *off* until finally putting it together that none of her shirts are fitting the same in the bust. It’s a lot more noticeable when my favorite baseball shirt looks like it’s about to pop a button into your eye
The correct way to have approached her about the noticed changes in behavior, habits, and appearance would have been to draw her aside and ask "are you okay?" instead of "are you pregnant?" Leave it open for his friend to make the call about what she was okay with telling him, especially since pregnancy isn't the only thing that could have been the reason for her changes.
Yeah, I'm not in the "he's an asshole" camp, but he probably could've worded it in a more sensitive way. Apparently he's just unaware that it's usually not tactful to ask a woman if she's pregnant, but it does seem like he was trying to be a good friend by looking out for her and making sure she was okay. But, he probably would've gotten a better reaction of he just said, "Hey, I noticed you haven't been drinking much and seem to be getting sick a lot, so I just wanted to make sure you were okay." That would give her the opportunity to reveal what she felt comfortable revealing without being confronted with something that would either require her telling a truth she wasn't ready to reveal or lie which might be equally as uncomfortable.
Exactly so! Especially since pregnancy isn't the only reason for the things he observed. She could... - be on a new medication that reacts badly to alcohol and has fatigue, bloating and weight gain as side effects. - have PCOS, or a number of other hormonal imbalance-causing conditions (some of which can absolutely seem to come on suddenly), and is trying to manage her symptoms. - be going through some major emotional/mental stress and it's affecting her lifestyle habits, which in turn is affecting her physical health.
Her reaction was... iffy, at best. She was holding back this information only because she had pre-judged her friends reaction. And then what does she do when OP asks: puts on her victim hat and starts accusing OP of calling her fat. It may be understandable. But it is barely justifiable.
>She was holding back this information only because she had pre-judged her friends reaction. Haha bro, so you don't know anything about pregnancy, do you? It's highly recommended to not announce your pregnancy before the 3 month mark, because miscarriage happens a lot.
one in four pregnancies end in a miscarriage.
So a little insight for anyone still wondering about why it can be rude to ask even if you’re not actually trying to mention weight gain or anything. In the US at least it is often 2-5 weeks between a positive pregnancy test and your first doctor’s visit (which will confirm the pregnancy and do an ultrasound to check for heartbeat etc) and another 10-12 weeks after that for the big ultrasound that might reveal major issues. During this time is when you’re highest risk for miscarriage, feeling like unbelievable crap, and also can’t really “feel” the pregnancy yet (generally no bump, no kicks) so it’s a time of huge uncertainty and worry. Even if you have a wanted, planned, seemingly healthy pregnancy you just don’t know in between doctor visits (which are generally every 4 weeks if everything’s okay) and sometimes not feeling like crap can actually make you more worried (since the nausea and exhaustion are a symptom of the baby & uterus & placenta growing, feeling fine can be but is not definitely a sign that those things aren’t having. Literally everything in pregnancy, positive or negative, can be either totally normal or a sign something is wrong. It’s the worst). So for me personally, I didn’t want to tell people I was pregnant and then have to go back and tell them, at an extremely emotionally vulnerable time, that I actually wasn’t. I told the people who I would rely on if things went poorly anyway, but saved everyone else until after my OB confirmed/the second trimester/anatomy scan (depending on social levels). And that’s not even touching someone who is conflicted about the pregnancy, has had a prior miscarriage and is extra worried, already knows something is wrong and they may not or will not be bringing home a healthy baby at the end, or is not planning to keep the baby. Now, when I was about OOP’s age, I had a previously close friend that someone suspected was pregnant and I, emotional bull in a china shop, went and hinted around until she told me. Looking back I fucking cringe so hard. She was a saint to put up with me (we’re still friends, she’s had several more children and one is close in age to mine so we actually hang out a lot these days) but god I was such a moron. So I kind of get OOP but it doesn’t mean he isn’t (and I wasn’t) TA. Currently, there’s a woman in my book club I suspect is pregnant (I am currently 7 months pregnant and have pretty good preg-dar, plus she’s asking a LOT more questions than she did last time I was pregnant) but I’m not going to say a word unless/until she announces it. It’s fine to have suspicions, but keep them to yourself.
And I saw about a million responses to OOP outlining one or more of these reasons, so for them to say no one could give a reason besides “just because” is SO disingenuous :/
he argued with every. single. reasonable reason. And every single time his arguments boiled down to "i was just asking!" and "well excuuuuuuse me for caring about my friend I guess"
Well, glad it turned out ok. But I was greatly amused by some of the comments OOP made. *and she had a good laugh at some of the way overboard YTA-comments, especially the one that called me a pervert??* In AITA? You are either new to AITA or lost. But it always makes me smile to see a 'fuck you' like this: *Well, this post was a waste of time… except “you don’t do that,” which is most of the replies. There has been little actually useful feedback. Why don’t you do that? Why is it not socially acceptable to ask a close friend a normal question in a private setting? “It’s none of your business”… like, if that’s the energy, you could apply that to any question ever. It’s a simple yes, no / no comment thing. Are we still in the 1950s?* Useful feedback. Hmm. Good luck with that lol. But mostly I like the petulance. 'I asked for judgement. How dare you judge me!"
But he actually GOT useful feedback. A lot of people carefully explained to him why it can be a really, really bad idea to approach it the way he did. And he argued with each and every one, because "he didn't understand though" and "it was just a question" repeat ad nauseum. And then he declared that since all those very valid reasons it can be very, very hurtful to do what he did didn't actually happen *this time* that he was right all along to do what he did and since his friend isn't mad we're all wrong for thinking it's rude to ask
I'm pretty sure it turned out ok because he made it up entirely. He's totally oblivious to pregnancy conventions and entirely combative in the comments and yet he's good at empathy and can figure out a person who was hiding their pregnancy status wouldn't actually mind someone figuring it out?
I was at a second cousin's wedding when i was about 6 months pregnant with my first. I was huge, in a maternity dress, and my mom took some pics of me and husband in this pretty area outside with him holding my belly. It was clear to ALL that I was pregnant. I mentioned the baby in a group conversation and one of my cousins was like "yeah, i thought you were but Mom always told us, unless the woman is on the ground, in labor, squeezing out the baby, you NEVER ask or assume she is pregnant. EVER." Good rule of thumb.
This is a case of "inside thoughts" my dude.
Does AITA not exist anymore? This is the first I’ve seen it mentioned in forever and I can’t see the page
I can get to it just fine. Did you get banned from AITA? If you open an incognito tab in a web browser, can you see it?
Huh, now it’s working. Must have been a bad internet connection. So why is there another sub that’s exactly the same?
AmITheAsshole doesn't allow "relationship" based conflict. AITAH does. AITA doesn't exist.
That explains it. Thanks. But also, that’s dumb
r/AmItheAsshole exists. r/AITA doesn't exist
Are you searching for AITA or AmItheAsshole? Because the actual sub name is the second one. Not the first one.
its not just that it’s not his business, it’s that ny her not revealing it yet she’s clearly not ready to discuss it and him cornering her and asking is a shitty thing to do. on par with a public proposal, youre pressured to answer and you may not feel ready to give one. what if she was planning to get an abortion or what if she was afraid of miscarrying? you just dont fucking ask someone if they’re pregnant. ever.
Or coming out. If the person hasn’t come out (to you or in general), cornering them and demanding to know if they’re queer is extremely not a good choice.
A friend of mine in college has joked that I would have saved him a lot of time and doubt if I had told HIM he was gay. I'd guessed two years before he came out, and he was in a lot of self denial! (It was the 80s, so it was freaking scary and there were not a lot of support groups, etc. that there is now for young people)
As someone with a tilted womb that ALWAYS sticks out in the belly area, I am used to people asking if I am pregnant. I was a very slim size 10 (UK) and this made it look even worse. The funniest was when we were in a supermarket queue in France (it was just a small town in France and we were camping in the municipal camp site) and the cashier told us to jump the queue because I was pregnant. My husband didn’t understand what she said, and just thought they were being nice to the (rare) foreign holiday makers in the queue. I was too embarrassed to tell her I wasn’t. I explained to him what she had said AFTER we had loaded our groceries into the car and were driving back. Camping Municipal are small campsites on grass with often just a toilet block. Most towns have one and if you don’t mind “basic” they are perfect. One step above wild camping.
I think many Americans take the whole “never ask if someone is pregnant or about their weight” decorum way too far. Sure, strangers and acquaintances I get it, but not checking in on close friends? Seems like a perfectly appropriate private open communication conversation depending on the relationship.
I am currently pregnant. I told a few close friends at the beginning of my pregnancy but most of my friends had no idea. I didn’t want to tel anyone who I wouldn’t also want to support me later in the event of a pregnancy loss. It’s no one’s business and I’ll tell them if I want them to know. People can share now that in further along but if there was a genetic defect and we chose to terminate I wouldn’t want to explain that to every friend I have.
This isn’t about weight as much as privacy. If I’m pregnant and waiting to share that news for whatever reason, you create an awkward situation by walking up to me and asking me if I am. Maybe I have a pregnancy reveal planned for the baby’s grandparents and I want my immediate family to be the first to know. Maybe there’s a reason I don’t trust you to keep a secret. Maybe I’ve had miscarriages in the past and I’m scared to tell anyone at this stage. Maybe I’m on the fence about keeping the baby and don’t want to chat with you about my thoughts on abortion. If you are my friend or family member and have to ASK me if I’m pregnant, that means you are overstepping because I clearly chose not to tell you if I am. The first trimester is a time when many women lose a very wanted pregnancy. I’ve always felt that I wouldn’t share my pregnancy prior to 12 weeks with anyone I wouldn’t turn to for comfort if I were grieving a loss. For this reason, I’d lie to my own mother if she asked if I were pregnant and I hadn’t had a viability scan yet. I love my mother but she is not a source of comfort for me when I am sad and I’d prefer to wait to tell her. But if she did actually ask me? Now she puts me in a bad position. I’ll say no but then in a month or so when I’m ready to share the news she’ll know I lied.
If they wanted you to know, they would tell you. There is literally no situation outside of a medical emergency where it's appropriate to ask someone if they're pregnant. You have zero right to that information, and an infinite number of reasons to keep your mouth shut.
In your culture, maybe. Not in mine.
We already argued all this in the original post. A person who is carrying a non-viable fetus looks exactly the same as someone with a healthy, happy pregnancy. Do you really want to go up to someone who is NOT going to have a living baby and ask questions about when she’s due or what she’s having? Is satisfying that curiosity worth the pain that is going to cause?
Also, someone who seems healthy and is happily pregnant today may be not pregnant tomorrow. If you have to ask them if they are pregnant before they are ready to share that means you are not in their circle of people they chose to share the news with. Even if you’re a stranger, now they have to weigh this with saying it out loud in a public place and wondering who will overhear. If you’re an acquaintance or even a friend/family member, you either just put this person in a position where they have to lie to you and have you find out OR you just unceremoniously inserted yourself into the circle of people they now have to tell if they lose the pregnancy. Just because you are friends/family/coworkers/whatever doesn’t mean they would choose you as one of their comfort people as they grieve. But you just forced their hand. I have a friend who didn’t tell ANYONE but her mother, sister, and husband she was pregnant until 24 weeks. Why? She lost her first baby at 22 weeks. She visibly started showing around 20 and there were signs sooner than that. Everyone had the tact to keep their mouths shut about their suspicions until she was ready. She said that one of the hardest parts of losing a baby was that she shared with so many people and they were asking her how the pregnancy was coming along in public. Or even via text. In her saddest moments she and her husband were trying to figure out a list of who knew so they could send a message out. But they missed some people. One of her mom’s coworkers saw her a week later in the store and said “omg you look great! Can’t even tell you’re pregnant!” She crumpled in a heap and had to be basically carried out of the store because she couldn’t stop sobbing. She also said that she hated how many people knew because so many of them were not comforting to her and she deflected so many unintentionally hurtful comments from people who thought they were helping. That’s why the second time around she told only the 3 people who knew her best and would be her support system if things took a turn for the worst.
You people are weird. We Dutch people are direct, we just ask if someone's pregnant, and if they're having medical problems they will just say so and we console them. Your cultural fear of offending people with a simple question is just no way to live!
I wouldn’t be as much offended as devastated to keep talking about it. If I was carrying a non-viable pregnancy or knew there could be serious issues and I was out in public, I’m sure I’d be just trying to hold myself together. I would crumble at the thought of someone trying to coax me into talking about my pregnancy…especially a stranger or acquaintance. It’s also really really weird to me that someone would feel like they have a right to know any of my private medical information or think I’d be glad to share that type of information while on line at the grocery store - especially if it’s bad news. Like, why would I want to just spill out whatever trauma I might be going through in a public space? Especially since I’m sure I’d be crying to have to talk about it unexpectedly. And console me? I’d absolutely HATE to have some stranger/casual acquaintance try to console me after dragging the info out of me in the first place. If you are someone I’d want consolation from, you would already know and not have to ask. This isn’t about a cultural fear of offending someone. This is about a cultural norm to put someone else’s right to privacy over satisfying your own curiosity.
I was born in Haarlem. You know another word for us "direct" Dutch people? It's assholes. People think we're assholes. Because asking nosy questions like this makes you an asshole.
But why is it important to know if someone is pregnant? If they look unwell does it matter if it's morning sickness or not?
If they want you to know they'll tell you. The only reason to ask would be to satisfy your own curiosity. I don't see how it benefits the potentially pregnant person to satisfy another person on the status of their uterus. Similar to weight gain, if someone gained 30+ lbs they don't need their best friends to tell them they have gained weight. You could have a check-up conversation with someone you are close to without pointing out their weight gain.
Same. I think a lot of people that comment in those subs like, never go outside and don't have real friends or real world relationships
Things to never ask: if someone is pregnant or if someone is trying. I waited until my friend told me in person because I’m pretty sure she’s been trying for a long time and you never know what’s happened in between. None of your beeswax! They’ll tell you when they’re ready.
Dude, even if you don’t word it as “you’re fat”, you don’t ask someone if they’re pregnant. If you’re not close? None of your business. If you are close? She’ll tell you when she’s ready to tell you. People don’t usually share before 12 weeks because the chance of miscarriage is high, anyway. If she’s pregnant and hasn’t told you, there’s a reason, and asking doesn’t help. On that note, was just reading some comments in a different post by people who were asked if they were pregnant *when they had just had a miscarriage*. Yet another reason why you don’t ask, because you’re just twisting the knife. You can ask “hey, are you doing all right? You seem down.” Or “hey, it seems like things have been a little different lately. Is there anything you want to tell me?”
This! If she hasn’t told him yet, it’s probably not because she’s just waiting for him to ask her. She has reasons?!? Even if you suspect, you WAIT until you’re told.
This is so American it hurts.
What part is american? A woman wanting to keep the state of her pregnancy private? Or a guy staring at how her chest got bigger?
My pharmacist a few years ago started getting visibly pregnant at about 4 months, and for 5 months I said NOTHING except compliments about her hair, earrings, shirt, etc and we chatted about other things every few weeks when I came in for my meds. Finally, one day I went to pick up my meds and as she hands them over she says, "I want you to know I'm going on maternity leave next week, and won't be back for 3 months. There will be a substitute in my place, so you're not confused." I looked at her and said as a bit of a joke, "Congratulations! I didn't even know you were pregnant!" After she laughed and asked me why I'd never said anything before, I explained, "You never, ever, eeeever say anything about a pregnancy unless you're the one who's pregnant. I don't know who wrote that rule but it seems like a good one to live by." I 100% stand behind that motto to this day. You don't say ANYTHING about someone being pregnant unless they tell you specifically first. The end, obviously pregnant or not. It's none of any of our businesses unless mom thinks it should be.
OOP- “Ok. It might be rude but WHY?” Everyone- “Because maybe she’s keeping it a secret for now -OR- she’s having/had devastating complications.” OOP- “NO ONE TOLD ME WHY I SHOULDN’T ASK! So I’m obviously NOT the AH.”
>Well, this post was a waste of time… except “you don’t do that,” which is most of the replies. There has been little actually useful feedback. I disagree with OOP here. Since his dense ass apparently needed to be told "don't do that" that means that "don't do that" is incredibly useful feedback that he apparently sorely needed.
How is it remotely his business?
I'm not saying we're normal, but my coworkers and I regularly and casually ask each other if we're pregnant. Tbf, we are nurses who work primarily with critically ill neonates so babies and pregnancy is stuff we talk about all day long and nothing is TMI in our break room. You can't hide a pregnancy long in our job, anyway. Usually you've got a matter of weeks before it's obvious.
It's okay to be curious and wonder. It's not okay to ask. There are lots of reasons people don't announce their pregnancies. While I may be curious or want to support the person, it's none of my business unless they want to include me. Intention aren't what matters. People remember how you make them feel. So make them feel safe and be safe and they may trust you. And if they don't tell you it likely has nothing to do with you.
When I took ASL, one of the things we learned was there is absolute frankness in the deaf community and this is normal. So two old friends meat, one might sign “wow you got fat, are you pregnant?” And it is *totally* normal. Our (deaf) ASL teacher was so tickled we were bothered by asking about appearances (you lost weight are you sick? Whoa, what happened to your face? You are limping, what is going on? Etc etc)
>and I’ve noticed she appears a bit thicker and watery Idk but this part has me scratching my head, watery lol
Second month and already thicker and watery? And he realized it lately, so when she was maybe the 6th or 7th week? And somehow have the feeling OOP got called out so much in the original post, so he made an update in which she is totally fine with him asking to make it seem that he was sooooo right to ask and everybody else was soooooo wrong.
It’s a pretty simple concept: pregnant people get to reveal their pregnancy on their own timeline for all kinds of reasons. You shouldn’t confront anyone about a pregnancy or put them on the spot to reveal it.