Redditor DramaticChoice4 wanted to discuss the stork's journey, so they asked:
"How did you use to think babies were made?"
So Random
Im Pregnant Mama Said GIF by OriginalsGiphy"I thought it was like an illness, you just randomly come down with pregnancy once you're married."
cb1216
The Egg
"My friends and I had a pretty solid worldview on this A man down the street from us was rumored to have 1 testicle. This man also had 1 kid So, we deduced that when you want to have kids, the man fires a testicle into the woman, and that testicle acted as 'the egg.'"
"We realized that this would be painful for the man, but that it would also make it 'fair' since we figured that giving birth must be painful as well We couldn't figure out why some families had more than 2 kids, but that was a problem for another day."
sneekeemonkee
Home Invasion
"I thought they would just appear. Like they spawned somewhere in the house."
"No, they had to love each other very much and concentrate on that for it to happen. At least that’s the explanation I had given myself as a small child."
"Then I learned that women get pregnant, but in the dialect of the region around Venezia (Italy) where I grew up, it is common to say 'I’m buying a baby' when you’re pregnant. So I thought there was an actual place you went to purchase pregnancy... lol."
millennium-popsicle
Hold Me
"Through cuddling. My parents had me watch a movie about the facts of life. It showed a man and a woman cuddling on the couch in one scene, and then in the next, the narrator was talking about how an egg is fertilized. So, the implication was that this happened via cuddling."
Old_Army90
Born That Way
Music Video Mv GIF by Lady GagaGiphy"I don't know. I used to think that my parents were born as parents and I was born as a child, so for 2-3 years I thought that I wasn’t going to age and so my parents."
ChemicalAd1157
Kids. We were so innocent at one time.
Born that way. Cute thought.
Delivery
"Babies are made at a baby factory."
Kotopause
"And delivered by a giant bird. Dumbo (1941) messed me up in so many ways."
MadOrange64
Saliva
"I knew that kissing was involved. I also knew that sperm was involved after watching 'Look Who’s Talking' with my parents (I think there’s a scene showing the sperm traveling to the egg while talking to each other). So my 7-year-old brain assumed that somehow sperm was transferred through the saliva while kissing."
Djent_Reznor1
The Seed
"My mom explained to me that she and my dad helped God make me. So I imagined them traveling to heaven and picking out parts like it was a build-a-bear or something. So then I was very confused when I asked my mom what heaven was like and she said she had never been. I was like, I knew it... I'm adopted."
"I explained to my children (7, 6 & 4) when I was having our 4th last year that mommies have eggs in their bellies, and daddies have a seed. And then the daddy puts the seed in the belly, it goes into the egg and the baby starts growing. They asked how the seed gets in the belly and I told them I would tell them when they are older. I'm pretty sure they think it goes in through the belly button."
spidermom4
Good Faith
Pop Tv Please GIF by One Day At A TimeGiphy"My parents told me that you just had to pray for one and you can be pregnant the next day."
asn-grl
"My mom's friend thought the opposite, she would pray every night not to get pregnant because she thought that she could just get preggers randomly."
HumanHuman_2003
Prayer can only do so much.
But I'm not going to get into that aspect if it all.
A lack of relation between baby and dad can be visually obvious, and unwitting medical professionals are sometimes caught in the middle of family disputes regarding who a newborn's biological father is.
Redditor u/user_7061 got doctors and nurses to share some paternity scandals when they asked:
"Have you ever witnessed a couple have a child that was obviously not the fathers? What happened?"
Yeah, fun times...
"I worked the L&D floor of a big hospital although not as medical professional. We had two dads come to blows when the mom was there in labor. She had no idea which was the dad and wouldn't till she pushed that kid out. One 'dad' was white (with red hair - REALLY white), one was Nigerian. Neither knew about the other till they both came rushing into the area to be with their baby momma. Fun times."
Colliemom4
People can be awful...
"This very white couple came in with obvious relationship tensions and long story short the baby came out somewhat darker than white if you get me. Well the couple not having the means to support a child yet put the baby up for adoption and very quickly got a response. The next day a couple flew 9 hours to get their baby. They arrived and somehow missed the memo that this baby was black and were absolutely furious when they saw it. They refused it and then flew back home. Later on another couple adopted the baby."
D_Shwimm
Glad it worked out
"Obligatory not a doctor, but my family has a story sort of like this.
My grandparents were separated and my grandma started dating another man. She got pregnant and the other guy bolted. My grandparents got back together and my uncle had my grandfather's last name. My grandparents eventually divorced and my grandfather didn't really raise any of his kids. My grandma got remarried and my grandpa stepped up and was the dad they all needed."
rant7268
Is this a soap opera?
"Small town family drama. My uncle is obviously the father to a girl from my highschool. Close family friend, he had been fighting with my aunt around the time she was conceived, she looks just like him. My cousin is a month younger than the girl. I don't know if my aunt knows, but she's a bitch so I dont think anyone cared to tell her if she was that oblivious."
be-ar_boi
It's not the nurses fault!
"My friend from nursing school used to work in L&D. She said that after one of the patients told her boyfriend he wasn't the dad, he was furious and stormed out of the room. My friend had tried to help and talk to him but he ended up punching her in the stomach. She said security was immediately on him in seconds."
cakejukebox
Oh no, not the best man...
"Not me but a family friend of mine was at the hospital when it was time for his wife ( let me repeat WIFE of just over 4 years) to have their baby. When the baby was finally delivered... Well lets just say he was not too happy. It ended up being his best man in his weddings son. It was very awkward for everyone. But for what ever reason he stayed with his wife who cheated on him and raised the son who obviously wasnt his"
wasteofpasta728
He probably came back to get stitches on his hand
"My girlfriend's mom worked in the OBGYN section of the hospital and she said two Caucasian people came in and when the baby came out he/she was Hispanic and the father freaked out and punched and shattered a decorative picture on the wall and left and never came back."
The_Big_Ugly
She'll figure it out eventually
"Yeah, the daughter is blonde and blue eyed, looks an awfully lot like the guy her mom dated right before 'dad' who is Mexican. It is clear but mom refuses to tell her. With dna testing so common I'm just waiting for the bomb to drop."
LoriTheGreat1
A multitasking papa
Giphy"A nurse at the hospital I work at said when she was in nursing school there was a guy whose wife and girlfriend were giving birth on opposite ends of the same floor of the hospital. He was going back and forth between each room during the entire process."
Jg23kc
The blood tells all
"I had delivered a baby and the bilirubin (a byproduct of blood breakdown) was high. I was explaining to the mom that it may be due to the fact that mom was O+ and baby was B+. The dad said 'but my blood type is A'... cue uncomfortable doctor. For the baby to have B type blood when the mom is O dad either needs to be B or AB, oops. The mom just said 'it's okay it's okay, we'll talk later' and I took my signal to back out of the room as fast as possible."
dr_butt_er
Infidelity led to tragedy
"A hospital where I was a Med student had a baby born with Hydrops, which is where a baby gets two bad copies of a red blood cell gene, one from each parent. Baby died shortly after birth. Parents came in for genetic counselling and testing revealed the woman's husband did not carry the alpha thalassaemia gene. The couple asked what was the chance another baby of theirs would have this condition the doctors were honest and told them 'zero percent'. They left it at that."
inityowinit
Daddy roulette
"Had a mum to be who had narrowed the options for baby daddy down to her top three. She was having a c-section and didn't understand why all three potential dads couldn't come into theatre. She then asked if we could rotate them through, and maybe she'd let the one that was there when baby came out be the 'real daddy'. Took all my professionalism to smile politely."
mnohc
The most scandalous town
Giphy"Not a Doctor, but my wife grew up in a really small town, but wasnt born there. When she got her first crush on a boy and told her best friend, the friend was like 'Did you talk to your Mom yet?'"
"Apparently, adultery was so wide spread in this area, it was common practice for girls to talk to their Mom about crushes and who the crushes parents were so they didn't end up dating their half sibling...."
tdabc123
The fall out was probably bad
"A nurse friend of mine told me about helping with a vasectomy when the Doctor saw that the patient, a married father of two children was clearly infertile and would have been all his life. Due to the man taking Valium before the local anisthetic the Dr made the guy come back for a follow up where he had to explain the mans medical condition to him. No idea what the fall out was."
patfreebird
Awkward...
"I'm a midwife. I once had a woman come to my clinic unannounced (she wasn't my patient but I'm NHS so saw her anyway) She had a man with her, she knew she was about 3 months pregnant but hadn't come for any antenatal care."
"I asked if she'd had sex the night before (she'd come in because she'd had a little bleeding) I looked at the partner as mum said yes and he said 'nothing to do with me - I'm just the baby daddy' Turns out she had a new boyfriend at home, this was just the guy she'd been with 3 months before."
"I popped her up on the table to examine her and straight away had to tell her that she was actually about 5 months along but I would arrange a scan to confirm. The dude just got up and walked out."
"Turns out there was a third guy 5 months ago."
LaSageFemme
He did some detective work
"A friend of mine had been hearing rumors that his wife was cheating on him. He refused to believe them until he found out one day that there was trait that is passed from parents to children. (I wanna say cleft chin but it's not important.) Anyways he went and got a DNA test done as he and his wife did not have the trait and it turns out it wasn't his kid, they tested their other two kids and he was only the father of the middle child The first and Third child were from two different guys."
LennyComa
A family drama unfolding in real time
"When I was a student nurse there was this one couple, mother was Asian and husband was White. The husband had a brother (African American, he's adopted from what I remember). The mother had been in labor for around 12 hours and they were very excited to see their baby."
"However, when the baby came out then came the rough part. He was a normal healthy half African American boy, around 3kg. I just looked at the baby then looked at the father and watched his face go from joy to puzzlement to horror in around 10 seconds."
"I didn't get to see much of them for the next 2 hours but I was there when the mother was brought to her room. Her husband and his brother were there as well and she was talking to them. From what I saw she was trying to console her husband and his brother was trying to hug him."itsJohnnyRain
It's so awkward for everyone
"Our NICU does not allow paternity testing to be done inpatient and some of our babies stay with us for 3-6 months depending on their gestation. We've had a few looooong and awkward waits for babies to get discharged before we could find out who the dads are. The two most recent cases were babies born at 23 and 25 week gestations both kids with 3 possible dads. None of the potential dads stayed involved in the 3+ month hospital stay waiting to find out if they're the father. It's so awkward for the staff."
kyelmo
Who do you think you're fooling?
Giphy"I worked in adoptions. A couple showed up wanting to discuss adoption. She was so obviously pregnant."
"The catcher, she and he both insisted that they had never had sex of any kind."
"I don't know what happened because they never came back."
Gutinstinct999
This genetics surprise
"My husband is a surgical technician. Years ago he helped deliver a baby via emergency c- section. The baby was black and born to two very white parents. The dad freaked out and left the hospital with the mom in tears. The doctor convinced him to get a paternity test and he did end up being the father. Genetics is weird."
alate9
Did they teach these doctors about this in Med School?
Do you have similar stories? Let us know in the comment section below.
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Enough Said.
Giphy"I was a teacher."
CatrionaPatricia
"I teach high school, and I have noticed that percentage of married teachers without kids is much higher than the average population. I think spending six to seven hours a day with kids really drives home how difficult having kids is, and that it is not a decision to make lightly."
Workacct1999
Legacy.
"I'm horrible at handling stress and sleep deprivation, and I probably have a genetic disorder that I absolutely don't want to pass on."
bonita__applebum
"I have so much crap in my family, from cancer to dementia that I'd be terrified to pass along."
JimBobSandoval
Disorders.
"Diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder. I've seen r/raisedbynarcissists and I am not putting any kid through that."
buzz_darkyear69
"Narcissism is very complicated, and it's also a spectrum. Narcissistic people are perfectly capable of being good people."
Animalgirlmep
So Many Reasons.
"Couldn't afford raising kids. Didn't have good upbringing so wouldn't know how to raise one. And the fear of pregnancy messing up my body. "
Smokeyeyemiss
"At some point I might've been on the fence about having kids, but there was a thread on AskReddit that went along the lines of, 'What's the worst part of pregnancy that nobody talks about?'"
"That's how I, an adult woman who's taken multiple iterations of sex ed, first heard about shit like massive tears, about being intentionally cut open from your anus to vagina to give the kid more room to escape, and never being able to hold your pee ever again. No thanks dude."
Not for Me.
Giphy"I don't feel like sacrificing my life for them. I salute all of you, people, who do this. But tell me honestly, wouldn't the world be a better place, if people only made kids when they want to have kids instead of just doing what is expected of them? "
AzarTheGreat
Born Free!
"My wife and I like our freedom and money."
PM_GUITAR_PICKS
"My husband and I have use-it-or-lose-it time off to burn before the end of the year, and we were talking about what to do with it. Neither of us really felt like taking a staycation, because we knew we'd just end up working. So after talking about if for like ten minutes, we went to Costco's website and booked a trip to Hawaii. We leave right after Thanksgiving."
ObscureEmoji
Never felt like it.
"I've never had that 'I really want kids feeling.' Ever. I'm in my thirties, if it were going to come it would have been here by now, and there's no way I could blithely create a whole new human hoping it turned out hunky dory without actually wanting them."
"I mean of course it makes life in the performing arts more feasible without kids, I don't have to worry about my already-fragile body taking serious damage, I can sleep, I can save money, etc etc but if I wanted kids, those "reasons" wouldn't matter."
"The only reason that matters is that I just don't want kids. The same way I don't want a parrot — they're amazing for other people, but I don't want one in my house."
"Edit: I was briefly pregnant when I was 27. It's not "different when it's your own." I got sterilized at 29 and I am still consciously grateful at least once a week that I can live my life on my terms without being paranoid about another accident."
Subtlety87
Crappy Choices.
"I know how crappy this sounds but if my child came out autistic or with some severe mental issues, I just couldn't do it and it's not fair to them, my wife, or any of their siblings that would be guilted into taking care of them when I die."
SHROOMHEAD666
"I was married in my 20s and it came to light fairly quickly that her gene pool was going to make any children we had a coin flip. Knowing what struggles she was facing, we decided early on that we couldn't do that to a child and just live with it if they turned out having the same or similar issues."
"I got used to the idea of never having kids pretty easily and embraced it soon after that. When my wife passed away, I actively looked for partners without children and found a girl with similar preferences. 10 years later, we are very happy with our decisions."
Darth_Corleone
Witnessing the Truth.
"I was open to it until my brother and sister-in-law had kids. Nope. Not a chance. They have no time to themselves, they're always tired, they've aged terribly, they don't get to do things that they want any more. They love it and my niece and nephew are lovely, but that's as close to that lifestyle as I'm willing to get."
Resentments.
Giphy"With my current mindset, I'd be an awful mom. Resenting my kids for my lost freedom. But who knows, I might grow out of it."
wanderforward
18+ years
"Every once in awhile I check in with myself and try to imagine the most amount of time per day that I would be willing to commit to parenting for 18+ years (but obviously more so in the first 5-10) and it's never more than 20-30 minutes... I feel like I would have to be okay with giving up at least 4-6 hours for it to even be a possibility worth thinking about."
No Kids.
"I don't like kids. I fear that they'll end up having a social-limiting condition that would make or difficult for them through life. I fear for my wife's pregnancy and all the risks that go with it. I fear that, no matter what, they'll end up in a gang or just freaking loser."
"I grew up with amazing Friends, raised the same but each got deviated into different stuff (obviously) but some went directly to the crapper. Bad economy in my country to have a kid."
Redna_VanLee
Money Issues
"2 reasons - I live very nicely with only myself to take care of, but it is paycheck-to-paycheck. Again, not struggling, but it's just comfortable enough for me. It wouldn't be realistic to bring a huge burden to that. I also worry a bit about how much of my mental illness they'd inherit."
SamuraiPanda201
Not Me
Happy Kids Say The Darndest Things GIF by CBSGiphy"I don't see me ever finding someone to have kids with, and I personally think with the way my life currently is it wouldn't be fair to adopt or get a surrogate etc."
evilabed24
We like our time...
"My husband and I were upfront with each other from the beginning... neither of us should be parents. I love kids. They’re great. I like giving them back to their owners more. Mental and physical illness don’t run in our families, it gallops like a racehorse."
"Bipolar, clinical depression, suicide, schizophrenia, arthritis, heart disease, diabetes, addiction, autoimmune disorders, and cancer are throughout both family trees. Men on my maternal side tend to drop dead of massive heart attacks before 65. That’s not a fair playing field to plop a child onto and I couldn’t do it."
"We're also poor and deeply selfish. We like our time. On top of all that I know my temperament. I stress easily and break down sometimes, becoming nonfunctional. I couldn’t bring a child into the world with the knowledge they’d resent me as a parent."
inmyotherpants79
Stability
"Okay so it might be a slightly different answer to what you'd expect from that question, but well. I'd like to have kids, but I don't want them to be genetically mine; even though I'd love to experience pregnancy myself, I think that if I had a life stable enough to be able to support a child, I don't see why I shouldn't adopt one that is already born and is in need of a loving family."
improdige
Little Lives
"I think I'd be a great dad, but internally I'd hate the crap out of it and probably resent myself. Kids are the worst they are narcissistic little messes who basically keep you locked in stagnant while they grow up for 18 years. I don't like taking care of my responsibilities now, and you want me to take on more responsibilities? With their little lives on the line? No thanks, my gf and dog are enough responsibilities for me."
i_*uckin_luv_it_mate
Unfair
"I don’t like kids, for one. I’m also disabled and my condition causes a lot of pain and fatigue so I wouldn’t be able to do it anyway. It just wouldn’t be fair."
LoveAndDynamite
I had ruined her life...
"My mother and grandmother constantly told me that having kids would ruin my life. I never could figure out when it would be a good time to ruin my life. So instead of 3 kids and no money, I have no kids and 3 money. Actually 7 houses and a dog. And, yes, my mother constantly told me that, as first born, I had ruined her life. She could not become the air force pilot, archaeologist, race car driver that she wanted to be."
inkseep1
Hell No!
Parks And Recreation Nbc GIF by HULUGiphy"I saw my older sister give birth (she wanted family around super hippie chick) that was more than enough to put me off."
WellieThomas
Aggressive...
"I aggressively do not want kids. Other people's kids annoy me with their sounds and fluids, and I know that mine would annoy me ten times more with it being always in my face and needing constant attention. I'm glad there's people out there who can give kids happy, loving homes, and I don't hate kids (they just make me uncomfortable and gross me out) but maaaaaan it is not for me at all."
dal_segno
Children are a huge responsibility and they're not for everyone. People have very valid reasons for wanting them and for wanting to avoid them at all costs. Both points of view are completely valid.
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