Since I endured a pregnancy, I feel this experience grants me the authority to spout opinions on all women’s pregnancy…much in the same way that everyone who has been to school seems to be an authority on education.
Given my gestational expertise, then, I thought I’d forge ahead and offer some flippant advice to those who may actually do this pregnancy again (or – gasp – for the first time).
I’m pretty sure there are no pregnancy books that advocate lying as a method of coping, but I’ve found that this strategy works well.
If I were to be pregnant again, I would lie about these two areas:
Lie #1: The Due Date (a.k.a. The Fortnight Factor)
Here’s a brilliant trick: whenever someone asks you when your baby is due, add two weeks to your real due date. This nifty little lie will accomplish three things:
- You will avoid the final two weeks of every neighbour, relative, and cashier asking how are you doing, if you’re in labour yet, and if your water has broken.
- Doing basic addition – such as adding two weeks to your due date – may prevent your brain from decaying.
- This lie more accurately measures perceived pregnancy length since even a healthy pregnancy feels like at least 42 weeks.
Lie #2: Baby Names (a.k.a. Ida Know)
The best thing my husband and I did when I was pregnant was to lie about our baby names. We didn’t invent names (though Wenceslas and Gertrude-Marie would have been contenders), but we did tell another fib. Whenever anyone asked what names we were considering, we lied. We either said we had no idea (which also reflected our parenting knowledge) or we said we couldn’t agree on anything (which may have reflected our life as a couple).
The primary benefit to telling no one your baby names is this: people are less likely to offer their opinions on your baby name(s) if the baby is already born. If the baby is in utero, however, they will tell you every hellion they’ve ever know with that name.
So lie. Like a rug. Or on one.
Photo adapted from Tomo4074 (cc) Flickr
*pun (sadly) intended
One problem with adding two weeks to your due date is that people already are bad about saying “Oh my goodness, you’re soooooooo big. Are you sure you’re not having twins (or triplets in your case)?” By adding two weeks, you look even bigger.
I wish I told people I had a contagious illness so they wouldn’t touch me. Where would strangers get the idea that pregnant women are animals at a petting zoo? If that’s the case, I have some back admission that needs to be paid.
You make a good point about the petting zoo thing…pregnant women are public property, aren’t they. Love the contagious illness lie, though – that would have been brilliant!
I lied and said I couldn’t eat certain foods without barfing.
Going over to the in-laws where they serve their “delicious” famous casserole? “Oh, sorry… That would make me barf. It’s a shame because I’d really enjoy it, otherwise.”
How clever is that! A neatly package little lie. And of course, pregnancy could give you a permanent aversion to certain casseroles…
LOL. My midwife told me the same thing when I was pregnant. Best advice ever. Sometimes, it’s not lying… it’s selective sharing.
“Selective sharing” = the best euphemism I’ve heard in a while. I may steal that phrase.
I am always envious of your pictures, I just have to say. When pregnant, occasionally, it is also very healthy to look at whoever asked how your pregnancy is going and say, “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
LOL. I can just see people’s faces. Almost makes me want to get pregnant again to try that. Almost.
Well, since you’ve thrown the cards on the table I must admit that I had a couple aces hidden up my sleeve. The truth is, I’m not even really pregnant. That was a lie I told to get sick time off work. As soon as I think of people I know who really are pregnant I’m going to send them these helpful tips though. by the way, if you ever had a daytime talk show it might be the first one I ever watch a) without throwing up b) without throwing objects at the screen and c) ever at all.
Laughing at imagining you pregnant…And I’ll get on that talk show. Can I call it the Piss-People-Off Show?
funny, i was actually going to talk about preggo-lies in the near-if-i-get-to-it-future.
i lied lied lied all the time.. i loved it! we made up ridiculous stories and names.. so fun! with my son, we told everybody we didnt know the babys sex.. pfft… we knew it was a boy but it was a blast watching everybody guess. that saved us from hearing ‘oooh a boy, watch out, ooh oooh..’ ah shut it. and we would tell people that we had names picked out like ‘lucifer’ ‘marigold'(my husband is a red head) or my husbands favorite was ‘osama’ and ‘zeus’.. yup lie away, and have fun doing it!
now with babe #2 we did announce the sex.. but not the name.. are we stupid?? and again we through names out there that made no sense ‘breeze’ ‘rainforest’ ‘cedar elm’ ‘oceanablue’ ‘snowflake’ since ridiculous nature hippy names are all the fad right now.
and the due date.. i always said ‘the week of…’ because why on earth do you ever set yourself up for that failure when the date comes and goes??
and i will admit to faking sick, exhaustion, and once i even faked ultrasound appts to get out of work.. 🙂
use that chance all you can.. it comes and goes too quickly
(however, i do use the kids ‘sickness’ to get out of many many activites/gatherings)
You are the Queen of Lies. Love it! I wish I would have thought of throwing fake names around. That could almost be a sport. You need to write about this – you have too many good ones to keep to yourself. Thanks for sharing your “expertise”!
I made the mistake of telling my mother a name we had chosen if we had a boy. She laughed and made fun of it, thinking I was joking. (She felt bad) She then proceeded to tell me a few other names that would be totally crazy, and those happened to be the names of daddy’s grandfather and close family friend. (She felt worse). I recommended suspension of all baby name talk. Thankfully we had a girl, but guess what I will totally be lying about next time.
I definately did lie to my boss about the timing of my doctors appointments. “But 1:00 on Friday afternoon is the only time they could get me in. I guess I’ll need to take a half day!”
I can only imagine how awkward the name conversation with your mom would be. And I don’t know why I never thought of lying about the times of my doctor’s appointments. Sometimes, I’m a bit of a slow learner.
I kept the name we chose secret because I didn’t feel like hearing people’s opinions. That wasn’t a lie though. I was too tired to lie at that point.
Smart. I must admit that by the end of my pregnancy, I was just saying, “We’ve got names, but we’re not telling anyone.” Like you, I was too tired. I’m not sure I recovered from that tiredness…
Perfect post! You should write a book on pregnancy…from a REAL mother’s perspective!
When pregnant with my twin girls, we told everybody that we were naming them “River” and “Forest”. Our family was livid! And I certainly enjoyed them trying to talk me out of it! They were quite please with ELIZABETH and KATHERINE.
I wasn’t very good at being pregnant, so I smartened up with my second pregnancy. I lied about my “last period” to my doctor so I could have an earlier due date (yeah, I don’t think straight when I’m pregnant). I was only foiled by an early ultrasound which CORRECTLY dated my daughter. So my doctor and I spent months arguing about when my baby would be born. By the end, I was soooo confused. I had my assistant keep track of how many weeks I REALLY was and how many weeks I was trying to pass myself off as. Sounds like a lot of work, but TOTALLY worth it!
I’m too embarrassed to publically confess all my other little lies. When you’re writing your book, email me. I will confess all of my sins!
River and Forest = perfect lie names. I too found it impossible to keep track of the number of weeks I was pregnant. Once upon a time, I was good at math…
And yes, you’ll be the first I write to for my book research. Thanks for commenting!
Did you have your little one early because you lied about your period!?
I love this advice and think that lying is key to a successful pregnancy. I was very honest during my first pregnancy but by the third I was over the honesty thing. I lied about my due date but I made it earlier so people wouldn’t so thoughtfully say, “oh, going to be a big baby!” I lied about giving up caffeine. My morning cup of coffee was my little secret. I lied about feeling nauseous once to get out of a work luncheon. And I lied about the smell of tuna kicking off my morning sickness — actually, I just wanted my coworker to eat her smelly tuna somewhere other than my office. Pregnancy has so many cons that we have to take advantage of its perks!
Amy
I have to wonder what percentage of women lie about their due dates (especially after repeat pregnancies).
And tuna…it’s almost worth getting pregnant to get rid of that smell.
Gestational expertise. That’s the kind of phrasing that allows a person to charge $300 per hour.
People thought KAW was lying when she told them she was pregnant…again. In fact, a lot of people are shocked to find out that we have four kids. They just figured she was a little past her due date. Like four years past.
Four years past = too funny. Just wait for 10 years. They’ll be driving the quad pulling you and KAW in a plastic swimming pool. Now I’d pay money to see that video.
Wenceslas. Nice. I can see that making a come back.
Yes, perhaps followed by Nebuchadnezzar!
Even though we did not disclose baby names, we did not escape judgment. For our daughter, Georgia, we got, “When I first heard that name I thought yuk! George Costanza. But now that I’ve seen the actual baby, it actually is sort of a nice name! It suits her!” Thanks, we thought so too.
I did not lie about due dates. I was 10 days late with my daughter. The best moment of those 10 days was seeing the gobsmacked look on our server’s face when I replied “Eight days ago” to her question of “When are you due?”. My son arrived promptly at 9:30am ON his actual due date. It is a weird point of pride for me.
i posted my own lie today ironically i typed in ‘pregnancy lie’ in google images to get a picture for my blog post and your post came up. i didn’t even have a chance to read your post until after i had posted mine. love the topic…my lie was that i told my supervisor i was going into labor early (got to start my maternity leave 2 days earlier) so that i could avoid going to work during a corporate audit. long story. lol.