Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Pregnancy

Talk about every stage of pregnancy, from early symptoms to preparing for birth.

Flip

1 2 ··· 5 6 7 8 9 10

Original poster

"Was it a planned pregnancy?"

240 replies

LuluLozenge · 24/01/2011 10:50

Has anyone else been getting this?

I'm 32, have been with my DP for over six very happy years, and we both have good jobs.

I'm a bit taken aback to be asked this all the time - most recently by a friend's new girlfriend I'd met an hour earlier! I always answer politely but I think it's really rude.

Does everyone get this or do I just look like the kind of person who is too disorganised to use contraception?

(It WAS planned, by the way!)

OP posts:

Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

duchesse · 27/01/2011 13:02

doctors asking if it's good news is just their way of gauging which way to play it- you could be coming to them to ask for a termination so they like to establish that right at the start. I know someone who never wanted children and had a termination at 29 she was married btw. On paper she would have looked like any other recently married woman coming for antenatal care for her first child. Her reality was very different- she was terrified and never going to go through with it. Imagine if her doctor had assumed she was happy about the pregnancy?

KangarooCaught · 27/01/2011 13:23

'I'm incredibly fecund' said with a smile has them choking for the right response.

Students though are funny & surprisingly conventional. They kept asking a pg unmarried colleague about her marriage plans & "but you're a Miss!"

Dh got asked by his form if he was having the snip! He was very

tb · 27/01/2011 13:32

My dh and I had been married 19 years when I stopped taking the pill. I'd already had 2 coils after a pill scare in the '70s, and then gone on a lower dose pill as they were developed.

In the following 12 months after I was pregnant twice and had dd.

My dear sil, not the brightest button in the box, asked me how it had happened? We replied 'how do you think?' D'uh.

Mind you, after 2 of her own, at the age of 38 she stopped taking the pill because she thought she would be going through the menopause. Perhaps she didn't learn very much from the 'A' level biology she took.

I had taken 3 different sets of professional exams due to a mid 30's career change. DD was born 2 yrs and 1 month after I got my first post-qualification job.

Pretty standard really for timing I would have thought ie wait until you feel you are established in a job first.

Mind you, it didn't stop the bastard I worked for at the time refusing to believe me.

renlovesyou · 27/01/2011 13:59

I once bumped into a friends teenage sister and she told me she was pregnant.

I congratulated her but it was followed by an awkward moment before she said 'oh no, its fine! We planned it!'

I'd never have asked, but I wonder how many times she had to say that to people because she was expecting them to ask, poor love.

lesley33 · 27/01/2011 15:37

I have asked some friends if their pregnancy was planned. Didn't mean to be rude; but I wasn't sure when they first told me if they were pleased to be pregnant or not.

I wanted to know whether I should be congratulating them or commiserating and offering to accompany them to the GP for advice about abortion, etc.

Of course I wouldn't ask people I hardly knew this type of question.

I have asked people after they have children, if they are planning to have more. TBH I had always seen this as something you ask to seem interested. Like asking your neighbour who is going on about her newly born grandchild how much the baby weighs. You don't really care about the baby's weight of a child born to someone you have never met; but its just one of those polite things people seem to say.

lesley33 · 27/01/2011 15:43

And to another poster, you may know if a friend was trying to have a baby; but you wouldn't if it was unplanned and your friend was happy about it.

So in reply to whether it was planned, friends have said no, but we are really happy about it.

But I did have 1 friend who wasn't happy about it. If I had just said congratulations, I think I would have been insensitive.

Of course the best situation is when friends tell you they are pregnant and you can just tell from the way they say it that they are pleased. Then yes of course you wouldn't ask it and just congratulate them.

spatchcock · 27/01/2011 17:15

lesley33 - I think most people here are talking about AFTER the 3-month period, when people are starting to tell the world about their pregnancy.

To assume, at this point, that they are anything but happy about the pregnancy is quite rude. - because they are obviously keeping the baby. Even if the couple is choosing to keep the baby because of their pro-life values it would be tactless to give anything other than congratulations (as someone pointed out earlier).

Also, a lot of people have mentioned colleagues, strangers etc - is it still ok to ask then?

Frizzbonce · 27/01/2011 18:51

It's an incredibly rude question but annoyingly part of this ridiculous idea that a pregnant woman is somehow public property.

I was in New York when pregnant and remember asking for a cup of coffee to which the waitress (who was no stranger to the Krispy Kremes) said: 'Ok honey that's one decaff!'

She got very stroppy with me when I said that I wanted a cup of ordinary coffee. US coffee is piss weak anyway!

My two children have ten years between them and when I was pregnant with the second, had people asking if it was 'the same father'?

Yes you rude fuckwad.

saffy85 · 27/01/2011 18:57

"I didn't know you were trying!" said my boss.

Like I'd tell him if I was! Is he out of his fucking mind?!

supersewer · 27/01/2011 19:29

I didn't really get that as My DH made a big thing of telling people he got me onthe first try
However was appalled when a stranger stopped me in the street and asked me if I was having twins!!!
Can only suspect I must have been of freak proportions!!!

vanillamum · 27/01/2011 19:34

I have two children (not twins) in the same school year and so get quite a lot of comments about this, including the classic from the school secretary when I was handing in the forms for them to start the school nursery and she realised they would be in the same year. "How can that happen," I just smiled and said "Would you like me to explain.."

saffy85 · 27/01/2011 19:36

A customer in the shop I work in looked pointedly at my growing bump and asked me if I was married when I looked pointedly at my ring finger she then asked "well are you going to get married?"

WTF. I don't even know you, would never invite you to my sodding wedding if I was having one so why in the name of arse do you care?!? Why is it your business exactly?

ohbabybaby · 27/01/2011 20:03

People are odd and rude.

DS1 - we weren't married and hadn't been together ever so long in the scheme of things, I think most people must have assumed he was unplanned (he was very very much planned). But I only got asked twice if he was planned.

DS2 (on his way) - we are now married (honeymoon baby in fact...) and I would think people would assume he is planned (he wasn't.) But this time I have been asked by lots and lots of people if he was planned. How rude, what a personal question. Shall I tell them in detail about the strangeness of my menstrual cycle in response?!!

Don't people think about the impact on a child of knowing they were unplanned? Sometimes it is OK as unplanned is not the same as unwanted(my little bro 12 years my junior was unplanned but very much wanted and adorded by everyone), but I had a friend who was close in age to her older sister who knew she was unplanned and always felt unwanted.

OvertiredAndShowingOff · 27/01/2011 20:15

An elderly neighbour when noticing my bump exclaimed, "gosh, it must have been a shock for you!". She clearly thought I was far too old to have having a baby deliberately.

OvertiredAndShowingOff · 27/01/2011 20:16

Oops, too old to type as well.

bessie26 · 27/01/2011 21:03

someone (who I didn't know very well), after I told her I was pg asked me if "it was wanted" - I was so that she would think that kind of detail was any of her bloody business I failed to give any kind of witty retort & just said "yes"

rupert1 · 27/01/2011 22:52

Why don't you just say, well that's an interesting question really and tell them that you had wild sex in a phone box not half a mile from your house with a complete stranger that your partner doesn't know yet but somehow you feel it was meant to be.Hopefully they will get the message.

1Catherine1 · 28/01/2011 00:34

ohbabybaby that with your friend is really horrible. I couldn't imagine how she feels. I happen to know my elder brothers (2 of them) and I were all unplanned yet my younger sister was planned. I know this for a variety of reasons and I think you are right, it does affect a child to know they are unplanned as it can make them feel equally unwanted. Fortunately for my elder brothers and I my mum has always said she never regrets having any of us despite everything else but I think it made a difference for her to say this to us.

arghh · 28/01/2011 09:09

arghhhhhhhh! i hated this when i was pregnant, so rude, althought not quite as rude as someone asking me if the father was still around!

snowcake · 28/01/2011 10:33

Have dd 2y3m, other dd 4 months and am now 3 months pregnant with number 3. We always wanted more after the 2 girls but would have left a bigger gap but my DH took advantage of me when I was tipsy and I liked it... LOL

My father in law's cow girlfriend then said: how will you cope with a third so close in age to the others? Maybe best to think about an abortion as it's still early...

Needless to say I was and have not spoken to her since.

snowcake · 28/01/2011 10:36

@vanillamum, it will be the same for me! How is it? Are your dc okay with being in the same year. I bet you get a lot of . ROFL. I'm personally looking forward to registration time...

PeachMelba78 · 28/01/2011 10:59

My wife and I were asked by a friend if our baby was planned.... Considering we are lesbians who used a male friend to help us - I would assume that yes, the pregnancy was very much planned! I think I answered - yes, we didn't suddenly wake up to find(my wife's name)having sex with (donor daddy)!! Fortunatly she realised her mistake and was quite embarrassed!!!

duchesse · 28/01/2011 12:31

Peachmelba- . Maybe asking if it's planned is just another of those stupid bits of small talk that people trot out without thinking these days? Still breathtakingly rude and intrusive.

hidgeon · 28/01/2011 12:34

My boss asked me if I was "pleased", which is somehow even worse - tantamount to saying "I'm assuming it was an accident - are you going to keep it?"

spatchcock · 28/01/2011 12:43

PeachMelba - love it!

Flip

1 2 ··· 5 6 7 8 9 10