Tag Archives: pregnancy

The Soapbox: “Mad Men,” Pregnancy, And The Nuance Of Choice

Sarah GrayApril 17, 2013 //
Ladies Of Mad Men
... versus the creepy dudes of online dating site OK Cupid. Read More »
Joan Holloway On Dating
10 things Joan Holloway would say about dating. Read More »
"Mad Men" On The Frisky
All of The Frisky's posts about our fave show, "Mad Men." Read More »
megan draper

This post contains spoilers!

Sunday nights are no longer full of Monday dread. I have something to look forward to at the very end of the weekend: a mind-bending episode of “Mad Men.” The show you love, full of characters you hate, and issues you hope to only deal with through barrier of your TV screen: infidelity, corporate hell, violence, and mortality.

For an office drama centered around a 1960s advertising agency, “Mad Men” has tackled very nuanced issues that remain relevant topics in our day and age. Anyone who watches the show knows the terrible way that women are treated: sexual harassment, rape, sexism, domestic violence, infidelity. And as of Sunday, all of the major female characters have experienced pregnancy. Keep reading »

Mirror, Mirror: Touch My Belly, Please

Kate FridkisApril 4, 2013 //
Mirror, Mirror: Compliments
Kate likes compliments on the street. Read More »
Mirror, Mirror: Pregnancy
Kate discusses how being pregnant has affected her body image. Read More »
Mirror, Mirror: Thin Women
Why thin women shouldn't be excluded from talking about body image. Read More »

“Can I touch your belly?” my friend squealed, rushing towards it, hands outstretched.

Then she stopped in her tracks. “I mean,” she said, suddenly bashful, “only if it’s okay, of course! Are you letting people?”

I am five months pregnant. And I keep reading on the various boards and sites where all of the talk is pregnancy-related (it feels pretty trashy, honestly, but I’m a little addicted to babycenter.com) about how this is the time when everyone starts wanting to touch your belly. It’s true, this is definitely that time. BUT, boards and sites immediately clarify, you don’t have to let them.

This point is very important.

Actually, reading current pregnancy forums gives one the impression that for most of history, pregnant women’s bellies were just constantly being groped by grabby, entitled strangers on public transportation and in the grocery store, and then finally we got feminism, and then, thank god, AT LAST, we could say, with the deepest relief, “Get your hands off my pregnancy, jackass!” Keep reading »

Don’t Panic! 7 Reasons Your Period Might Be Late (Besides Pregnancy)

Amelia McDonell-ParryMarch 25, 2013 //
The Pregnancy Test
A brief history of the pregnancy, prior to peeing on a stick. 11 Photos »
Stupid Period Ads
These menstrual product ads are dumb. Period. 9 Photos »
My Period Is Early
angry woman period
An open letter to Jessica's period on the occasion of coming early. Read More »

For the last week or so, I’ve been somewhat convinced that I’m pregnant. For the most part, this belief was paranoid, but also not entirely outside the realm of possibility. I had a proper French affair when I was in Paris a few weeks ago and at one point there was a broken condom situation, though we realized it was broken and replaced it with a fresh one prior to, ahem, any fluids reaching their apex, so to speak. But I know how babies are made and I’m a total hypochondriac, so when my period failed to arrive on the day it was supposed to, and the day after, and the day after that, and I started feeling gassier than usual, well, I began to panic. I started to type “gas sign of” into Google and the search engine, seemingly reading my mind, autofilled the rest with “early pregnancy.”

Oh god, I thought. It was all but confirmed. Keep reading »

Mommie Dearest: NYC Failed On Its Teen Pregnancy Campaign

Avital Norman NathmanMarch 20, 2013 //
Pregnancy PSAs
teen pregnancy PSAs
NYC's new teen pregnancy PSAs are pissing everyone off. Read More »
Ab Only Sex Ed Sucks
Every teenager in Mississippi is pregnant, basically. Read More »
NYC Schools Get EC
Some NYC schools administer the morning after pill to students. Read More »
crying baby

New York City’s Human Resources Administration (HRA) has recently launched a new ad campaign aimed at teen pregnancy that has caused quite a stir — and rightfully so. The campaign employs some of the most shameful tactics I have ever seen in the name of preventing teen pregnancy. These offensive ads (pictured after the jump) feature crying babies and blaming language that the HRA hopes will turn teenagers off from becoming parents.

Much of the wording places the onus of teen parenthood directly on the mother. Only one ad talks directly to young men (focusing on how much money he’ll have to pay in support), while the rest weigh heavily on the shoulders of young women, with one specifically focusing on how it’s highly likely a teen mom will end up raising her baby alone.

Is becoming a teen parent ideal or easy? No. Nobody is saying it is. But the way to go about preventing teen pregnancy isn’t by shaming and blaming those who already are young parents. The money that was spent on this horrible (and most likely ineffective) ad campaign could have been put to better use in more widespread comprehensive sex-education programs within the city. Keep reading »

Italian Town Gives Pregnant Women & New Moms Their Own Parking Spaces

Jessica WakemanMarch 11, 2013 //
Sexist Parking Spaces
parking
German mayor helpfully allocates parking spaces just for dudes. Read More »
Diddling In The Car
Men, you really need to stop jerking off while you're driving. Read More »
Good At Parking
women parking cars
Women are pretty good at parking cars, contrary to stereotype. Read More »
Special Parking Privileges
Should pregnant ladies get to park in no-standing zones? Read More »
italy parking spaces

Women’s rights activists in Italy are supposedly upset that the town of Corinaldo has widened and repainted hundreds of parking spaces as pink to signify they are for pregnant women and new moms. The wider, moms-only parking spaces were debuted for International Women’s Day last Friday. But the UK’s Sun newspaper quotes feminist activists pointing out the gesture only serves to reinforce women’s traditional role as mothers: Keep reading »

Mommie Dearest: Pregnant Women Shouldn’t Lose Their Jobs

Avital Norman NathmanMarch 7, 2013 //
Fired Over Pregnancy
pregnancy discrimination
Christian college fired woman for getting pregnant out of wedlock. Read More »
Morning Sickness
morning sickness
His wife has the same acute morning sickness as Kate Middleton. Read More »
Kicking Out Pregnant Girls
Louisiana school says they'll stop kicking out pregnant girls. Read More »
pregnancy

For all intents and purposes, I had a pretty textbook pregnancy. Nothing out of the ordinary occurred, but that also didn’t mean it was all rainbows and unicorns.I’ve always wondered why they call it morning sickness, when for many people it lasts all day. At least, that’s what it was like for my when I was pregnant with my son. I’d wake up feeling nauseous and no amount of Saltines or ginger chews left by my bedside table to nibble on first thing ever helped. I felt the equivalent of sea sick all day: unbalanced, dizzy, and foggy. For the first few months, my weekends were spent in gentle yoga classes when I could afford them or lounging on my couch catching up on grading.

My weekdays were much less bearable. I taught high school social studies and I always had to be “on” and engaging, despite my roiling stomach that hardly gave me a minute’s relief. More than once I would call out a hasty plea to “please read page 44 and I’ll be right back” before booking it to the nearest bathroom and hugging the questionably clean toilet. But “morning” sickness was only the tip of the iceberg. I also had to deal with sweaty teenage boys who thought cologne was an acceptable coverup for post-gym stink (it’s not), as well as whatever horribly pungent odors wafted up from the cafeteria. Keep reading »

Mirror, Mirror: On Pregnancy And Body Image

Kate FridkisMarch 7, 2013 //
Mirror, Mirror: Thin Women
Why thin women shouldn't be excluded from talking about body image. Read More »
Mirror, Mirror: Rules
Kate comes up with better beauty rules. Read More »
Mirror Mirror: Age 65
How Kate wants to be when she's 65. Read More »

I am 19 weeks pregnant. In pregnancy, everything is measured in weeks, and I keep wanting to wish my fetus a happy beginning-of-the-next-week birthday. Because we made it this far and we should celebrate, damn it. But I guess that gets a little excessive. People keep telling me, “You barely look pregnant!” And it’s frustrating, because I am really, really pregnant. I know, because of all the barfing I endured for three months. (So much barfing! Dear God. I can hardly look at a saltine now without a rising sense of dread.) I know, because of the boxing match that seems to be going on endlessly between my very enthusiastic baby and any part of my body he or she can reach. Believe me, I am quite pregnant. So when people tell me, “I can’t even tell!” I have this weird reaction. I know that they are complimenting me. They’re suggesting that I look thin, and I’m supposed to appreciate that. But I also have to resist the urge to stick my belly out and say, “No, no, seriously, look closer! This is the real deal!” Keep reading »

Seriously, The Most Insane Surrogacy Story You’ve Ever Heard

Ami AngelowiczMarch 5, 2013 //
I Had An Abortion
A mother writes about choosing to have an abortion. Read More »
Teen Sues To Keep Baby
pregnant teen
A Texas teen sues her parents for the right not to have an abortion. Read More »
Celeb Surrogate Boom
These famous parents had babies by surrogates. 10 Photos »
Holy Whoa

When Crystal Kelley agreed to carry a child for a Connecticut couple, she was expecting a happy ending. The 31-year-old (29 at the time), who had been a surrogate before, enjoyed helping couples with fertility problems. The couple’s frozen embryo was implanted into Kelley’s uterus and the pregnancy took. Everything seemed to be going as planned until Kelley went for her five-month ultrasound. Tests confirmed that the baby had a cleft lip and palate, a cyst in the brain, and a complex heart abnormality. This is when everything went to hell in a hand basket.

Considering the findings, the parents felt that the most “humane option” would be for Kelley to consider “pregnancy termination.” Kelley adamantly opposed the idea of terminating the pregnancy.

“They said they didn’t want to bring a baby into the world only for that child to suffer. … They said I should try to be God-like and have mercy on the child and let her go … I told them that they had chosen me to carry and protect this child, and that was exactly what I was going to do … I told them it wasn’t their decision to play God,” Kelley said. Keep reading »

Woman Fired For Getting Pregnant Out Of Wedlock, While Baby Daddy Offered Job At Same Place

Jessica WakemanMarch 4, 2013 //
Kicking Out Pregnant Girls
Louisiana school says they'll stop kicking out pregnant girls. Read More »
Knocked Up
... during Hurricane Sandy? You're not alone. Read More »
Gun At Pregnant Smoker
pregnant smoker photo
A man pointed a gun at a pregnant woman because she was smoking. Read More »
pregnancy discrimination
  • A 29-year-old woman is suing the Christian college in San Diego, California, which fired her for getting pregnant out of wedlock. The woman had signed a “covenant” agreeing to “moral behavior,” including no premarital sex, but the agreement did not stipulate she would be fired. The school seemed to have no problem with her now-husband’s sex out of wedlock, though, because even after they had fired her, they offered him a job. [Feministing]
  • VIDA Women in Literary Arts’ annual byline count of men vs. women is depressing as usual.  [Poynter]
  • On how working mothers are seen as less competent and more irrational than other women. [The Atlantic]
  • Mortgage lenders are also in trubs for disqualifying pregnant women and women on maternity leave from receiving mortgages, which runs afoul of the Fair Housing Act. [MSN]
  • A survey about rape/nonconsensual penetration from five years ago has been leaked to the school newspaper, The Daily Princetonian. [Jezebel] Keep reading »

Lots Of People Got Knocked Up During Hurricane Sandy

Ami AngelowiczMarch 2, 2013 //
Sandy Memes
The best of Hurricane Sandy memes. 11 Photos »
Trapped!
The 8 stages of being trapped in your apartment. Read More »
Sex And Weather
Bad weather turns people on. Read More »
Hurricane Sandy Baby Boom!
Hurricane sex leads to hurricane babies

So what were people doing without TV, internet and power during Hurricane Sandy? Those of us who weren’t gorging on non-perishable snacks, stalking strangers on Facebook and looking for their drag queen dopplegangers (I had power!) or confronting various existential life crisis were entertaining themselves the old-fashioned way. SEX.

According to the CityScape OB/GYN in Manhattan, there has been a significant increase in pregnancies originating at the time of Hurricane Sandy.

“We see around a 10 percent spike, so we’re anticipating a lot of business by the end of the summer,” said Dr. Luba Soskin.

Sounds like we should prepare ourselves for a Hurricane Sandy baby boom! Let’s hope these parents-to-be have the good sense not to name their children Sandy. That would just be wrong. [NBC New York]

  1. < BACK
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. 4
  6. 5
  7. 6
  8. ...
  9. NEXT >
  10. ...
  11. »