The pregnancy test on the mantle

[celticdragonfly]

You know, someday I really want to see a story in which a significant female character has nausea and/or vomiting, possibly when presented with breakfast, and then turns out to have the flu. But no. Especially if written by a male author, it's a Great Big Neon Sign, This Character Is Pregnant But Won't Realize It For A While.

I mean, come ON. It's so hackneyed. Maybe she just has food poisoning. Maybe she should think hey, am I pregnant? And then find out she's NOT. Maybe they should come up with something better, if they must have the foreshadowing. Come on. Not all pregnant women barf when breakfast is placed before them. Okay, I'm sick horribly when I am, but honestly, brushing my teeth is more likely to set off the vomiting first, and then actually breakfast might be a good thing.

At least some of the female authors I've read do a better job of the various possible symptoms that can herald early pregnancy. Like a recent Bujold book, in which she used a combination of feeling sick, major fatigue, and hunger. Oh yes, that rang very true.

Comments

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

Lois has had babies, you can tell can't you?

Men who have not had babies maybe should not write about it unless they do a LOT of interviews with mothers. Likewise, I also think that men who are against abortion should absolutely NOT have one. [grin]

False alarms

[rampantmouse.livejournal.com]

True. And it's one of the scariest things in the world to be badly stressed and have it cause, oh, missed periods, nausea, insomnia (which can mean the tummy's a little weaker in the morning), etc. and fret that it might be pregnancy, which only adds to the stress... Sounds like a good plot point to me!

I owe you guys an email or 20. I owe all my friends an email or 20. It's been like that for awhile. But you'll hear from me, oh, probably when I'm home from my trip back east. I leave tomorrow.

Re: False alarms

[the-blue-fenix.livejournal.com]

True. And it's one of the scariest things in the world to be badly stressed and have it cause, oh, missed periods, nausea, insomnia (which can mean the tummy's a little weaker in the morning), etc. and fret that it might be pregnancy, which only adds to the stress... Sounds like a good plot point to me

I'm not very hungry first thing in the mornings. If I have to get up after too little sleep AND I am pressed to eat breakfast when I'm not hungry, there can be nausea.

At one point in my youth I had (a) a boyfriend I could really only see on Saturday nights, when we would watch Dr. Who together from 10 pm to who knows when (b) a family habit of attending 8:30 am church services and (c) parents who believed both that (a) was no excuse for missing church and that breakfast was the most important meal of the day. I think there was some unnecessary worry (theirs, not mine) over that combination of factors.

[archangelbeth]

Well, there's the most recent Laurell K. Hamilton Anita-book where... Well, it's a spoiler, but it sets up expectations very firmly in one direction and then pokes them in the other, and she'd better bring that up in the next book 'cause there was a big ol' weirdness there otherwise. (Not saying anything else about the quality of 'em. I don't call them great literature, but sometimes they're entertaining to me.)

Hmmmmm. Thank you! I should have someone (male, without much acquaintance to this pregnancy stuff) freak out about a barely pregnant protagonist running around, jumping off roofs, and the like. *rubs her hands together evilly and looks at her fic*

[tepintzin.livejournal.com]

They never notice that they've missed their periods, either. Every woman I've known who's been pregnant notices the missed period first and the nausea comes later. What's nuts is that even some female writers make a woman's nausea be the first sign of pregnancy.

[archangelbeth]

Not so nuts! Many women have decidual bleeding that looks a heck of a lot like a lightish period -- I was entirely weirded. I was bleeding, but I was running a "fever" and feeling frequently a bit ill all the time. The pregnancy tests were saying "yes," but... bleeding! Miscarriage, I wondered? So I went to the doctor, since I was feeling nausea all the time and running that "fever."

As the seven year old in the other room proves, it wasn't a miscarriage. Unless I was gonna have twins, and frankly, it's just as well...

My mother tells me she had decidual bleeding "periods" for the first trimester, and wasn't sure that she was pregnant till I started kicking, because of it. (She also told me how she was never sick, and loved being pregnant, and if she hadn't been 2000 miles away I'd have thrown up on her MANY TIMES.)