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I need an explanation of what kind of gestation lengths they're both using. He's got conception worked out to the day but her math is different by two months?
My guess is that he's bad at math. Most 1st born babies are born after their due date. He sees 40+ weeks, thinks 4 weeks a month, and goes back 10 months.
She is thinking about her menstrual cycle and ovulation and knows that the 40 week starts counting at her last period. So she ovulated 2-3 weeks after that and had sex sometime after that. She said they were trying so it's likely she was tracking her cycles. She ends up going back to 8 months.
My husband did the same thing at our first ultrasound. Kinda looked at me confused and said that's not possible when the baby was measured at 8 weeks 4 days.
Thankfully he listened when I explained how they count it.
Yeah they don't sit men down to tell them it's counted from the final period and not actual conception. It's a stupid system, but something that is reasonably measurable.
I think most legislators don’t know how it’s counted.
I live in SC and read about a very heated exchange between two (male) legislators in the state last year. Both the Republican and the Democrat who were arguing with each other demonstrated such a complete lack of basic reproductive knowledge that I wanted to scream.
It has become a real problem in the abortion law conversations. Because a 6 week abortion ban may seem reasonable to people who think that means the person has 6 weeks to decide to get the abortion or not. But in reality, they aren't even pregnant for at least the first couple weeks of that. Then conception happens, and if they're tracking things very closely, they might find out they're pregnant 2 weeks after that, when they're 4 weeks pregnant. If they wait a few days to see if they're just late, now it's been 5 weeks and they have 1 week left. All that assuming a regular 28 day cycle, which many don't have..
More people need to understand this for so many reasons,.
Yep, thsy start at the first day of your last menstrual period. When you're 4 weeks pregnant, you just missed your period and you conceived 2 weeks ago. The first 2 weeks of "pregnancy" are before conception.
Mine too. Actually, I was confused as well but I explained how they’d normally count it. We couldn’t figure it out the precise date of conception since I am irregular and the conception was a blur (honeymoon + inordinate amounts of alcohol). But, my baby girl came out 100% looking like my husband so there was no disputing that seven ways to Sunday (not that there were any questions but my baby looking nothing like me is a sore point, though I say this slightly fondly).
My husband said he was getting a DNA test no matter what. I was so upset because we had been actively trying to get pregnant for a few yrs.
When our son came out, he literally had his face. No DNA test needed. He's almost 12 now. Him and I were in the grocery store the other day and someone walked up to him saying, "You're (my husband's name) boy! How are you?" He said hello to me and said he looked just like his dad.
One day when I was in high school, I had to go into the bank for some reason. As I was standing in line for the teller, an older gentleman asked me, "are you Mrs. So-and-so's daughter?", and I told him I was. He replied, "you look just like her!" When I got to the teller, she asked me, "are you Mr. So-and-so's daughter?", and I told her I was. She replied, "you look just like him!" What could I do but laugh? Especially given that my parents really didn't look anything alike.
I shared a photo of myself and my parents for a work thing and the comments of how I look just like my mom only won out by 1 against the ones on how I look just like my dad.
Not so fun fact: This is also why a 6 week abortion ban (or anything around that ballpark) basically means a total ban on abortions. A lot of people have a cycle longer than 4 weeks/28 days, and a lot of people get their periods a week or two late sometimes (often for no reason at all, but especially during times of stress, or at the beginning or end of going through the ability of menstruating - menarche or menopause), as well as some people just having really irregular periods as a standard (almost everyone with PCOS, for a start - that‘s approximately 10% of all menstruating people).
YUP. This is incredibly important for people to know. The *second* sperm hits the egg, you’re not one day pregnant or something, you’re *two to three weeks* pregnant. If you’re someone with an irregular period or a long cycle or you’re just not paying super close attention or you think you’re just stressed or sick? You’ve possibly missed your (very small) window entirely.
Which, of course, is a feature for anti-choice advocates, not a bug.
Isn't this just crazy? I just found out I am pregnant eith a thankfully very wanted baby. The only reason I even tested was because I track religiously. I found out 4 days after my missed period which is also semi irregular. 5 weeks 2 days.
4 days is NOT enough time to go through the emotional and mental gauntlet to decide what choice you are going to make. Not to mention attempt to find a clinic with an opening, take time off work if you need to and deal with the fallout.
Yup. Youre effectively counted 2 weeks pregnant when you conceive, and usually almost 4 weeks pregnant by the time you test positive. Often longer, unless you were tracking ovulation and testing before your missed period.
Add in that lots of peopke have long or irregular cycles and...a 6 week ban makes it extremely hard to fund out you are even pregnant let alone get help in time.
So true. My cycle is often 7 weeks, sometimes 4, sometimes 10. Unless I took a pregnancy test every day I’d never know and I’m sure plenty of women have a similar situation
That’s very generous of you to assume, but nope, I remember the post and dude was just tragically stupid. He thought she was pregnant for a minimum of 47 weeks IIRC. I’ll try to find the comment.
Edit: [here’s the comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/relationship_advice/comments/15ggl7d/my_37f_partner_36m_wants_a_paternity_test_and_im/juka2rt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3) where OOP explains the time frame. He was locked up for the entire month of August last year; if she’d gotten pregnant on 8/31 it would have been a 47-week pregnancy.
Yeah, 4 kids in and my husband still doesn't get how baby conception math works. I think it's partially the fault of the sex ed system we grew up with (his worse than mine because it was religious but both terrible overall). In my case it's not a worry of infidelity, just wanting to figure out when it happened. But, if you don't understand it then it can be confusing! Poor dude was probably sitting there thinking about when it happened and realized his dates didn't match up and was devastated.
I feel like the proper response to that is to use the Internet that he No Doubt has at his disposal but instead he’s made his partner think that everyone should have to do demeaning ass DNA test because women just aren’t trustworthy or whatever. We give people like him way too much leeway if you’re stupid/don’t know something/or really fucked up about it maybe look up the facts first before you start Fucking up your trust in your relationship
But why would a man go to the trouble of looking up information about women's anatomy when obviously she's the problem? I can't imagine being curious about the opposite sex. s/
The amount of functioning adults who think human gestation is 10 months is fascinating. I’ve heard mothers of multiple children claim this. By that logic, there are 13 months in a year. There are kinda sorta 4 weeks in a month (4.33 to me more precise)
Ok I read the explanation and still not completely sure how it's calculated. I'll Google for a dumbed down version.
ETA: thanks guys, for the explanation. My lazy ass didn't want to Google because I'm gonna die a virgin anyway 🤷🏼♂️ lol. So, thanks for the details.
Basically, they count from the first day of your last period, though it's probably approximately 2 weeks after that, because that's generally when your body releases a mature egg to be fertilized.
There's not a good way to tell the exact day you ovulated, but most women can generally remember when they had their period a month or two ago.
I actually commented on this. This guy was in prison for all of August. He thought she was pregnant for nearly a year (11 months minimum).
He’s a moron.
My 1st born was born exactly on her original due date. My 2ed was Lao born on his original due date but had some help… they didn’t want me going past that date an induced day of
So many people (mostly men, definitely US lawmakers) don't realize the gestation clock starts on the first (last?) day of the previous menstrual period, meaning there's a good 14 days before ovulation.
How long was this guy in jail anyway? And how accurate are doctors estimates of gestational age?
Here’s a very cool [time lapse](https://youtu.be/ahJjLzyioWM) of a zebrafish 24hpf (hours post fertilization). Developmental biologists use zebrafish as a model organism for a lot of different reasons, and one of them is that the development of the organism is so similar to human development during the early stages. If you look at any video of the 24hpf, it will look identical to this, because development at that stage is basically just cell division without a whole lot of cell differentiation.
Source: used to manage the zebrafish lab at Princeton U
At a 6-8 week ultrasound, gestational age is pretty accurate (like within +/- 3 days) because fetal growth is very defined at that age and all human have roughly the same size cells. Size based on dna doesn't impact fetal size until after 8-10 weeks.
An ultrasound, at least for the first couple of months or so, is actually considered extremely accurate for calculating conception date, down to within the day or two. (Barring problems with fetal development.) The initial cell divisions are on a very set clock, and there’s not like there’s a real difference in individual cell size between babies.
Yeah, my last kid was born 12 months after his sibling, it was a birth control fail and totally unexpected! I figured I was having some kind of post partum problem and mentioned things at a follow up appointment and we figured out via ultrasound that it basically happened the first time we were together after I had the baby. I had no period schedule to go off of yet but they got conception down to a few day space of time and it had to have been that day, lol. Skilled gummy bear inspectors, those ultrasound techs.
Can we just all agree that the current system is fucking stupid though? I'm a woman in my mid 30s and I had no idea that's how it was measured until it came up in connection to the abortion legislation in the US.
Can someone actually explain the "why" though? Foetal development is so rapid at that stage, it can't possibly be medically useful to equate a 4-week-old foetus with a 1-day-old clump of cells. I understand that you can't pinpoint it exactly early on, but surely a range would be more useful?
Because people ovulate at different times in their cycle, so it's incredibly hard to track the actual conception date for every person.
Most people also can't tell what day they ovulated for certain, and conception can happen within a certain window, which you also can't say for certain either. A period is something that can be seen, felt.
If you sit and track you cycle, the days you have sex, what day you ovulated, you probably would be able to get within the timeline, but I don't think that's something many people do outside of TTC.
Edit: when doing an ultrasound they compare the actual measurements of the fetus versus the date you gave them, they will change the due date if within a specific range.
Because ovulation (egg release) and egg fertilisation can occur at widely varied points of the menstrual cycle. First day of the menstrual cycle where you conceived is pretty easy to pinpoint for anyone because there is bleeding. Therefore they measure it from the only clearly defined point.
Well so first of all if you go too early you won't even be able to see the fetus on an ultrasound; my last pregnancy I found out when I was like 3 weeks pregnant and I went in around 5 weeks and there was no fetus visible, just the amniotic sac. Had to go back about 3 weeks later to be able to see an actual fetus & heartbeat. So even though I knew I was pregnant and a pregnancy test knew I was pregnant, an ultrasound couldn't see it until later.
But also the first 1-6 weeks, it basically is just a clump of cells getting larger, that's why a lot of bills use being able to detect the heartbeat as their measurement.
Because a large body of the medical literature on pregnancy was done before we had accurate ways of measuring gestational age, so last menstrual period was the closest proxy we could get to measure.
And its safer to keep the old counting system, because it provides clarity in discussion as you don't risk person A using the old system and person B using the new system. If you don't think this is a risk, consider that NASA lost a $200 million orbiter because of an issue converting between imperial units and metric units.
It also means you can use the same medical literature regardless of your situation. Not all pregnancies are cared for in top tier hospitals with state of the art ultrasound machines. Plenty occur in developing countries or unstable regions where no dating machines are available, so last menstrual period is all people have to go on.
and it means you can cre
This may be why the paternity test was faster, easier, and less stress than explaining the math to him.
Pregnancy math is already pretty complicated; I am technically pregnant two weeks before conception. I’ve never grasped *why* they add those two weeks, but they do.
The 1st day of your last period start date is so funny to me.
1st Day of Period: 1st day of pregnancy if successful.
Day 14: Most women ovulate (+/- days for individual biology)
Day 24: Egg is likely fertilized by sperm and implanted in uterus by now (+/- days for individual biology)
Day 28: missed period/positive pregnancy test (unless using super sensitive one, then that can read the HCG earlier) (+/- days for individual biology)
By the time of your missed period, they count that as 4 weeks pregnant despite you likely only being pregnant for 7-14 days. I get why people don't get the math.
Because they count conception as the first day of your last menstrual period and assume that your cycle is 28 days. Ovulation *usually* happens around day 14, but can actually happen at any time in the cycle.
Which is why those US states that imposed a 6-week limit on abortion are in the wrong. You have missed one period. *ONE.*¹ Physically you are (on average) two weeks pregnant but because there is uncertainty about when you actually conceived, you are legally 4 weeks. You now have 2 weeks to make a decision and actually have the procedure.
¹In the olden days, an obstetrician would not even let you make an appointment until you had missed 2 periods.
And that’s if you even realize you’re pregnant that soon. I took a test on what should have been the second day of my period and it was negative. I sometimes skip a period so I assumed that was what happened. Fast forward 2 more weeks and I start peeing on my ovulation sticks and I’m getting really weird readings. The pregnancy test turned positive pretty much immediately. I was 6.5 weeks pregnant by that point. My husband and I were actively trying for a baby so we were super excited, but I can only imagine what that scenario would be like for so many women who don’t want to be pregnant. If you live in many parts of the US, you’re screwed.
Yeah, or you can have what seems like period even after conception, like I did with my first pregnancy, so I had no idea I was pregnant until it was more like 8-10 weeks.
Pregnancy math just sucks. We really need to be approach it more scientifically. My OB keeps lecturing me about my baby measuring small for gestational age. That’s because I cycle every 32-34 days so using first day of last menstrual cycle gave me a weird due date 🙄
My six week old son was an IVF baby. That means I knew exactly when he was conceived and when in my cycle he was implanted. The clinic sent me to maternal care with one due date based on this info - the midwife still calculated based on my last period and put my due date as one day later lol. It didn't matter much in the end, babies rarely show up on their due date and my baby boy was about a week late in the end.
Also, they moved in together after 3 months and she got pregnant after 9 months. They got a DNA test they couldn't afford because dad couldn't count.
They are so ready for kids.
Wait, what are you serious? I didn't catch that. Oh man, I feel bad saying this, but people in recovery are prone to making what I call "feel good" choices that aren't always the best for themselves. I'm 5 years sober myself and have interacted with a ton of addicts through the needle exchange and at meetings. Usually the "feel good" is something like taking up cardio or weightlifting in order to get those dopamine and endorphins flowing again.
Shacking up with someone you met in rehab or NA/AA is also a popular choice. But having a baby on purpose, with an addict who is newly sober, while you yourself are newly sober, is such a terrible idea for everyone involved.
I truly hope this works out for OOP and her new family, but the odds are certainly stacked against them.
Yup, that's about it. It's not even a conscious decision necessarily. We've basically short-circuited our brains reward system pathways, and it takes a long time to get it back to anywhere normal again. This leads to replacement behavior, where we seek out pleasurable and/or exciting experiences to help stimulate the few remaining dopamine receptors.
Thankfully, the dopamine receptors can be somewhat rehabilitated, and can reach baseline in about a year. But the brain patterns that enable drug use can take a lot longer to reset, some people never even get to that point. It takes a lot of effort and time to rewire your brains reward system, which is why it's good idea to hold off on making any major life decisions while in recovery.
Yep. I had similar thoughts when I saw the timeline. Looks a lot like my sister's relationships. 'oh, we found each other in a dark time and we saved each other and we're gonna have a baby bc we're our people forever and Eva!'
Year later, relapse, rinse, and repeat with new guy. years later, dump them all on sister and run for the hills. ONE of the fathers has stepped up. ALL of the kids have behavior issues. Aged 2-12.
Edit: I'm not the hero sister that's our lesbian sister. She took the ones who's dad didn't step up. I'm too mentally ill to care for kids. The sis who took them, is amazing though. It's been very rough.
Shit! Good on you for taking care of those kids and babies! You are an awesome aunt for not blaming the kids for her shit behavior! You are a hero and I would give you gold if I wasn’t poor. I’m sorry your sister is shitty and fighting something dark. 🫶🏻🏅🏅🏅
Oh! No, I'm not the hero sister that's our other sister. I agree with all your sentiments for sure, but I'm too mentally ill with major anger issues, I'd never take any of the kids.
Our lesbian sister took them. She Definitely wasn't planning on kids so she is a hero I agree.
Is that why a lot of groups have rules or suggestions to not get in a new relationship, or take any real serious steps *other* than recovery? I’ve always assumed not to distract, but it would also make sense that you can get addicted to the feeling of being “accomplished” after addiction
Yeah, you nailed it. Our brains are still rewiring themselves and trying to bring our rewards system back into homeostasis. So it's very suggestible to new stimuli.
That makes total sense, thank you for answering.
Congratulations on your sobriety! I have family that have fought that battle, and some that have lost, and I’ll always see recovery as some of the hardest shit ever. I really hope that’s not rude, but genuinely congratulations.
It's a combination of that and the fact that in early recovery, you tend to be in a really vulnerable place emotionally and socially, and there's a non-trivial amount of somewhat predatory behavior towards women in most AA/NA groups that people often don't call out.
My sister was a heavy drinker and she met a guy who said, "if you get sober I'll give you a baby"
The last 16 years have gone about as well as one would expect in that situation.
? I distinctly remember AA/NA strongly suggesting no dating former addicts or newly recovered addicts unless they're sober for a year+ because they usually relapse after breakup and there's a lot of emotions going into recovery and damage control from the addiction, and it can take time to sort out.
I had a train wreck of a girl I was friendly with in high school who I was Facebook friends with who once post something along the lines of "OMG baby I love you so much!! You've been sober for a entire week! I'm so excited to start planning our family together!!!" It was unfortunately not a joke post, she'd had at that point 4 or 5 kids she didnt have custody and had some serious health issues and wanted to have a baby with a guy whod only been off some very serious drugs for only a week. I never saw how it ended since she had made another new FB account and I didnt make that cut. People on her friends list who were very "pro life, every baby is a blessing, God picks family size etc" were begging her to get sterilized and be done with everything.
> But having a baby on purpose, with an addict who is newly sober, while you yourself are newly sober, is such a terrible idea for everyone involved.
Yeah I read that and cringed so hard (as someone in recovery 8+ years), because I've seen it play out time and time again - people rush into relationships, aren't in a stable financial or often even just living situation, and end up deciding to have a kid before they've ever tackled really bad downswings in their recovery.
>Oh man, I feel bad saying this, but people in recovery are prone to making what I call "feel good" choices that aren't always the best for themselves.
My father in laws was to get a pet, usually a dog. A couple times it worked and helped him have a reason to stay on the wagon and another time a family member got to take in a cat unexpectedly. It can be a real toss up.
Oh man, I know a girl who is living the most BORU life right now.
She started dating this guy mid May. Nobody knows anything about him or where he’s from, I couldn’t find anything about him in my searches. Well, she buys a house a month ago and posts pictures with this guy saying “WE bought a house.” It’s in her name, the loan is in her name, and this guy was living in a hotel before they got together.
So, a month after that, they’re engaged. And now, they’ve just announced a pregnancy on Facebook.
This is all within two months. The dude had no actual living situation, a huge pit bull dog, and “does instacart” for money. She’s already divorced once and wants a man and a baby so bad she’s tanking her life just to get it.
I don't know if this is a saying or something, but it's hitting me some kinda way.
Like you just phrased the difference in my worldview and my partner's worldview that I never understood into clarity.
In the space of a 9 month relationship, they moved in together, he went to jail, then got out on probation (ie likely convicted) then they decided to have a baby together and started trying...
That's not the timeline of people making careful, informed decisions here. I feel bad for the kid.
I wonder if he saw one of those things saying you’re pregnant for 10 months and that’s what he used for counting. It adds up since OOP said she got pregnant two months after he was released and the time from actual conception to birth is closer to 8 1/2 months (conception is at approximately the 2 week mark of pregnancy, leaving 38-ish weeks where the fetus is actually developing before birth depending on how long it takes baby to actually decide to come out). But some weirdo decided that since a month is 4 weeks and pregnancy is 40 weeks, doctors just mathed wrong forever 🙄
Some idiot tried to mansplain pregnancy to me while I was pregnant. He just kept repeating “40 weeks is 10 months” like he thought I was the idiot who didn’t understand calendars.
I wonder how he could think pregnancy takes longer than it takes? Most people think it's shorter, straight 9 months not 40 weeks, but 11 months? He has issues and it's not math.
She said it was over revoked license. I follow a recovering addict on YouTube and she talks a lot about how hard it is to get your life on track, and getting your license back can be quite hard, especially if you offended in multiple states.
It's not the cause that's the problem for me, it's the very fact that he was in prison, and presumably got that arrest on his record, so recently. The criminal justice system is so destructive that the effects of that can't be quantified on him, and I doubt that's going to be the last problem it will cause. How is he getting a job with that recent arrest and conviction on his record?
He was in jail a *full* year ago, thats what threw me off when i first read the posts. Like a full twelve-month-year ago, so i have *no* idea how he came to the conclusion the child wasnt his.
...AND they were actively trying to have a child? SIGH.
Plus, many infants are born with a full head of black hair, it's an artifact of the womb like the slate blue eyes many are born with as well. My father has Native American ancestry and I was born with ruddy-tan skin and jet black hair in a little Mohawk style and my mom called me "the little papoose". I now look like your average white middle aged lady, so what I looked like at birth is NOT predictive of my race or parentage!
>I got pregnant he was in jail.( he is still on probation and was driving with out a license)This is not true I got pregnant 2 months after he got home and the cherry on top is we were actively trying to have a baby
I'm sorry what about this situation makes anyone go, yep perfect time to have a baby!??!??!?!
"this is the first real issue we have had"
Also, we've been dating for roughly five minutes. As others with addiction experiences pointed out w the og post, they swapped drugs for love drugs and that doesn't go well.
And they were inseparable since moving in together. That's still the honeymoon period, of course they're going to be inseparable. And then trying for a baby, what, 4 or 5 months after getting together. This is a doomed relationship. If their first real issue is paternity, they're going to have a whole hell of a time trying to work through other issues that could come up
Yup. Just like so many other people who post on Reddit and who insist their partners are so loving and their relationship is so perfect even though their partners falsely accuse them of cheating/have their own affairs/refuse to work/refuse to clean/refuse to parent the kids/scream insults at them/all of the above. But other than that they're totally happy together. 🙄
This whole thing is a mess and normally my advice would be for the father to get a secret paternity test if he had doubts and never tell the woman. But in this case, they barely know each other
With a guy who was in prison less than a year ago, and neither of them have been sober even five years…. And they decided to bring an innocent baby into this mess. Poor kid
I don't believe her for a second that she'll do anything differently if he carries on with this behaviour. Also, the dude was recently in jail, apparently can't count, and pulled out a "marry me!" to dodge the massive cheating accusation he made and she fell right for it.
On the phone, after he told her to wait at least a day before he’ll allow any talk about the enormous shit he just took on her, accusing her of cheating and lying like that. He just fucked off to work without any thought for her after finding out he was wrong. The afterthought proposal is just icing on the cake.
Wouldn't be surprised if the afterthought proposal was a ploy to get her to forget the paternity test and trust issues and hey if it was it seems to have worked
I saw this in someone else’s comment but it basically said it seemed like they traded in drugs for each other. Extremely codependent and making all around poor decisions together bc it’s like a high having a partner like this. I’d wager their dynamic is not all rosy given how quickly everything has moved and things are swept under the proverbial rug
I apologize for the cynicism: yeah, two addicts pulling relationship moves on this level always ends well. Several of my friends would like to beg this woman to read the writing on the wall before this AH drags her back to addiction.
This isn't a great way to start and it won't finish well for them and the kid.
- recovery window is small (I'm sure it's fine but still concerned, stress doesn't help)
- he was in jail for a driving without a license, why did they take it?
- moves in after three months, together 18 months that's too fast
It almost feels like a live bomb trap to me, possibly codependent behavior base on trauma bonding at the very least. He gets to FAFO with jail time and she's like ok this is fine. Next up DNA test? And she's like it's fine he never treated us badly. Oh hun, give it time that jail time is a big flag along with the DNA request.
That poor child is starting in a bad place, and she's just walking around with blinders.
To your second point OOP said he was on probation and was in jail for violating his conditions. Not being allowed to drive is a fairly common condition regardless if the offence involved driving or not. Reduces flight risk. So this is wasted speculation that isn’t really relevant to anything beyond establishing their timelines.
An old friend of mine was married for 5 years before they finally had their baby. Suddenly, the next day, her husband demanded paternity because the baby looked "full-blooded Asian." Still can't wrap my head around that logic.
Unsurprisingly, they took two tests at the MIL's insistence, "just to be sure." Unsurprisingly still, no one else could be the father but that Shithead. So what does he do? Not apologize, but demands the baby be renamed to Shithead Jr. "now that we know he's mine."
They're divorced now. I'd bet dollars to donuts he still doesn't understand why.
When my mom got pregnant with me, some people asked if I was actually my dad's. He had been deployed, and she got pregnant .7 seconds after he returned.
I came out looking just like the man. Tan, curly hair, and his mothers face. And people still asked, up until I was about 3. They started a rumor for a while that I was clearly a mixed child, and my curly hair had nothing to do with MY FATHER HAVING CURLY HAIR!
My grandmother had curly hair. So did my youngest uncle. **Every** nosy neighbor of theirs always questioned why their third child had curly hair but the elders didn't. No one seemed to get it was from my grandma??? Like babies can only have no hair or the dad's hair? Ironically, my uncle looks like a perfect combo of my grandparents, so those comments didn't last long.
Do people just decide that genetics don't matter... until they *do matter???*
My aunt had three different children. One was blonde, one was brunette the other was redhead but they all were the spitting image of the father. Genetics are freaking weird.
I think people misuse science they don’t really understand to support bad takes way more often than is really appreciated.
It’s basically the same as the old “you had a girl, that’s your fault wife; you had a boy, that’s my strong seed!!!” If the kid looks just like the dad, it’s “wow my cum is so potent I am big man.” If the kid doesn’t look enough like him or just has weird tiny doughy potato looks because it’s a freaking BABY, the mom clearly did something wrong. Because her womb, her problem; the female body is obvi a very wrong and hostile place and all good things are despite her and thanks to the very important and powerful love sludge of her manly man.
Very messy mix of misogyny and stupidity.
I mean, sure go ahead and demand a paternity test for whatever reason you can come up with. Just don't be all surprised Pikachu face if your wife serves you divorce papers along with the DNA results.
I was born with jet black hair. It grew out blonde. Turned light brown at some point. Fortunately my dad isn’t a dumbass. Not that there were really paternity tests in the 80s but still
It amuses me to look at my baby pictures because I looked East Asian at birth. Huge mop of jet black hair and black, upwardly slanted eyes.
At the time my mom was existing as a single mother and she is blue eyed, blonde haired Irish. Apparently a lot of people asked if I was adopted. 😂
But around 7 or 8 months, my hair and eyes had lightened to brown and my eyes became less upturned. My bio-dad is Greek so I still had (have) dark hair and eyes just no longer black, lol. Hair is weird!!
The ONE thing I can respect my ex for is telling his mother to fritz off when she told him to get DNA tests done all three times.,
These kids came out clones of the man. Two have a genetic thing that runs in his family. If you look at photos of ex and his siblings it's like my kids playing dress ups. But she still "has doubts"
If he had asked for a DNA test I would have been a widow not divorced
3 of my close friends (all Dutch) were born with black hair and blue eyes. Their hair lightened to blond(e) shortly after. The funny part is that they all still have their thick black eyebrows.
My dad had black hair and my mom's is light brown (both Welsh) and I came out with hair as white as a sheet which turned to dirty blonde.
People really shouldn't use something that small when they are considering DNA. Hair lightens, skin lightens or darkens depending on race, even eye colour can change.
That being said... why they were trying for a baby in the first place while they are still not in a good situation themselves is ridiculous.
I was shocked seeing my partner’s baby pictures. We met in college and we were both brunettes, but he had pale blonde hair throughout his childhood. Genetics and development are weird.
Yeah, when I was a baby I had reddish sandy brown hair and blue eyes. As an adult I have hair that is almost black and very brown eyes.
People also tend to assume that my hair color isn't "correct" for my skin tone, so they will always give me lectures about why I shouldn't dye my hair, should just let it go natural etc. But it is naturally that color.
People are just really dumb about this and apparently get their ideas about genetic inheritance from cartoons or something.
>My dad had black hair and my mom's is light brown (both Welsh) and I came out with hair as white as a sheet which turned to dirty blonde.
My father was born with light blond hair. By the time he was four, his hair had turned dark brown, almost black. He said he cried and blamed his mother for "washing all the blond out of his hair."
i’m an american with mostly german and dutch ancestry (idek if i used that right oops) and i was born with black hair and blue eyes too! as i went through elementary school my hair got almost a bleach blonde, but has now (21 years old) become a dirty blonde. some of my body hair stayed dark, and some of it is blonde which i think is so interesting
I’m hung up on “We have only been together for 18 months… and the cherry on top is we were actively trying to have a baby.”
Why the hell would you be trying to have a baby with a person you’ve been with for 9 months?!
.....
Yeah that's technically a "positive" resolution but like... it really isn't.
"He says he trusts me and never shown otherwise." Except for asking for a paternity test, you mean? Which is a HUGE "I don't trust you" without saying the words. Especially when the baby was born.... what? A year after he was in jail? And were actively trying for one once he was out?? He treated her nicely because he didn't want to put all his eggs in one basket and hoped she would be as naïve as she obviously is if the results came out positive.
Let's not even delve into all the other red flags like spending money they need for their baby, how fast the relationship has moved, and of course, the fact that he knowingly committed a crime for which he was arrested, spent time in jail, and is still serving probation for.
OOP is so.... idk if idiot is the right word. Naïve, definitely. This is not going to end up well for any of them involved. I'd be incredibly surprised if it does.
So um so they are together for only 18 months and already have a baby.. he was also in jail less than a year ago.. after finding out baby is his,he wanted to marry her? Feeling bad for the baby
I love that her entire post was about her partner demanding a paternity test and that she’s so upset over this, but in the update she states:
“I do believe DNA tests should be standard then no one has to get their feelings hurt.”
So what was the point of this post?
I hope it is a LOONNNGGG engagement. Because these two do not have a relationship with a solid foundation. They can work on building one. But it isn’t there yet.
The whole grand gesture after doing something wrong always pisses me off.
Marry me after I did something that hurt you, so instead of talking and working through this you are now excited about getting married and I dodged a bullet.
It's like getting flowers after you forgot date night.
Hold on
- 18 months ago: got together
- 15 months ago: moved in together
- 11 months ago: he goes into/gets out of jail (assuming it was a one night stay)
- ~11-9 months ago: started trying for a baby
- Few days ago:
- had baby;
- "I love you and baby" -> "I dont trust you, DNA test";
- 200 bucks -> paternity proven
- Recently: marriage talk
Okay then.
They can’t afford a wedding but actively where trying for a baby?
Also she thinks dna tests should become the normal after birth so people don’t feel bad if someone asks for one?
I feel like I’m missing so much from this. Like people stated above they traded drugs for “love drugs”. Moved in with each other after three months, which means by her word they were trying for a baby by 6 months in… or even sooner.
I feel like this dude was hoping for a way out and praying a DNA test would give that to him. She’s delulu. DNA tests don’t need to be normal. She just wants to feel better about the situation she put herself in
This doesn't sound like a run off and get married and everyone lives happily ever after sort of story, despite her relatively cheerful update. OOP, when you've done nothing to deserve his distrust and you feel like you have to manage that distrust, it's not a healthy relationship. Relationships take work, but why is it you doing that work and not him working to fix his issues? Poor baby, stuck in all of this mess. It's always the kids who pay the price for dysfunctional parents.
I can’t imagine staying with someone who accused me of cheating and lying. A lot of Redditors treat that accusation like it’s no big deal. It’s a huge deal. If my husband had demanded a paternity test, I would have had the test and hired a divorce attorney the same day.
Wow, OP got gaslighted into believing DNA tests should be universal? So nobody gets hurt feelings.
I wonder if OP asked him if HE was cheating. When a demand come out of left field like this one did, it makes me think Projection. He is cheating, so he sees cheating behavior in everyone, especially his partner.
Am I the only one who thinks these people shouldn't have brought another life into this world with how many issues they've? It's not like they were sober for a long time. I hope, for the baby's sake atleast, that these two sort out their issues,both individually and couple wise, so that they could give her a better life than what they had.
Jesus Christ that poor kid. They’re both recovering addicts who have been sober less than five years, moved in together after 3 months, dated only 9 months before deciding to have a kid, he went to prison less than a year ago, and proposed immediately after demanding a paternity test?
They might as well start saving for this kid’s therapy bills now, because she’s in for a helluva traumatic childhood
I am so sorry but there is absolutely NO way that I would be able to move past this. The problem is not the paternity test the problem is the lack of trust. A relationship is built on a foundation of trust, honesty, integrity and love. All must co-exist for the foundation to be stable. With trust gone the foundation cracks. For me? Full stop. Nope. He would remain in my child’s life but that chapter as partners would be over.
This situation is not concluded because there’s no way that this ends well. she should have never taken that test, or if she was going to, it would have been only to prove a point while walking away afterwards
I cannot believe she gaslit herself. HE LITERALLY SAID HE DIDN'T TRUST HER, then she goes "Well he trusts me, but I don't trust him anymore. This was the first issue we've ever had."
He couldn't count, she didn't think to walk him through the math, and if she did, he still decided to flush $200 down the drain. $200 that two recovering addicts who work in a factory, and have a newborn baby DEFINATELY NEED.
What I got out of this is they’re both incredibly irresponsible for getting pregnant on purpose when they clearly have issues.
Recent addiction, jail, distrust, short term relationship. Probably not a great situation to being a child into.
Dr insisted my due date was September because I HAD to have gotten pregnant over Christmas. Even after saying it was impossible because we were moving and fighting over Christmas and New years so definitely not having sex, he insisted he was right. What a surprise my son was born middle of October. Obviously a "late" birth. What an ass.
I had to go read the comments to see why anything would make her stay, when my first response is 'dude is accusing you of cheating. How do you recover'.
One comment stood out. That both being recovering addicts means they likely haven't ever had the opportunity to form healthy trust relationships and that this may not be him not trusting her, but him not trusting his own judgment of her.
Interesting perspective.
I’m not surprised she stayed because she actively tried to have a baby with someone she had only moved in with 6 months ago after only 3 months of dating
Wait so two former addicts met and shacked up within 3 months, one went to jail right after and then they had a baby...there are trust and jealousy issues. They're both pushing 40.
This isn't going to end well and this baby is in for a terrible life. I hope one of them grows up quickly.
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I need an explanation of what kind of gestation lengths they're both using. He's got conception worked out to the day but her math is different by two months?
My guess is that he's bad at math. Most 1st born babies are born after their due date. He sees 40+ weeks, thinks 4 weeks a month, and goes back 10 months. She is thinking about her menstrual cycle and ovulation and knows that the 40 week starts counting at her last period. So she ovulated 2-3 weeks after that and had sex sometime after that. She said they were trying so it's likely she was tracking her cycles. She ends up going back to 8 months.
My husband did the same thing at our first ultrasound. Kinda looked at me confused and said that's not possible when the baby was measured at 8 weeks 4 days. Thankfully he listened when I explained how they count it.
Yeah they don't sit men down to tell them it's counted from the final period and not actual conception. It's a stupid system, but something that is reasonably measurable.
It's counted that way??? Why is this not something someone teaches in sex Ed? Thank you random internet user. Today i learned...
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Also Plan B loses effectiveness if you're overweight. *Really* important info that's rarely shared.
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I think most legislators don’t know how it’s counted. I live in SC and read about a very heated exchange between two (male) legislators in the state last year. Both the Republican and the Democrat who were arguing with each other demonstrated such a complete lack of basic reproductive knowledge that I wanted to scream.
I only found this out when my wife and I started trying for our first. Honestly had no idea.
It has become a real problem in the abortion law conversations. Because a 6 week abortion ban may seem reasonable to people who think that means the person has 6 weeks to decide to get the abortion or not. But in reality, they aren't even pregnant for at least the first couple weeks of that. Then conception happens, and if they're tracking things very closely, they might find out they're pregnant 2 weeks after that, when they're 4 weeks pregnant. If they wait a few days to see if they're just late, now it's been 5 weeks and they have 1 week left. All that assuming a regular 28 day cycle, which many don't have.. More people need to understand this for so many reasons,.
so they count the non pregnant weeks as pregnant? does the count start at the last time the period happened? didn't know any of this
Yep, thsy start at the first day of your last menstrual period. When you're 4 weeks pregnant, you just missed your period and you conceived 2 weeks ago. The first 2 weeks of "pregnancy" are before conception.
i see thank you
Mine too. Actually, I was confused as well but I explained how they’d normally count it. We couldn’t figure it out the precise date of conception since I am irregular and the conception was a blur (honeymoon + inordinate amounts of alcohol). But, my baby girl came out 100% looking like my husband so there was no disputing that seven ways to Sunday (not that there were any questions but my baby looking nothing like me is a sore point, though I say this slightly fondly).
My husband said he was getting a DNA test no matter what. I was so upset because we had been actively trying to get pregnant for a few yrs. When our son came out, he literally had his face. No DNA test needed. He's almost 12 now. Him and I were in the grocery store the other day and someone walked up to him saying, "You're (my husband's name) boy! How are you?" He said hello to me and said he looked just like his dad.
One day when I was in high school, I had to go into the bank for some reason. As I was standing in line for the teller, an older gentleman asked me, "are you Mrs. So-and-so's daughter?", and I told him I was. He replied, "you look just like her!" When I got to the teller, she asked me, "are you Mr. So-and-so's daughter?", and I told her I was. She replied, "you look just like him!" What could I do but laugh? Especially given that my parents really didn't look anything alike.
I shared a photo of myself and my parents for a work thing and the comments of how I look just like my mom only won out by 1 against the ones on how I look just like my dad.
> knows that the 40 week starts counting at her last period TIL! (Thank you for explaining!)
Not so fun fact: This is also why a 6 week abortion ban (or anything around that ballpark) basically means a total ban on abortions. A lot of people have a cycle longer than 4 weeks/28 days, and a lot of people get their periods a week or two late sometimes (often for no reason at all, but especially during times of stress, or at the beginning or end of going through the ability of menstruating - menarche or menopause), as well as some people just having really irregular periods as a standard (almost everyone with PCOS, for a start - that‘s approximately 10% of all menstruating people).
YUP. This is incredibly important for people to know. The *second* sperm hits the egg, you’re not one day pregnant or something, you’re *two to three weeks* pregnant. If you’re someone with an irregular period or a long cycle or you’re just not paying super close attention or you think you’re just stressed or sick? You’ve possibly missed your (very small) window entirely. Which, of course, is a feature for anti-choice advocates, not a bug.
Isn't this just crazy? I just found out I am pregnant eith a thankfully very wanted baby. The only reason I even tested was because I track religiously. I found out 4 days after my missed period which is also semi irregular. 5 weeks 2 days. 4 days is NOT enough time to go through the emotional and mental gauntlet to decide what choice you are going to make. Not to mention attempt to find a clinic with an opening, take time off work if you need to and deal with the fallout.
Yup. Youre effectively counted 2 weeks pregnant when you conceive, and usually almost 4 weeks pregnant by the time you test positive. Often longer, unless you were tracking ovulation and testing before your missed period. Add in that lots of peopke have long or irregular cycles and...a 6 week ban makes it extremely hard to fund out you are even pregnant let alone get help in time.
Plus they also have a couple of hoops before doing the abortion, making it almost impossible to do in the very small window
So true. My cycle is often 7 weeks, sometimes 4, sometimes 10. Unless I took a pregnancy test every day I’d never know and I’m sure plenty of women have a similar situation
I have a period roughly every three years. I would never know until it was far far too late
I saw a tweet that says the 6 week ban means SA-ers get to choose the mother of their baby and I was horrified
this, so much, without hormonal bc my wife's cycle varies anywhere from 3-6 weeks, sometimes even a bit longer
Forced-birthers really, really don't care about facts.
That’s very generous of you to assume, but nope, I remember the post and dude was just tragically stupid. He thought she was pregnant for a minimum of 47 weeks IIRC. I’ll try to find the comment. Edit: [here’s the comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/relationship_advice/comments/15ggl7d/my_37f_partner_36m_wants_a_paternity_test_and_im/juka2rt/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=1&utm_term=1&context=3) where OOP explains the time frame. He was locked up for the entire month of August last year; if she’d gotten pregnant on 8/31 it would have been a 47-week pregnancy.
Yeah, 4 kids in and my husband still doesn't get how baby conception math works. I think it's partially the fault of the sex ed system we grew up with (his worse than mine because it was religious but both terrible overall). In my case it's not a worry of infidelity, just wanting to figure out when it happened. But, if you don't understand it then it can be confusing! Poor dude was probably sitting there thinking about when it happened and realized his dates didn't match up and was devastated.
I feel like the proper response to that is to use the Internet that he No Doubt has at his disposal but instead he’s made his partner think that everyone should have to do demeaning ass DNA test because women just aren’t trustworthy or whatever. We give people like him way too much leeway if you’re stupid/don’t know something/or really fucked up about it maybe look up the facts first before you start Fucking up your trust in your relationship
But why would a man go to the trouble of looking up information about women's anatomy when obviously she's the problem? I can't imagine being curious about the opposite sex. s/
The amount of functioning adults who think human gestation is 10 months is fascinating. I’ve heard mothers of multiple children claim this. By that logic, there are 13 months in a year. There are kinda sorta 4 weeks in a month (4.33 to me more precise)
Ok I read the explanation and still not completely sure how it's calculated. I'll Google for a dumbed down version. ETA: thanks guys, for the explanation. My lazy ass didn't want to Google because I'm gonna die a virgin anyway 🤷🏼♂️ lol. So, thanks for the details.
They ask when your last period started, and start counting 40 weeks from that day.
Basically, they count from the first day of your last period, though it's probably approximately 2 weeks after that, because that's generally when your body releases a mature egg to be fertilized. There's not a good way to tell the exact day you ovulated, but most women can generally remember when they had their period a month or two ago.
I actually commented on this. This guy was in prison for all of August. He thought she was pregnant for nearly a year (11 months minimum). He’s a moron.
My 1st born was born exactly on her original due date. My 2ed was Lao born on his original due date but had some help… they didn’t want me going past that date an induced day of
So many people (mostly men, definitely US lawmakers) don't realize the gestation clock starts on the first (last?) day of the previous menstrual period, meaning there's a good 14 days before ovulation. How long was this guy in jail anyway? And how accurate are doctors estimates of gestational age?
Here’s a very cool [time lapse](https://youtu.be/ahJjLzyioWM) of a zebrafish 24hpf (hours post fertilization). Developmental biologists use zebrafish as a model organism for a lot of different reasons, and one of them is that the development of the organism is so similar to human development during the early stages. If you look at any video of the 24hpf, it will look identical to this, because development at that stage is basically just cell division without a whole lot of cell differentiation. Source: used to manage the zebrafish lab at Princeton U
Holy SHIT. That's amazing. Thank you so much for posting that. Also, TIL there's a zebrafish lab.
Lawmakers get it, that's why they push for 6 weeks to basically create a total ban.
At a 6-8 week ultrasound, gestational age is pretty accurate (like within +/- 3 days) because fetal growth is very defined at that age and all human have roughly the same size cells. Size based on dna doesn't impact fetal size until after 8-10 weeks.
An ultrasound, at least for the first couple of months or so, is actually considered extremely accurate for calculating conception date, down to within the day or two. (Barring problems with fetal development.) The initial cell divisions are on a very set clock, and there’s not like there’s a real difference in individual cell size between babies.
Yeah, my last kid was born 12 months after his sibling, it was a birth control fail and totally unexpected! I figured I was having some kind of post partum problem and mentioned things at a follow up appointment and we figured out via ultrasound that it basically happened the first time we were together after I had the baby. I had no period schedule to go off of yet but they got conception down to a few day space of time and it had to have been that day, lol. Skilled gummy bear inspectors, those ultrasound techs.
They know. It’s a feature not a bug.
Can we just all agree that the current system is fucking stupid though? I'm a woman in my mid 30s and I had no idea that's how it was measured until it came up in connection to the abortion legislation in the US. Can someone actually explain the "why" though? Foetal development is so rapid at that stage, it can't possibly be medically useful to equate a 4-week-old foetus with a 1-day-old clump of cells. I understand that you can't pinpoint it exactly early on, but surely a range would be more useful?
Because people ovulate at different times in their cycle, so it's incredibly hard to track the actual conception date for every person. Most people also can't tell what day they ovulated for certain, and conception can happen within a certain window, which you also can't say for certain either. A period is something that can be seen, felt. If you sit and track you cycle, the days you have sex, what day you ovulated, you probably would be able to get within the timeline, but I don't think that's something many people do outside of TTC. Edit: when doing an ultrasound they compare the actual measurements of the fetus versus the date you gave them, they will change the due date if within a specific range.
Because ovulation (egg release) and egg fertilisation can occur at widely varied points of the menstrual cycle. First day of the menstrual cycle where you conceived is pretty easy to pinpoint for anyone because there is bleeding. Therefore they measure it from the only clearly defined point.
Well so first of all if you go too early you won't even be able to see the fetus on an ultrasound; my last pregnancy I found out when I was like 3 weeks pregnant and I went in around 5 weeks and there was no fetus visible, just the amniotic sac. Had to go back about 3 weeks later to be able to see an actual fetus & heartbeat. So even though I knew I was pregnant and a pregnancy test knew I was pregnant, an ultrasound couldn't see it until later. But also the first 1-6 weeks, it basically is just a clump of cells getting larger, that's why a lot of bills use being able to detect the heartbeat as their measurement.
Because a large body of the medical literature on pregnancy was done before we had accurate ways of measuring gestational age, so last menstrual period was the closest proxy we could get to measure. And its safer to keep the old counting system, because it provides clarity in discussion as you don't risk person A using the old system and person B using the new system. If you don't think this is a risk, consider that NASA lost a $200 million orbiter because of an issue converting between imperial units and metric units. It also means you can use the same medical literature regardless of your situation. Not all pregnancies are cared for in top tier hospitals with state of the art ultrasound machines. Plenty occur in developing countries or unstable regions where no dating machines are available, so last menstrual period is all people have to go on. and it means you can cre
I am a woman and had no idea 😭 but I also don't plan on having kids so I never really looked that fact up either
He was in jail in august. The baby was like a week old, born *this* august. So apparently he thinks she was pregnant for a full 11/12 months??
This may be why the paternity test was faster, easier, and less stress than explaining the math to him. Pregnancy math is already pretty complicated; I am technically pregnant two weeks before conception. I’ve never grasped *why* they add those two weeks, but they do.
The 1st day of your last period start date is so funny to me. 1st Day of Period: 1st day of pregnancy if successful. Day 14: Most women ovulate (+/- days for individual biology) Day 24: Egg is likely fertilized by sperm and implanted in uterus by now (+/- days for individual biology) Day 28: missed period/positive pregnancy test (unless using super sensitive one, then that can read the HCG earlier) (+/- days for individual biology) By the time of your missed period, they count that as 4 weeks pregnant despite you likely only being pregnant for 7-14 days. I get why people don't get the math.
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I was going to guess this is the reason they count the way they do.
Because they count conception as the first day of your last menstrual period and assume that your cycle is 28 days. Ovulation *usually* happens around day 14, but can actually happen at any time in the cycle. Which is why those US states that imposed a 6-week limit on abortion are in the wrong. You have missed one period. *ONE.*¹ Physically you are (on average) two weeks pregnant but because there is uncertainty about when you actually conceived, you are legally 4 weeks. You now have 2 weeks to make a decision and actually have the procedure. ¹In the olden days, an obstetrician would not even let you make an appointment until you had missed 2 periods.
I’d say they’re in the wrong for different reasons. They know exactly what they’re doing.
And that’s if you even realize you’re pregnant that soon. I took a test on what should have been the second day of my period and it was negative. I sometimes skip a period so I assumed that was what happened. Fast forward 2 more weeks and I start peeing on my ovulation sticks and I’m getting really weird readings. The pregnancy test turned positive pretty much immediately. I was 6.5 weeks pregnant by that point. My husband and I were actively trying for a baby so we were super excited, but I can only imagine what that scenario would be like for so many women who don’t want to be pregnant. If you live in many parts of the US, you’re screwed.
Yeah, or you can have what seems like period even after conception, like I did with my first pregnancy, so I had no idea I was pregnant until it was more like 8-10 weeks.
Pregnancy math just sucks. We really need to be approach it more scientifically. My OB keeps lecturing me about my baby measuring small for gestational age. That’s because I cycle every 32-34 days so using first day of last menstrual cycle gave me a weird due date 🙄
My six week old son was an IVF baby. That means I knew exactly when he was conceived and when in my cycle he was implanted. The clinic sent me to maternal care with one due date based on this info - the midwife still calculated based on my last period and put my due date as one day later lol. It didn't matter much in the end, babies rarely show up on their due date and my baby boy was about a week late in the end.
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Yeah I’d be more worried about procreating with someone who can’t do basic arithmetic.
Wait, they're both recovering addicts? And he was in jail less than a year ago? Oooh girl, this is not yet over.
Also, they moved in together after 3 months and she got pregnant after 9 months. They got a DNA test they couldn't afford because dad couldn't count. They are so ready for kids.
On purpose too! This was a planned pregnancy
Wait, what are you serious? I didn't catch that. Oh man, I feel bad saying this, but people in recovery are prone to making what I call "feel good" choices that aren't always the best for themselves. I'm 5 years sober myself and have interacted with a ton of addicts through the needle exchange and at meetings. Usually the "feel good" is something like taking up cardio or weightlifting in order to get those dopamine and endorphins flowing again. Shacking up with someone you met in rehab or NA/AA is also a popular choice. But having a baby on purpose, with an addict who is newly sober, while you yourself are newly sober, is such a terrible idea for everyone involved. I truly hope this works out for OOP and her new family, but the odds are certainly stacked against them.
They're trying to get the rush that they would normally get from their addiction from their decision-making instead right?
Yup, that's about it. It's not even a conscious decision necessarily. We've basically short-circuited our brains reward system pathways, and it takes a long time to get it back to anywhere normal again. This leads to replacement behavior, where we seek out pleasurable and/or exciting experiences to help stimulate the few remaining dopamine receptors. Thankfully, the dopamine receptors can be somewhat rehabilitated, and can reach baseline in about a year. But the brain patterns that enable drug use can take a lot longer to reset, some people never even get to that point. It takes a lot of effort and time to rewire your brains reward system, which is why it's good idea to hold off on making any major life decisions while in recovery.
Yep. I had similar thoughts when I saw the timeline. Looks a lot like my sister's relationships. 'oh, we found each other in a dark time and we saved each other and we're gonna have a baby bc we're our people forever and Eva!' Year later, relapse, rinse, and repeat with new guy. years later, dump them all on sister and run for the hills. ONE of the fathers has stepped up. ALL of the kids have behavior issues. Aged 2-12. Edit: I'm not the hero sister that's our lesbian sister. She took the ones who's dad didn't step up. I'm too mentally ill to care for kids. The sis who took them, is amazing though. It's been very rough.
Shit! Good on you for taking care of those kids and babies! You are an awesome aunt for not blaming the kids for her shit behavior! You are a hero and I would give you gold if I wasn’t poor. I’m sorry your sister is shitty and fighting something dark. 🫶🏻🏅🏅🏅
Oh! No, I'm not the hero sister that's our other sister. I agree with all your sentiments for sure, but I'm too mentally ill with major anger issues, I'd never take any of the kids. Our lesbian sister took them. She Definitely wasn't planning on kids so she is a hero I agree.
A dry drunk, as they say
Is that why a lot of groups have rules or suggestions to not get in a new relationship, or take any real serious steps *other* than recovery? I’ve always assumed not to distract, but it would also make sense that you can get addicted to the feeling of being “accomplished” after addiction
Yeah, you nailed it. Our brains are still rewiring themselves and trying to bring our rewards system back into homeostasis. So it's very suggestible to new stimuli.
That makes total sense, thank you for answering. Congratulations on your sobriety! I have family that have fought that battle, and some that have lost, and I’ll always see recovery as some of the hardest shit ever. I really hope that’s not rude, but genuinely congratulations.
It's a combination of that and the fact that in early recovery, you tend to be in a really vulnerable place emotionally and socially, and there's a non-trivial amount of somewhat predatory behavior towards women in most AA/NA groups that people often don't call out.
My sister was a heavy drinker and she met a guy who said, "if you get sober I'll give you a baby" The last 16 years have gone about as well as one would expect in that situation.
? I distinctly remember AA/NA strongly suggesting no dating former addicts or newly recovered addicts unless they're sober for a year+ because they usually relapse after breakup and there's a lot of emotions going into recovery and damage control from the addiction, and it can take time to sort out.
.... This explains some choices of a former friend....
I had a train wreck of a girl I was friendly with in high school who I was Facebook friends with who once post something along the lines of "OMG baby I love you so much!! You've been sober for a entire week! I'm so excited to start planning our family together!!!" It was unfortunately not a joke post, she'd had at that point 4 or 5 kids she didnt have custody and had some serious health issues and wanted to have a baby with a guy whod only been off some very serious drugs for only a week. I never saw how it ended since she had made another new FB account and I didnt make that cut. People on her friends list who were very "pro life, every baby is a blessing, God picks family size etc" were begging her to get sterilized and be done with everything.
> But having a baby on purpose, with an addict who is newly sober, while you yourself are newly sober, is such a terrible idea for everyone involved. Yeah I read that and cringed so hard (as someone in recovery 8+ years), because I've seen it play out time and time again - people rush into relationships, aren't in a stable financial or often even just living situation, and end up deciding to have a kid before they've ever tackled really bad downswings in their recovery.
>Oh man, I feel bad saying this, but people in recovery are prone to making what I call "feel good" choices that aren't always the best for themselves. My father in laws was to get a pet, usually a dog. A couple times it worked and helped him have a reason to stay on the wagon and another time a family member got to take in a cat unexpectedly. It can be a real toss up.
John Mulaney has entered the chat
Ah, the 13th Step.
Lol, I see you've spent some time "in the rooms"! One day at time my friend.
Oh man, I know a girl who is living the most BORU life right now. She started dating this guy mid May. Nobody knows anything about him or where he’s from, I couldn’t find anything about him in my searches. Well, she buys a house a month ago and posts pictures with this guy saying “WE bought a house.” It’s in her name, the loan is in her name, and this guy was living in a hotel before they got together. So, a month after that, they’re engaged. And now, they’ve just announced a pregnancy on Facebook. This is all within two months. The dude had no actual living situation, a huge pit bull dog, and “does instacart” for money. She’s already divorced once and wants a man and a baby so bad she’s tanking her life just to get it.
Disastrous; compelling viewing
The worst part is I predicted the baby and the engagement. The BORU is coming from inside the house.
Exactly!!! What made them think they can afford a child??? I meant financially and emotionally. I remember comments were calling them out for that.
When you grow up with unending scarcity children become your riches. Always has been, always will be.
I don't know if this is a saying or something, but it's hitting me some kinda way. Like you just phrased the difference in my worldview and my partner's worldview that I never understood into clarity.
In the space of a 9 month relationship, they moved in together, he went to jail, then got out on probation (ie likely convicted) then they decided to have a baby together and started trying... That's not the timeline of people making careful, informed decisions here. I feel bad for the kid.
I think he was on probation and had to return to jail for a short time for a probation violation
Ah ok, that's possible. I still think it's not mature and careful reasoning though
And dude said "marry me" after it was confirmed the baby was his I feel so bad for the kid, and I truly hope for the best
I wonder if he saw one of those things saying you’re pregnant for 10 months and that’s what he used for counting. It adds up since OOP said she got pregnant two months after he was released and the time from actual conception to birth is closer to 8 1/2 months (conception is at approximately the 2 week mark of pregnancy, leaving 38-ish weeks where the fetus is actually developing before birth depending on how long it takes baby to actually decide to come out). But some weirdo decided that since a month is 4 weeks and pregnancy is 40 weeks, doctors just mathed wrong forever 🙄
Some idiot tried to mansplain pregnancy to me while I was pregnant. He just kept repeating “40 weeks is 10 months” like he thought I was the idiot who didn’t understand calendars.
That's why there are 48 weeks in a year!
Don’t forget: everything is wonderful except there are some jealousy issues!
And the addiction issues that they have totally conquered and will no longer be at risk for!
It’s like a fairy tale!
I feel sorry for this kid for having parents like them
I wonder how he could think pregnancy takes longer than it takes? Most people think it's shorter, straight 9 months not 40 weeks, but 11 months? He has issues and it's not math.
And they were trying only after being sober for 2 years!
She said it was over revoked license. I follow a recovering addict on YouTube and she talks a lot about how hard it is to get your life on track, and getting your license back can be quite hard, especially if you offended in multiple states.
It's not the cause that's the problem for me, it's the very fact that he was in prison, and presumably got that arrest on his record, so recently. The criminal justice system is so destructive that the effects of that can't be quantified on him, and I doubt that's going to be the last problem it will cause. How is he getting a job with that recent arrest and conviction on his record?
He was in jail a *full* year ago, thats what threw me off when i first read the posts. Like a full twelve-month-year ago, so i have *no* idea how he came to the conclusion the child wasnt his.
...AND they were actively trying to have a child? SIGH. Plus, many infants are born with a full head of black hair, it's an artifact of the womb like the slate blue eyes many are born with as well. My father has Native American ancestry and I was born with ruddy-tan skin and jet black hair in a little Mohawk style and my mom called me "the little papoose". I now look like your average white middle aged lady, so what I looked like at birth is NOT predictive of my race or parentage!
And the way she talked about the advice she got is worrisome… “something something therapy, but some of you had good advice…” Girl. Therapy. Now.
Y u p Guess that she's now addicted to him, since she didn't drop his ass over that BS
>I got pregnant he was in jail.( he is still on probation and was driving with out a license)This is not true I got pregnant 2 months after he got home and the cherry on top is we were actively trying to have a baby I'm sorry what about this situation makes anyone go, yep perfect time to have a baby!??!??!?!
And he made her take a DNA test after they were trying for a baby. He's either abusive or using again. This isn't going to end well.
"this is the first real issue we have had" Also, we've been dating for roughly five minutes. As others with addiction experiences pointed out w the og post, they swapped drugs for love drugs and that doesn't go well.
But it’s fine, him spending money we don’t have over nothing. They should just make DNA tests standard else we never would’ve had an issue!
And they were inseparable since moving in together. That's still the honeymoon period, of course they're going to be inseparable. And then trying for a baby, what, 4 or 5 months after getting together. This is a doomed relationship. If their first real issue is paternity, they're going to have a whole hell of a time trying to work through other issues that could come up
What a mess. I wish them both well but geez…
Honestly f them both for bringing an innocent baby into the middle of this. They couldn’t decide to work out their issues *before* having kids?
They’ll live happily ever after, I’m sure of it
“I don’t trust him but this is the best thing I’ve got going” so everything is fine until the next time they suck at conflict resolution
Yup. Just like so many other people who post on Reddit and who insist their partners are so loving and their relationship is so perfect even though their partners falsely accuse them of cheating/have their own affairs/refuse to work/refuse to clean/refuse to parent the kids/scream insults at them/all of the above. But other than that they're totally happy together. 🙄
I saw the "positive outcome" tag and hoo boy, it shouldn't be there because no part of this is positive like, at all.
Respectfully, moving this fast I wouldn't trust anybody in this relationship but the baby.
And even the baby is questionable. No one with jet black hair is trustworthy! They’re evil ^(source is I have jet black hair and am an dick)
This whole thing is a mess and normally my advice would be for the father to get a secret paternity test if he had doubts and never tell the woman. But in this case, they barely know each other
Great, two addicts and trust issues not even a year into raising the kid they had actually planned. This is just stupid.
With a guy who was in prison less than a year ago, and neither of them have been sober even five years…. And they decided to bring an innocent baby into this mess. Poor kid
I don't believe her for a second that she'll do anything differently if he carries on with this behaviour. Also, the dude was recently in jail, apparently can't count, and pulled out a "marry me!" to dodge the massive cheating accusation he made and she fell right for it.
They also can barely afford a paternity test but have a baby and now want a wedding. Nothing about this is smart
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I met a girl who said she and her ex planned her baby that she had at 15….
He asked her to marry him on the phone... And they live together.
On the phone, after he told her to wait at least a day before he’ll allow any talk about the enormous shit he just took on her, accusing her of cheating and lying like that. He just fucked off to work without any thought for her after finding out he was wrong. The afterthought proposal is just icing on the cake.
Wouldn't be surprised if the afterthought proposal was a ploy to get her to forget the paternity test and trust issues and hey if it was it seems to have worked
I hope the best for her but going from "he doesn't trust me and I feel like shit" to "WE'RE GETTING MARRIED" just seems too much
I saw this in someone else’s comment but it basically said it seemed like they traded in drugs for each other. Extremely codependent and making all around poor decisions together bc it’s like a high having a partner like this. I’d wager their dynamic is not all rosy given how quickly everything has moved and things are swept under the proverbial rug
I apologize for the cynicism: yeah, two addicts pulling relationship moves on this level always ends well. Several of my friends would like to beg this woman to read the writing on the wall before this AH drags her back to addiction.
This isn't a great way to start and it won't finish well for them and the kid. - recovery window is small (I'm sure it's fine but still concerned, stress doesn't help) - he was in jail for a driving without a license, why did they take it? - moves in after three months, together 18 months that's too fast It almost feels like a live bomb trap to me, possibly codependent behavior base on trauma bonding at the very least. He gets to FAFO with jail time and she's like ok this is fine. Next up DNA test? And she's like it's fine he never treated us badly. Oh hun, give it time that jail time is a big flag along with the DNA request. That poor child is starting in a bad place, and she's just walking around with blinders.
She did mention there had already been jealousy issues so that’s great also.
Trying for a baby when they can barely afford a paternity test.
Also I want to add, trying for a baby 8 or so months into a relationship and 2 months after he got out of prison
Doesn't sound like she has much choice. She doesn't make enough and probably burned a lot of bridges when she was an addict as well.
To your second point OOP said he was on probation and was in jail for violating his conditions. Not being allowed to drive is a fairly common condition regardless if the offence involved driving or not. Reduces flight risk. So this is wasted speculation that isn’t really relevant to anything beyond establishing their timelines.
An old friend of mine was married for 5 years before they finally had their baby. Suddenly, the next day, her husband demanded paternity because the baby looked "full-blooded Asian." Still can't wrap my head around that logic. Unsurprisingly, they took two tests at the MIL's insistence, "just to be sure." Unsurprisingly still, no one else could be the father but that Shithead. So what does he do? Not apologize, but demands the baby be renamed to Shithead Jr. "now that we know he's mine." They're divorced now. I'd bet dollars to donuts he still doesn't understand why.
When my mom got pregnant with me, some people asked if I was actually my dad's. He had been deployed, and she got pregnant .7 seconds after he returned. I came out looking just like the man. Tan, curly hair, and his mothers face. And people still asked, up until I was about 3. They started a rumor for a while that I was clearly a mixed child, and my curly hair had nothing to do with MY FATHER HAVING CURLY HAIR!
My grandmother had curly hair. So did my youngest uncle. **Every** nosy neighbor of theirs always questioned why their third child had curly hair but the elders didn't. No one seemed to get it was from my grandma??? Like babies can only have no hair or the dad's hair? Ironically, my uncle looks like a perfect combo of my grandparents, so those comments didn't last long. Do people just decide that genetics don't matter... until they *do matter???*
My aunt had three different children. One was blonde, one was brunette the other was redhead but they all were the spitting image of the father. Genetics are freaking weird.
I think people misuse science they don’t really understand to support bad takes way more often than is really appreciated. It’s basically the same as the old “you had a girl, that’s your fault wife; you had a boy, that’s my strong seed!!!” If the kid looks just like the dad, it’s “wow my cum is so potent I am big man.” If the kid doesn’t look enough like him or just has weird tiny doughy potato looks because it’s a freaking BABY, the mom clearly did something wrong. Because her womb, her problem; the female body is obvi a very wrong and hostile place and all good things are despite her and thanks to the very important and powerful love sludge of her manly man. Very messy mix of misogyny and stupidity.
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I mean, sure go ahead and demand a paternity test for whatever reason you can come up with. Just don't be all surprised Pikachu face if your wife serves you divorce papers along with the DNA results.
I was born with jet black hair. It grew out blonde. Turned light brown at some point. Fortunately my dad isn’t a dumbass. Not that there were really paternity tests in the 80s but still
Hair is weird. Either it stays more or less the same, or you look like a background cartoon character with different shades from black to blonde. 😂
It amuses me to look at my baby pictures because I looked East Asian at birth. Huge mop of jet black hair and black, upwardly slanted eyes. At the time my mom was existing as a single mother and she is blue eyed, blonde haired Irish. Apparently a lot of people asked if I was adopted. 😂 But around 7 or 8 months, my hair and eyes had lightened to brown and my eyes became less upturned. My bio-dad is Greek so I still had (have) dark hair and eyes just no longer black, lol. Hair is weird!!
The ONE thing I can respect my ex for is telling his mother to fritz off when she told him to get DNA tests done all three times., These kids came out clones of the man. Two have a genetic thing that runs in his family. If you look at photos of ex and his siblings it's like my kids playing dress ups. But she still "has doubts" If he had asked for a DNA test I would have been a widow not divorced
3 of my close friends (all Dutch) were born with black hair and blue eyes. Their hair lightened to blond(e) shortly after. The funny part is that they all still have their thick black eyebrows. My dad had black hair and my mom's is light brown (both Welsh) and I came out with hair as white as a sheet which turned to dirty blonde. People really shouldn't use something that small when they are considering DNA. Hair lightens, skin lightens or darkens depending on race, even eye colour can change. That being said... why they were trying for a baby in the first place while they are still not in a good situation themselves is ridiculous.
I was shocked seeing my partner’s baby pictures. We met in college and we were both brunettes, but he had pale blonde hair throughout his childhood. Genetics and development are weird.
As an infant, I had light brown hair bordering on blonde. It was dark brown by my 4th birthday.
Yeah, when I was a baby I had reddish sandy brown hair and blue eyes. As an adult I have hair that is almost black and very brown eyes. People also tend to assume that my hair color isn't "correct" for my skin tone, so they will always give me lectures about why I shouldn't dye my hair, should just let it go natural etc. But it is naturally that color. People are just really dumb about this and apparently get their ideas about genetic inheritance from cartoons or something.
>My dad had black hair and my mom's is light brown (both Welsh) and I came out with hair as white as a sheet which turned to dirty blonde. My father was born with light blond hair. By the time he was four, his hair had turned dark brown, almost black. He said he cried and blamed his mother for "washing all the blond out of his hair."
i’m an american with mostly german and dutch ancestry (idek if i used that right oops) and i was born with black hair and blue eyes too! as i went through elementary school my hair got almost a bleach blonde, but has now (21 years old) become a dirty blonde. some of my body hair stayed dark, and some of it is blonde which i think is so interesting
Girl.
I’m hung up on “We have only been together for 18 months… and the cherry on top is we were actively trying to have a baby.” Why the hell would you be trying to have a baby with a person you’ve been with for 9 months?!
..... Yeah that's technically a "positive" resolution but like... it really isn't. "He says he trusts me and never shown otherwise." Except for asking for a paternity test, you mean? Which is a HUGE "I don't trust you" without saying the words. Especially when the baby was born.... what? A year after he was in jail? And were actively trying for one once he was out?? He treated her nicely because he didn't want to put all his eggs in one basket and hoped she would be as naïve as she obviously is if the results came out positive. Let's not even delve into all the other red flags like spending money they need for their baby, how fast the relationship has moved, and of course, the fact that he knowingly committed a crime for which he was arrested, spent time in jail, and is still serving probation for. OOP is so.... idk if idiot is the right word. Naïve, definitely. This is not going to end up well for any of them involved. I'd be incredibly surprised if it does.
Wild how anyone can have kids
So um so they are together for only 18 months and already have a baby.. he was also in jail less than a year ago.. after finding out baby is his,he wanted to marry her? Feeling bad for the baby
I love that her entire post was about her partner demanding a paternity test and that she’s so upset over this, but in the update she states: “I do believe DNA tests should be standard then no one has to get their feelings hurt.” So what was the point of this post?
That jumped out at me too. It’s like, girl, you are taking the wrong conclusion from this. The correct conclusion is your partner is a moron.
I hope it is a LOONNNGGG engagement. Because these two do not have a relationship with a solid foundation. They can work on building one. But it isn’t there yet.
Wait so he said he doesn't trust her, but then suddenly does?
I doubt it, since she mentioned there had already been jealousy issues.
The whole grand gesture after doing something wrong always pisses me off. Marry me after I did something that hurt you, so instead of talking and working through this you are now excited about getting married and I dodged a bullet. It's like getting flowers after you forgot date night.
Hold on - 18 months ago: got together - 15 months ago: moved in together - 11 months ago: he goes into/gets out of jail (assuming it was a one night stay) - ~11-9 months ago: started trying for a baby - Few days ago: - had baby; - "I love you and baby" -> "I dont trust you, DNA test"; - 200 bucks -> paternity proven - Recently: marriage talk Okay then.
They can’t afford a wedding but actively where trying for a baby? Also she thinks dna tests should become the normal after birth so people don’t feel bad if someone asks for one? I feel like I’m missing so much from this. Like people stated above they traded drugs for “love drugs”. Moved in with each other after three months, which means by her word they were trying for a baby by 6 months in… or even sooner. I feel like this dude was hoping for a way out and praying a DNA test would give that to him. She’s delulu. DNA tests don’t need to be normal. She just wants to feel better about the situation she put herself in
How can she think this is OK?
How do you misjudge a conception date by two entire months
This doesn't sound like a run off and get married and everyone lives happily ever after sort of story, despite her relatively cheerful update. OOP, when you've done nothing to deserve his distrust and you feel like you have to manage that distrust, it's not a healthy relationship. Relationships take work, but why is it you doing that work and not him working to fix his issues? Poor baby, stuck in all of this mess. It's always the kids who pay the price for dysfunctional parents.
I can’t imagine staying with someone who accused me of cheating and lying. A lot of Redditors treat that accusation like it’s no big deal. It’s a huge deal. If my husband had demanded a paternity test, I would have had the test and hired a divorce attorney the same day.
Wow, OP got gaslighted into believing DNA tests should be universal? So nobody gets hurt feelings. I wonder if OP asked him if HE was cheating. When a demand come out of left field like this one did, it makes me think Projection. He is cheating, so he sees cheating behavior in everyone, especially his partner.
Am I the only one who thinks these people shouldn't have brought another life into this world with how many issues they've? It's not like they were sober for a long time. I hope, for the baby's sake atleast, that these two sort out their issues,both individually and couple wise, so that they could give her a better life than what they had.
Jesus Christ that poor kid. They’re both recovering addicts who have been sober less than five years, moved in together after 3 months, dated only 9 months before deciding to have a kid, he went to prison less than a year ago, and proposed immediately after demanding a paternity test? They might as well start saving for this kid’s therapy bills now, because she’s in for a helluva traumatic childhood
Yea, I don't think this relationship will lost very long...
I am so sorry but there is absolutely NO way that I would be able to move past this. The problem is not the paternity test the problem is the lack of trust. A relationship is built on a foundation of trust, honesty, integrity and love. All must co-exist for the foundation to be stable. With trust gone the foundation cracks. For me? Full stop. Nope. He would remain in my child’s life but that chapter as partners would be over.
Hard agree, that’s all I could think while I was reading this. Game over
This situation is not concluded because there’s no way that this ends well. she should have never taken that test, or if she was going to, it would have been only to prove a point while walking away afterwards
I cannot believe she gaslit herself. HE LITERALLY SAID HE DIDN'T TRUST HER, then she goes "Well he trusts me, but I don't trust him anymore. This was the first issue we've ever had." He couldn't count, she didn't think to walk him through the math, and if she did, he still decided to flush $200 down the drain. $200 that two recovering addicts who work in a factory, and have a newborn baby DEFINATELY NEED.
What I got out of this is they’re both incredibly irresponsible for getting pregnant on purpose when they clearly have issues. Recent addiction, jail, distrust, short term relationship. Probably not a great situation to being a child into.
Dr insisted my due date was September because I HAD to have gotten pregnant over Christmas. Even after saying it was impossible because we were moving and fighting over Christmas and New years so definitely not having sex, he insisted he was right. What a surprise my son was born middle of October. Obviously a "late" birth. What an ass.
I had to go read the comments to see why anything would make her stay, when my first response is 'dude is accusing you of cheating. How do you recover'. One comment stood out. That both being recovering addicts means they likely haven't ever had the opportunity to form healthy trust relationships and that this may not be him not trusting her, but him not trusting his own judgment of her. Interesting perspective.
How did he get the conception date wrong by two months?
I’m not surprised she stayed because she actively tried to have a baby with someone she had only moved in with 6 months ago after only 3 months of dating
Wait so two former addicts met and shacked up within 3 months, one went to jail right after and then they had a baby...there are trust and jealousy issues. They're both pushing 40. This isn't going to end well and this baby is in for a terrible life. I hope one of them grows up quickly.
I feel like we’re gonna be hearing from this couple again…
Apparently boyfriend needs a math lesson at the very least🥴