My husband never saw my first pregnancy coming. That was fair, considering I didn't either. Like, we knew where babies came from and we had discussed children, but that positive pregnancy test was a (mostly) pleasant surprise. Reminiscing about his gobsmacked shock made me wonder if there were other dads out there who had any inkling about their partner's pregnancy before it was confirmed or announced. So I reached out to some of my dudes and asked them to share the moment they "knew" their partner was pregnant.
As it turns out, the vast majority of them, like my own darling husband, were absolutely clueless. Many were suspicious of my question or didn't even know what I was getting at.
"Do you mean what did I do when I found out she was pregnant?" my friend Jonathan asked.
"No. Was there a time you thought 'Hmmm, maybe she's pregnant?' whether or not you were right."
He wasn't alone. Initially, a lot of these dudes' responses were the written equivalent of staring at me vapidly for a couple minutes before, eventually, shrugging. But there were some among them, some magical uterus whisperers, a few ovarian Jedi, who somehow, mystically, felt their baby-senses tingling and guessed that their partner was pregnant before she made any official announcements.
Jonathan
"This one time I thought she was pregnant. It was after my vasectomy and I was paranoid because I was done having kids. Why? She [ate], like, three quarters of a large pizza in about half an hour. I'd never seen her do anything like it and I figured pregnancy was the only explanation. But it turns out she was just really hungry."
Brian
"I've literally never had even the slightest clue that she was pregnant until she told me. I'm completely oblivious. Not on purpose, though. I'm just not particularly observant."
Oscar
"I was the one who suggested she take a pregnancy test. I grew up with a million aunts, cousins, and sisters, so I knew how to put the signs together when they started appearing. Boobs hurting plus random craving plus I don't remember the last time I saw tampons in the bathroom garbage equals you're knocked up."
Dan
"A friend of mine's wife got pregnant just a few months after their first was born. Literally, they were born in the same year and nothing scared me more, so I was paranoid for the first year after our son was born. Every time [my partner] said her stomach hurt or she was tired or hungry I would start hyperventilating. I saw possible pregnancy in everything."
Frank
"I literally didn't believe the test was right until we went to go get an ultrasound a couple weeks later and there was a little bean with a heartbeat. Talk about the power of denial and the world's biggest mindf*ck."
Denny
"I've been on high alert since we had twins, so I'm always asking. She's just like, 'Stop worrying. My IUD is in. We're good for another three years.'"
Josh
"I have no idea, and we were trying. I didn't know until she said something. Explicitly. Wait, do some guys know how to guess?Seriously, are there guys out there who are like pregnancy Sherlock Holmes, telling women they're pregnant before the women have any idea? I don't believe it."
Jason
"This might be sort of weird or gross, but I felt it right after we had sex. I know it sounds corny, but we'd been trying for a long time and had so many losses and this time I just knew. I know I couldn't know but I guess I'm a pretty good guesser."
Mike
"Is this an elaborate trick [my partner] is doing to tell me she's pregnant?"
Writer's Note: No, it's not. But hey: free idea if anyone is interested in something original!
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