Any amusing misconceptions?

CaveWmnInBrit

Just to lighten the mood and as break from all the new intros (Hi newbies)... What are something things about you body/fertility you believed then found out to be completely wrong? Or perhaps words from the mouth of others....

CaveWmnInBrit

DH- "So if you have one ovary working you ovulate every other month right?"

Ex boyfriend (after I got up to pee after sex) "Well good we have nothing to worry about since you just rinsed it out"

Class of 16 year old girls- A 20 minute debate on how many "holes" a girl has down there.... I have now discovered that most anatomical diagrams do not have a clit.... This game was later made very amusing by asking guy friends when they are tipsy and watching the internal debate on their face for a good 5 minutes

Gizmo36

I seriously thought that well timed sex around ovulation would result in pregnancy every time.

Boy was I wrong!

Catcherryesux

My husband took his 8th grade health teacher a little too literally when she cautioned her students that there was no "safe" time to have unprotected sex, and a girl could get pregnant any time, including her period.

Now when I whine that I'm not ovulating, he is baffled and asks what that has to do with anything.

When I gave a brief overview of timing he scoffed that his super sperm could knock anything up. Men.

BillyHorrible

What got me started on my whole TCOYF track was a conversation I had with my friends in my mid-twenties.  At that point I still believed that you could get pregnant up until the day your period started, so I was commenting that whenever I get horny right before my period, I feel like it's my body's last ditch effort to get pregnant.  They let me know that's not how the reproductive system works.

bender29

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but up until 3 months ago I thought you could get pregnant anytime you had sex during the month.

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divinemsbee

I thought that since I have never had any 'female problems' and always had textbook cycles, never any issues with heavy flow or severe cramps or anything else that this would be easy for me. I had no idea that tubes could be blocked without me knowing/feeling it.

If you had asked me a year ago, after my first loss, if I would have another miscarriage I would have thought there's no way it would happen again.

VeganOnTuesdays

bender29 said:

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but up until 3 months ago I thought you could get pregnant anytime you had sex during the month.

I thought that at first too. I am going to blame this one on our parents for always saying that even if you looked at the opposite sex you'd get pregant no questions asked. hahaha

VeganOnTuesdays

I really thought I would get pregnant the first time I had unprotected sex or at least the first month of trying. 

ivanacunningham

JUST DO IT! I assumed if you have unprotected sex you  got pregnant afterwards but boy was i wrong

kdecker2009

DH thought women ovulated EVERY day. After telling him this was not the case, he still didn't believe me and decided to google it. He came across an image of an ovary and follicle releasing an egg. The look on his face was priceless!

crazychickenlady

Everyone kept telling me that I was going to be "fertile myrtle" and was going to get KTFU as soon as I got off BC. I was really bummed when I didn't. I now know that it can take up to a year even with perfect timing.

Jags8

Not me, but an older sister when she was 16/17...
My dad found a note she and a friend were writing back and forth. She asked her friend for a birth control pill. ONE pill. I was like 12 and I even understood that that's not how they work.

3houlagirl

In my teens I thought that unprotected sex CAUSED you to ovulate. I have no clue why I thought this, but boy was I wrong...

willowprincess

I stupidly thought before we got pregnant with my first that you could be pregnant and start having symptoms the morning after you had sex and that you could get pregnant at any time during your cycle. I was never taught anything about my body, like ever.

Although talking recently with my mom and learning all of the misconceptions she has makes me think that her teaching me wouldn't have been helpful anyway.

catwine

bender29! I thought it would be a lot easier to get pregnant as well.  All my cousins are on their second or third child and they all got pregnant accidentally (or so they say).  

rlpointer

mbbach said:

bender29 said:

I'm embarrassed to admit this, but up until 3 months ago I thought you could get pregnant anytime you had sex during the month.

 

 

I’m right there with you! My wonderful but also naive husband still thinks this, even though we have talked about it in length.

I thought the same thing. That is pretty embarrassing now. 

Carebear7777

The first time I felt my cervix (around age 17 or 18), I thought it was a growth, like a tumor.

crossfit704

DH thought as soon as you had sex the pregnancy test would show up positive in like 12 hours.  He also thought that eggs were just floating around waiting to be fertilized and no timing was needed.  This was like 2 weeks ago.  He got brief explanation of TWW, at which point he said stop talking about it just tell me when its sex time!  He's a mess.  

I used to work with college kids and you name it they thought it.  The things they used to come in and ask were beyond amusing.  Wish I could think of a concrete example but the amount of times I've had to explain why BC works and what ovulation is, is mind boggling.  

brettanomyces

On another forum I'm on, a thread was recently started by a woman wanting recommendations for brands of birth control to take the month before TTC because she is interested in taking advantage of the rebound effect of ovaries overcompensating after BCP to boost fertility. 

Catcherryesux

Budders12 said:

I thought OPKs could tell you with certainty that you were ovulating. Everything I learned about TTC prior to the bump was from Monica on Friends.

I blame my ttc naïveté on soap operas. When I watched them in the late 90s, there was always some evil villainess looking to lure the good looking but usually dimwitted hero into leaving his saintly SO by getting pregnant. The villainess generally only had one shot of boning him- while he was drunk, drugged, under hypnosis, mistakenly believing his true love was cheating on him or dead, etc.- and not only did that bitch just happen to be ovulating during that one shot, but she was also able to confirm her pregnancy the very next day.

CaveWmnInBrit

fabulous and so eye opening ladies.. I teach 16yo girls in a rough area and we are looking to bring in some new ideas.... the miseducation of women/girls about their own bodies and sexuality is a ridiculous

sandrabrooke

I was talking to a bunch of girls this weekend--early 20's.  

All of them said I was ridiculous when I said its kind of hard to get pregnant.  They ALL believed it would happen right away and that accdeitns just happen.  

No.  (well...sometimes...but you know!)

Yaz14

Well up until I got pregnant last time I had no idea that you could have changes in your cervical mucus. I thought you just always either had it or didn't and it had nothing to do with your cycles. I didn't pay much attention to my body. Apart from that I remember when I attended my first puberty talk at school when I was 11. The teacher asked us to put up our hands if we knew how many holes we had down there. I was thinking 'well that's easy, two' and shot my hand up. The teacher picked one of the other girls who promptly answered "three" and I was thinking 'geez what an idiot' and when the teacher said "correct" I was so confused. I honestly thought you just had a pee hole and a butt hole and that your period came out of your pee hole. I also learned that day that once you got your period you did not just bleed constantly for the rest of your life but rather you bled around once a month. That puberty talk was very educational indeed!

MrsGreen92014

I was told as a teen, and there for believed it, that while you normally only release 1 egg a month if your really stimulated you can ovulate any time. Yeah not so sure where they came up with that.
Oh and add me to the didn't understand the discharge

architori

My younger sister learned two years ago, at the age of 21, that the pill does not protect against STIs. To clarify, she does not have an STI, the subject somehow came up in conversation. She tried to blame not knowing on our parents pulling her out of sex ed in 8th grade, but any commercial you watch for BC tells you it does not protect against STIs. So we blame it on her being blonde and not paying attention.

redheaded14

So many embarrassing things I could share...

To start, when I was little I thought that a guys penis hung to his calf/ ankle and rolled up inside his pants like bubble tape.

I thought you gave birth out of your butt.

I thought when I got my period I would wear a huge pad and sit all day I'm a chair.

Luckily, I figured out the deal before I was old enough to embarrass myself too bad.

+1 to having no idea about CM. I remember watching that MTV show where they would choose a date based off the bedrooms, and every time a guy went through a girls underwear drawer I died a little on the inside because...why am I the only one with this gross stuff in my underwear?

Alyssa7012

Room Raiders! I remember thinking I would never go on that show for that same reason. And, well, because i didnt have cutesy VS panties, just normal walmart cheap shit lol

mjcbwlbaby

One time I asked my mom what would happen if a woman gave birth through her butt and she told me it was impossible. After a bunch of "but what if!!"s she finally just told me that the baby would stink forever.

crossfit704

That is what it was called!  I've been racking my brain since it was posted.  Super creepy for sure!  What was the one where the parents interviewed and tried to overthrow the current bf/gf?  Ohhh MTV!  

I had a 22 year old in college ask me if you could get pregnant through oral.  No dear you can't.  This was after she insisted she was pregnant but had negative tests.  She said she'd swallowed so much it wasn't possible not to be pregnant.  

kelly6892

I remember thinking that "panty liners" were pads for younger people. Experience quickly taught me otherwise!

And thinking sex was some kind of urine exchange... Yeah. I remember that conversation with my BFF when we were eight or ten (after looking up sex in the encyclopedia) "so like, he PEES in you?!? I'm NEVER doing that!"

Just last year I heard a mom bemoaning the fact that her teen daughters couldn't use tampons and had to deal with pads because they were still virgins.

Alyssa7012

@crossfit704‌ parental control my mom always laughed at that one, she thought they were ridiculous and obviously staged

CocoMcGee

For a long, long time I thought that ewcm was during my infertile time. It was flushing everything away.

Not entirely related, but also for a long time I thought that everyone who claimed to accidentally get pregnant passed a certain age was a liar (Excepting broken condom). Then I had a friend who legitimately got pregnant while using birth control, and really had not intended to get pregnant at that time. This happened last year. Because of her I don't automatically side eye all oops pregnancies.

(FTR: I don't count pull and pray as actually trying to prevent. So if you got pregnant using that, I don't count that as an accident.)

airidh80

apresmoi said:

kelly6892 said:

Just last year I heard a mom bemoaning the fact that her teen daughters couldn't use tampons and had to deal with pads because they were still virgins.

I can't believe people still think that. When I was 17 I was staying with a student exchange family, and had to ask the mom for a tampon. She acted all upset and said "It's sad you have given yourself up," I had no clue what she meant by that until her daughter explained to me later.

I was a virgin. I also was a lifeguard, learning about tampons was required.

Ignorant parents who pass on their shame-filled hang-ups really are the worst.

Can you tell I have issues? 

My mother never told me a goddamned thing about puberty, the menstrual cycle, baby-makin', NOTHING. NADA. She is so damned lucky I didn't end up like Carrie in the shower. And her subtle put-downs and shamings about "becoming a woman" and entering into dating relationships have really just effed me up. 

redheaded14

@rentaduck‌ you mean kitty surprise? I had a friend with one, I think a puppy surprise too. What a stupid toy, it was fun exactly once then the surprise was over!

Thanks to whoever remembered room raiders, jeez that show....

willowprincess

redheaded14 said:

@rentaduck‌ you mean kitty surprise? I had a friend with one, I think a puppy surprise too. What a stupid toy, it was fun exactly once then the surprise was over! Thanks to whoever remembered room raiders, jeez that show....

OMG I had totally forgotten about those. I had kitty surprise and freaking loved it. I think my dd has one of the kittens still actually.