getting pregnant

In sixth grade I believed that women got pregnant when a man peed inside a woman. It all made sense because people called sex "dirty."

showerman

I thought that women would sometimes get pregnant spontaneously. This was because our babysitter was a single mother, and I couldn't quite work out how she had a baby if there wasn't a husband living in the house at all times. So I figured that once in awhile, though not often, women reproduced by themselves.

Henry Minsky

When I was little, I used to think that a man impregnated the woman by sticking his penis into her vagina and then peeing into her.

Anon

When I was a kid and adult friends of my parents discussed trying to get pregnant, and the difficulty of correct "timing," I pictured a couple having sex while looking at a stopwatch, to determine how long they were having intercourse. 30 seconds (or a minute, etc., I didn't know!) too long or too short a time, and forget it! No pregnancy would result.

Amy Peikoff

I understood the whole concept of the birds and the bees, but I was under the impression that the couple had to go to the Doctor's office to make a baby on the examining table, since babies came from the hospital, it seemed to make sense that the doctor would oversee that aspect as well.

Not so clueless now

When I first learnt about sex, I assumed that because Mum had to go to hospital to have a baby, she also had to go there to conceive it. I thought she and Dad had to get up on a sort of operating table to have sex, under the supervision of a nurse. I therefore decided I never wanted to get married.

Shantavira

I used think to think that you got pregnant when you turned 16 (thank
God that isn't true) I also thought that when the shuttles landed in
the water as they used to, that the astronauts swam to shore (how
embarassing when you actually voice that in front of the entire 3rd
grade class)

Donna

i used to believe women got pregnant only after marriage by act of God.

Anon

I used to believe that women could get pregnant just by being in the vicinity of men a lot (this was why women got pregnant after marriage). This belief stemmed from overhearing my mother and her friend discussing the neighbor girl: 'If that Darlene doesn't stop hanging around boys, she's going to end up pregnant.' I had a brief period worrying about whether I should be in my father's company, but reasoned that perhaps you had to be a similar age to the man/boy in question. Luckily, I had no brothers.

erika

I thought that a woman got pregnant kind of like catching a cold, by being around her husband for a long time.

No Name

When I was small I used to believe that a small black spot in my tummy would turn into a baby when I reached the age of 21.

nearly got it right

I used to believe that you got pregnant by drinking the man's wee wee!! Yeuck! I was never having a baby!!

A

I used to think that you have babies by holding hands. I actually felt my belly growing because i held someone's hand but to my relief i was just growing fat.

natasha

When I was about 4 a friend of my mother's got pregnant, so Iasked the usual questions - The answer I got was that the man planted a seed inside the woman...For the longest time I had a vision of a man and a woman standing on opposite sides of a lounge room and a seed floating through the air to find the woman...I did wonder how the seed would cope if the room was full of people. The scary thing is, even after I had learnt about the act of sex, it took a long time to connect that sex was related to getting pregnant.

Ka'

I must've had some twisted thoughts about sex as a kid. One day when I was around 7 or 8 my brother who is three years younger fell on top of me (we were both fully clothed). I was scared for weeks I'd get pregnant.

Anon

my sisters used to believe that the small seeds on strawberries made you pregnant..

ML