Finding out there's a bun in the oven is such a magical experience. Maybe it’s a little too magical. Perhaps that’s why some women keep wanting to repeat the experience as often as they can. Or, maybe they’re just trying to get some laughs and Facebook likes. Most of them don’t see it coming when they end up with lots of angry and sad faces.
There are lots of April Fools jokes out there with serious potential to please the masses, and announcing a fake pregnancy isn’t one of them. There are oodles of couples out there that are struggling to conceive every day. Around 6.1 million women in this country struggle to conceive and/or stay that way.
They are pained by every single pregnancy announcement that shows up on their Twitter and Facebook feeds. When they’re real, it’s hard to deal with. When they’re fake, they want to strangle the person for putting them through that pain unnecessarily.
The pain I’m referring to would be the unrelenting heartache hopeful parents feel when someone else is suddenly expecting and they still aren’t. For some couples, it can take several years to get that little bun into the oven. For others, that will never happen. So, to them, making light of one of life’s most blessed gifts is a cold, hard slap in the face.
April Fools is coming up, and we’re pleading with couples that no matter how funny it might be to some of those other friends, to take into account that there are very likely people on a friend's list or people who are currently following who are dying to experience the joy a positive pregnancy test brings. They don’t want anyone to not have that experience, but please don’t make a mockery of it, either.
12 Why We’re Dreading Saturday
Moartotems shared: “It's only 8am and I have already seen two Facebook posts that I'm almost positive are pregnancy-related April Fools. I wish people wouldn't joke about that stuff; it seems so insensitive. Especially to people who have suffered losses. There are better April Fools jokes out there. God damn, just Rickroll people if you want a quick eye roll and laugh.”
Well isn’t that the truth? It’s just not funny. Even to those who think it’s fine and not insensitive, it’s not necessarily a hilarious concept. We’re talking about pregnancy. The beginning of a life. A blessing that should be cherished and celebrated only when it’s actually occurring. When people make light of this, it sends a message that we don’t need to be considerate of other’s feeling if we aren’t privy to them, and that’s just not the case in our PC society today. Have a little tact, folks!
11 Censor The Celebrities
DraegotheLady was quite peeved about Gwen Stefani’s April Fools prank gone wrong. She shared: “She posted a fake sonogram and everything on her Instagram. I thought this was something only teenage girls thought was funny? People are calling her out like crazy, though.”
“On a related note, my spunky awesome friend who is single and definitely not going through infertility posted this, which made me weepy in a Barnes and Noble from knowing that there is such great support out there:
If you're making jokes about being pregnant today, when there are lots of women who wish they could get pregnant and can't, or were pregnant but stopped being pregnant in a way that did not end in a live birth, you are a true shitass.”
Well said.
10 Throwing Shade
@NYC_Blonde set off a Twitter storm with her post that countered these April Fools pranks rather well. She shared: “I enjoy April Fool’s Day because I like responding to fake pregnancy announcement texts with No wonder you’ve been looking chubby."
Now tell me you’re not salivating over the first person to post one so you can use this response. After all, it’s not exactly fair that these individuals can make these fake announcement posts without any regard for how others may feel, but we aren’t supposed to lash out in return?
Hey, if April Fool’s posts offend you, speak up. Silence these people. Make them feel ashamed and tell them how their words have hurt you or someone you love. It is only this kind of response that seems to get through to them. However, if you’re not quite comfortable with such blatant hatred, stick to shade like this woman did.
9 Period Pending
How many of us can relate to this sentiment? If you’ve ever been in the TTC boat, you know the stress of trying month after month and wondering each time if this will be it. You also know the letdown and disappointment that ensures when it’s not.
SuperMom5000 shared: “Seriously staying off Facebook for the night. Seeing people post that they're pregnant, April Fools! is gut wrenching. And then on top of that, a girl I know from work posted a picture of an ultrasound (fake) which is even worse. Then proceeded to laugh and joke about it and how terrible that would be.”
“I bet nobody even gives a thought about how it would make someone TTC feel. Pregnancy is not a joke. It's not an implied "oh shit really?? That b**ch got knocked up"--at least it shouldn't be. For some people, it's their dream — their goal — to have children. I get that they don't know what it's like but the feels... God it hurts. Especially since AF is due in the next few days.”
8 The Perfect Comeback
Hopefully, this guy by the screenname of therewontberiots reconsidered some of the advice he got when he took to Reddit to ask what he should do about his girlfriend who was planning to post an April Fool’s pregnancy announcement as a joke.
Some of the replies he got included: “Act super excited and tell her you have been dreaming of this day, drop to your knee and give her a fake ring.” And "But I had a vasectomy! Are you cheating on me?" and “Push her down the stairs anyway.”
Yikes! People really take this seriously. Sure, giving her a dose of her own medicine might be funny, but drumming up some hilarity out of the situation only further downplays the significance of what she’s doing. It’s not right!
7 April Fools Felons
One Reddit user had to be reeling from these events when he shared: "My brother's gf told him she was pregnant, things escalated, and she tried to slit his throat. She isn't pregnant, but she is in jail on attempted murder."
Holy sh*t, right? When Tori Wheeler decided to pull the ultimate pregnancy prank on her boyfriend for April Fool’s Day, she had no idea what would come of it. She probably expected him to be startled and then relieved when she revealed she was joking. Instead, her boyfriend, Derek Bauer, got angry.
As the situation escalated, Tori pulled out a knife. She explained to the police that this was supposed to be a part of the joke, too, but tensions rose and things got out of hand. Tori ended up slicing her beau across the throat and biting him twice. Bauer needed seven stitches at the hospital while Wheeler ended up in the slammer and charged with assault.
6 Motherly Love
Cspalko’s response to her own post on Reddit detailing a prank she wanted to play on her mother says it all. She shared: “I know that Photoshop battles would be better for this - but they wouldn't find it as humorous as I think other child-free redditors would.”
“She has bad eyesight - so if it could be big and high-res that would be VERY helpful. I saw a few images I could use on google image search - but I'm worried she wouldn't be able to read it”… in response to which she posted “She didn't comment on it. It's possible she didn't see it - or I really upset her. There's always next year”
Her poor mother! We are left wondering what kind of help people like this need. There must be something that isn’t quite wired right in their minds if they think scaring their own parents this way is something to laugh about.
5 Joke’s On Her
Sometimes, prankers get more than they’re asking for when their target figures out their scheme and trumps them on it.
Bos35 shared: “We got married about a week and a half ago. She began the morning (4/1) emailing me telling me how she messed up taking her pills on our honeymoon and was "late." She's not very good at taking them regularly anyways so this was a completely believable setup. We emailed back and forth for a while and she tells me don't worry about it, it's probably fine.”
“Fast forward to 11:30pm. I'm sleeping and she comes into bed and wakes me up with something to show me. At this point, I don't care what day it is, I'm half asleep not caring what day it is. She says "honey, look at this" and shows me a pregnancy test. It's got all kind of pink lines going on so I'm not sure what to make of it and ask her what it means. She told me to get up and look at it, still half asleep I tell her to just give me the results, she insisted I wake up and look so I just went back to sleep.”
“Now 12:30am (4/2). I wake up and she is lying in bed next to me reading. Fully awake now I sit up and ask her about the pregnancy test and she won't even respond to me. After a few minutes of asking her I begin to get suspicious. I asked her, "are you not talking to me now because your April Fool’s joke didn't work?" And she just starts dying laughing. Turns out a coworker who is pregnant took the test for her earlier in the day. Victory is mine!!! Me 1 April Fool’s Day 0”
4 Timing Is Everything
So, what could be worse than announcing your pregnancy only to find out that people don’t believe you. Perhaps, don’t choose to announce this glorious event in your life on April Fool’s Day if you don’t want backlash and suspicion.
That’s exactly what happened to model Luisa Zissman last year when she posted a picture of a positive pregnancy test to her Twitter account. Followers were raging at her to take the post down and claimed it was insensitive and heartless.
One follower remarked: “Before you put up what you think is a brilliant April Fool’s joke as your status update and tell the world that you are pregnant, take a moment to think about all the women who are enduring painful IVF treatments, women who have recently experienced the death of their baby, and those women who for whatever reason are not able to conceive a child at all. How brilliantly hilarious is your April Fool’s joke now?”
This would’ve been the perfect response to call checkmate on if only Luisa had been lying. As it would turn out, she would give birth to a beautiful baby girl later on in August. So, the rumors were true, and the Twitter post was merely — bad timing.
3 Parental Beat Down
When your teenaged son hides cameras in his bedroom to catch you on tape as he confesses to getting his girlfriend pregnant, you will certainly tear up and maybe feel like panicking. But your son has just come to you with news that his future has been forever changed, and yours, too. You have only one chance to get this right. Hold up. He was lying. April Fools!
Let the beat down commence. When Brendan Bannister did just that, his parents were supportive and somewhat in shock. As his concerned mother leaned down to comfort her seemingly crying son, you could see the pain in her eyes. That is, until he told them it was all a joke. His mother stood up, knocked her child to the floor and began ordering her husband to whoop their son’s teenaged ass.
Careful boys. Don’t make mama angry!
2 Jail Bird Babies
Just imagine telling your boyfriend you are pregnant when you aren’t. Picture his face and the possible reactions that could ensue. He might be in shock. He could get upset. He might even be angry or questioned how it happened. We love when grown men pretend they don’t know where babies come from.
When one Tampa girlfriend decided to pull this prank, she got a reaction she definitely wasn’t expecting. It turns out her boyfriend was sterile. He just hadn’t yet shared this information with his woman. So, when she announced her pregnancy, he immediately blamed her ex. So much so that he got wasted, drove to the ex-beau’s body shop and vandalized some of the vehicles parked there while threatening to whoop his you-know-what.
He was arrested and booked on charged of damaging private property and driving while under the influence of alcohol. Talk about a joke gone wrong.
1 Intentional Harm
Jordan Murray jumped on Twitter a few days ago just to note that she feels “like posting an April Fools pregnancy joke just to spite everyone that says it’s offensive.” We can only hope this kind of behavior doesn’t run rampant in our own newsfeeds this Saturday. There are plenty of people out there who get a rise out of how many likes or angry faces they can get on Facebook.
Will their post go viral? How long will they be able to hold out and keep the joke going? Who will fall for it and actually get upset? If you’re having to ask yourself these questions about a post you’re about to make, it might be a sign that you shouldn’t be posting it.
This April Fool’s Day, we encourage you to dig deep and find more creative ways of pulling pranks that may shock some of the people you love while harming others that you hold dear. It’s not about being deleted or unfollowed. It’s about respect for the women and men who are struggling silently, because we are still stigmatizing infertility and miscarriage.
We are still treating people without kids as less than, and these April Fools pranks are a giant reminder of what they don’t have and how much you don’t care. Today, be the person that shares the reasons why April Fools pregnancy posts are tacky and out of touch instead of the friend that is tacky and out of touch.
Sources: Women’s Health, Reddit, Huffington Post, Inside Edition