Finding Out Judy Was Pregnant

“The rabbit died,” she said.

“Huh?” I was clueless as to what she was talking about.  “Rabbit,” I replied.

The "rabbit test" refers to the late 1920s method of injecting a woman's urine into a female rabbit to test for pregnancy. Within several days of doing the rabbit test, the rabbit's ovaries will show changes if the woman is pregnant.  The phrase, "The rabbit died," came to be a euphemism for a positive pregnancy test after the late 1920 and early 1930s.

The expression "the rabbit died" was commonly used to mean that a woman was given a rabbit test and was found to be pregnant. However, although popular, the term is incorrect as the rabbit died whether the woman was discovered to be pregnant or not. The animals had to be killed in order to examine the ovaries. The rabbit test was later revised so that ovarian changes could be checked for on live, rather than dead, rabbits.

Right around Hallowe’en 1987, we’d been busy “baking”, and the end result was a “bun-in-the-oven”.  A rather archaic term to be sure, but that was a few decades ago, too.

Just about Christmas time that year, maybe a little sooner, Judy had returned from an appointment with her ob-gyn.  It was a “routine visit, to make sure the plumbing was still fully operational.”  I didn’t think anything of it, as I wasn’t really concerned about the inner workings of the female anatomy.  She’d missed her period, and wanted to make sure nothing else was going on. 

Another week had gone by, and she subsequently made a follow-up appointment.  I got home from work about 4:30 pm, 5:00 or so.  Judy rolled in around 5:30.  She’d left work a little early for her follow-up with her ob-gyn.

“Hey.  How was work?”                  

“Oh, it was fine.”  Nothing special.  Then she pulled out this little plastic thing, about 1 inch wide, 2 inches long.  It had kind of a blue plus sign, +, on it. 

“The rabbit died.  This is the grave.” 

 

“Wait. What?”

“I’m pregnant.”

I went from zero to full-on stern, father-mode.  Not husband-mode, FATHER-mode. 

“Well, how did that happen?  What did you do?? WHO did this to you???”

She tilted her head to one side, rolled her eyes, and gave me this look as if to say, “Really??”

What came out was this:

“Oh, I don’t know. You tell me. You were there.”

“Oh, yeah. Right.” 

We both had a good laugh about that one for years to come.  And the best part:  Nine months later, our amazing little one was born. 

Adam Christopher.