Think Twice Before You Post that Fake Pregnancy Announcement on April Fool’s Day

It’s not a good joke. Never has been, never will be.

Reason #1: Do I have to say this? Look at your friends list. If you have 500 female friends, odds are good that at least 50 of them are currently struggling with infertility (or even worse, recent miscarriage). Many of them feel a sinking, lurching feeling when a friend announces that they are pregnant. These women know they should be nothing but happy, that just because one woman is able to get pregnant doesn’t mean that SHE won’t, but that’s logic, and a lot of that goes out of the window when you’ve been trying to make a person for months, years, or even decades. This feeling is bad enough to feel when it is warranted, but can you imagine feeling it 10 times in one awful, awful day for NO REASON AT ALL?

Do you enjoy hurting people for no reason? They’ll never tell you, probably, but reading this announcement for them will be painful and guilt inducing in a way that I hope you never understand.

Reason #2: IT IS NOT FUNNY. Why is this funny? “You mean to tell me that you’re NOT making a person in your uterus, and you just told me that you ARE making a person in your uterus? Oh, that’s a SIDE SPLITTER!!!”

Reason #3: It is not original. Perhaps this one shouldn’t be the most important to me, but it is. I’m a fan of memorable, “kind” pranks. One year, I took funny pictures of myself reflecting the style of my coworkers’ pictures and hung them up in their cubicles right next to theirs. (At least one of my coworkers left them up!)  Another year, I had cold, half-eaten pizzas and soft drinks delivered to my work (using my brother as delivery man) pretending that a shoddy vendor had sent them. My husband and I even created a fake company name and letterhead. That one was fun. And, ok, ok, I’ve done the “vegetables in the donut box” prank, and that’s not 100% original, I know. But we all need to eat more veggies.

Fake pregnancies have been done since 4/1/0001, and they were boring and unoriginal even back then. Let’s air out those brain cells, shall we? I bet you can think of something topical and cute.

So, if you are considering attempting an April Fool’s Day prank, make it:

  • Funny
  • Kind
  • Original
  • Include some kind of “blow softening,” like a snack.

If you’ve done it before and didn’t realize all these reasons, then I’m glad I could help, and there are truly no hard feelings.

If you DO insist on making up a dumb, dumb, DUMB fake pregnancy, I hope at least YOU laugh at it. Because no one else will.

Jeanne Rougelot
Jeanne is a proud Westbanker and wife, full time working parent, and middle child. She and her insanely handsome husband of 20 years have 2 daughters, aged 15 and 7. Her hobbies include cake decorating, reading, devouring movies, and slowly turning into her mother. When they are not patronizing local restaurants, she and her family enjoy driving around to take in the surroundings of their home, from Lafitte to Folsom, and all points in between. She is a passionate advocate for Ovarian Cancer Awareness.

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