| rdfs:comment | - Couples who want to have children will have trouble not only conceiving, but adopting and using surrogates as well. Women who don't want to have children, however, will be faced with unwanted pregnancies even if they used several different forms of birth control. Particularly if the conception was forced upon them. Teenagers, of course, will get pregnant their first time, double points if they thought they couldn't. The reason for this, of course, is obvious: "woman becomes pregnant with longed-for child immediately" and "woman doesn't want to get pregnant and doesn't" don't make for very good stories. At least the woman with a baby she doesn't want can give it up to the woman who is desperate to conceive, but expect much angst along the way.
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| abstract | - Couples who want to have children will have trouble not only conceiving, but adopting and using surrogates as well. Women who don't want to have children, however, will be faced with unwanted pregnancies even if they used several different forms of birth control. Particularly if the conception was forced upon them. Teenagers, of course, will get pregnant their first time, double points if they thought they couldn't. The reason for this, of course, is obvious: "woman becomes pregnant with longed-for child immediately" and "woman doesn't want to get pregnant and doesn't" don't make for very good stories. At least the woman with a baby she doesn't want can give it up to the woman who is desperate to conceive, but expect much angst along the way. In many cases the stress of trying to have a baby will suppress fertility, and, once the couple decides to adopt or give up, the stress disappears, and: hooplah! they have a baby! Sometimes it's after they went through the hassle of adopting, as if Mother Nature felt humorous one day. Many people believe this to be Truth in Television, but in Real Life, while infertile couples do sometime conceive after adopting, they also sometimes conceive if they don't adopt -- and at the same rate. Conversely, as soon as a woman begins to accept her pregnancy, her chances of a Convenient Miscarriage double. Or if she's simply having a pregnancy scare from a missed period, it'll turn out that she's not carrying after all, just as she starts warming up to the idea. This particular trick is common on shows where Status Quo Is God; whether the former or latter version is used depends on how much drama the writers wish to evoke. This is very old, involuntary infertility being found in the opening of a number of Fairy Tales, before the birth of the main character, and just about required for the Wonder Child. Note that this law gets revoked during the Denouement for Babies Ever After. Examples of Law of Inverse Fertility include:
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