Momentous event

| September 12, 2016

Stop everything! A sailor engaged in the war against terror just delivered a baby, according to the Navy Times;

The carrier Dwight D. Eisenhower’s crew proved Sunday that they can simultaneously deliver ISIS air strikes and babies.

A third class petty officer from Carrier Air Wing 3 checked into the carrier’s medical clinic after stomach pains Saturday. Nine hours later, in the early hours of Sept. 11, she gave birth to a healthy 7-pound baby girl, according to an internal memo on the incident obtained by Navy Times.

“Both the mother and the baby are healthy and are doing well,” 5th Fleet spokesman Cmdr. Bill Urban said of the new family on the carrier in the Persian Gulf.

Despite all of the science available to the Navy, no one, including the mother, knew that the woman was pregnant until she went into labor. The Navy insists that she wouldn’t have deployed if they’d known.

Category: Navy

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AZtoVA

Nope. Not gonna go there.

JimV

I will. They must have some fat female sailor’s in the Navy to not notice that she was knocked up.

ChipNASA

GOT-DAMN IT *IDC SARC!!!*

😀 😀 😀 😀 😀 😀

OC

Coffee through the nose, Chip !!!!!

Graybeard

You shoulda seen that one coming, OC. Situational awareness!

HMC Ret

Someone develop a timeline going back 9 months for this PO and SARC. Guarantee they cross paths.

anon

Wait, what…?

Hondo

No, you read it correctly.

And FWIW: I’m not sure I buy the “she didn’t know” part. The USS Eisenhower deployed on 1 June – just over 3 months ago.

Graybeard

In conjunction with the “overweight” post earlier, this is just… wow.

How did she not know she was pg if she met height/weight standards? Is the ship’s mess feeding her that well?

On the other hand – is this an early delivery? Was she only 6 months along (in which case do they have a neo-natal ICU?) Or was she 6 months along when she started the cruse.

Waaaay to many questions.

Like the female inmate who was 6 months pregnant, and had been incarcerated for 9 months….

Hondo

A couple of interesting facts.

1. USS Eisenhower deployed on 1 June of this year.
2. Child was 7 lbs, which argues that the birth was likely full term or fairly close to full term.

You can do the math based on the above as easily as I can.

Graybeard

Yup. I overlooked the weight of the baby.

Ex-PH2

Read the article I posted.

It is not unusual.

It happens A LOT.

Ex-PH2

Just saying it happens, and is not unusual.

Okay, just get the EPT sticks out ahead of time.

Ex-PH2

Uh-oh. Stirred up the Platoon Sergeant. I will go crawl under my desk now.

farmgirl with a mosin nagant

Even then, the EPT doesn’t always work – some women do not produce enough HCG (the pregnancy hormone) to detect without blood test, but still go on to deliver healthy babies. Crazy, I know.

(Source: past fertility issues and an inquiring mind which have led me to research these things obsessively and currently 280 days pregnant. As in, today’s my due date, but no sign of baby yet!)

Graybeard

Praying for an easy delivery, with 10 fingers, 10 toes, and all the plumbing works.

Congratulations in advance, farmgirl

farmgirl with a mosin nagant

Thank you very much! It could literally be any time now, but so far he’s not showing much interest in being on time.

Graybeard

Hoping to hear good news in a day or two – whenever you get a second between feedings and diapers!

Bill M

Best of luck farmgirl and let us know when the happy event occurs. The kid will have soooo many God-parents.

farmgirl with a mosin nagant

The more the merrier. I feel blessed to know there’s so many kind people out there taking an interest in the chub! One way or another the kid’ll be out within the next two weeks (realistically not more than another 7-9 days as doc’s already said he’s big enough to want to induce by then).

Ex-PH2

Surely there must be a good large animal vet in your area who can get this foal to drop soonest?

In the middle of the night…. they always want to make their appearance in the middle of the night, just as you’ve drifted off. You go and check the comfy spot you gave the mom and your big male longhair fella is standing by, looking puzzled, and all these tiny squeakers have suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

Oh, wait – that’s cats, not people. Same difference.

Children of all species do tend to take their time.

Best wishes for a quick and easy birthing, Mommy!

farmgirl with a mosin nagant

The local cattlefarmer we’re friendly with has already offered his pulling chains since I’m a first-time heifer! About the only time I’m okay with being referred to as a heifer (but he can keep his chains away, thanks).

My fella is big and long-haired, though, so it’s not that inaccurate! Hoping baby will wait til, say, Thursday, as we’re having some construction done on the property tomorrow and Wednesday. It’d be nice if the fella could be there for the birth of his firstborn son.

SFC D

My best wishes to you, your fella, and the little fella!

farmgirl with a mosin nagant

Thank you! Baby’s definitely not making morning PT, let’s say that…

If he doesn’t come by next Monday I suspect he’ll be receiving deployment orders.

jonp

No sign? you should be showing by now..
Congrats

farmgirl with a mosin nagant

Oh, I’m definitely showing. But it was a late development – apparently people couldn’t be sure until a couple of weeks ago, and then it was like a sideways pop-up camper. Right now I lead with my belly everywhere I go.

Thanks! Any day now.

Silentium Est Aureum

Missing her monthly visits from Aunt Flo and she didn’t stop to think, “Hmmmm, that’s a bit unusual?”

I never knew of a woman who gave birth underway, but I know of a few who got pregnant! And don’t tell me it doesn’t happen.

farmgirl with a mosin nagant

I obviously cannot speak for the woman in question here, but I do have knowledge about pregnancy and fertility for, uh, let’s say personal experience and research reasons. Without going into ludicrous levels of detail, quite a few women don’t get monthly visits while still being fertile – there’s a number of generally symptomless conditions which can cause this (being overweight is far from the only one, and I would say overweight isn’t symptomless anyway).

Much rarer to get pregnant and be pregnant for 9 months without symptoms, but it does happen – I’ve known a couple of women for whom this has been the case, or where the symptoms have not been overt. In these cases, symptoms have been things like backache, headache, general soreness, constipation, sleeplessness… in other words, things which can be generally attributable to other causes, especially if you don’t know you could be pregnant (such as with a failure of birth control measures).

Also, some women don’t ‘pop’ or have unusual weight gain in pregnancy. Now, in my case (I am 280 days pregnant today) I have definitely ‘popped’ – but my total weight gain for the pregnancy is 7 lb so far. Baby is measuring on ultrasound as being over 8 lb, which puts me at a net weight LOSS for the pregnancy – so yeah, it’s unusual compared to the general case, but far from unheard of.

nbcguy54ACTUAL

I knew you squids had long cruises, but daaaaammmnn….

tom

If this was a surprise, I’m sure height-weight standards for the USN are adequate

2/17 Air Cav

I give up. Sure, this is humorous, but it’s also f’ed up beyond belief.

2banana

No differences in men and women in the military.

Especially in combat jobs.

MustangCryppie

“Despite all of the science available to the Navy, no one, including the mother, knew that the woman was pregnant until she went into labor.”

Yeah, sure she didn’t.

I thank Jesus every day that I retired in 2005. Don’t have to deal with this shit and Obama’s name is NOT on my retirement certificate.

Ex-PH2

Oh, come on, you guys. You know NOTHING about women. There are regularly news stories about women who had no idea they were pregnant, had their monthly cycles and everything else, didn’t gain much weight and didn’t stick out in front a lot, and checked into an emergency room because they thought they were having a serious case of indigestion.

It does happen. Not all pregnant women look like balloons on legs. Not all pregnant women stop having monthly periods.

Don’t believe me? Ask a doctor.

You know NOTHING about women. NOTHING!

And you all owe that young lady a baby shower.

Ex-PH2

And to further your education into the mystery that is womanhood, here is an article about FOURTEEN women who did not know they were pregnant until they gave birth. The first story is especially touching because the mother had given up the idea of even having children at all, and had her first child at the age of 47.

http://www.thetalko.com/14-women-who-didnt-know-they-were-pregnant-until-they-gave-birth/

You owe that young lady a baby shower.

Hondo

Yes, Ex-PH2, it happens. But I’ll go out on a limb and say that it’s pretty rare. That’s why it makes the news when it happens.

The “she didn’t know” could be legit. But that’s not the norm.

Ex-PH2

It really is not all that rare, Hondo.

Hondo

This source (which I won’t claim is definitive) says 1 in 2,500 – that’s 0.04%.

I’d consider something that happens 1 time out of 2,500 rare. YMMV.

Ex-PH2

A ratio of 1:100,000 would be rare.

1:2,500 – not so much.

Hondo

Um, Ex-PH2: 1 in 2500 is a relatively rare event.

The odds of getting a natural (e.g., nothing wild) 3-of-a-kind in 5-card stud poker are roughly 1 in 47.33. The odds of 2 individuals in a 2-person game getting a natural 3-of-a-kind on the same hand would be 1 in (47.33) x (47.33) = roughly 1 in 2240.

That’s better odds than a given lady having a cryptic pregnancy.

I’ve seen the former (2 natural 3-of-a-kinds in a 2-player 5-card stud game on the same hand) precisely once in my life. I’ve never personally known anyone who claimed to have had the latter (e.g., a cryptic pregnancy).

Yes, they occur. But with an incidence of 1 case in 2500, they’re rare.

LC

You say po-TAY-to, I say po-tah-to.

On the one hand, yes, 1 in 2500 pregnancies sounds pretty rare. At the same time, with ~11K births per day in the US, that’s over 4 of these, “Whoops, I was pregnant?!” moments per day.

Since we don’t get multiple headlines about it each day, I’d argue the reality is considerably less rare than the perception.

Ignoring demographic and, uh, social differences between women in the military and the US population as a whole, if we have 203K women in the military, and 157M women in the US, then we’re talking a ratio of 1:773. Apply that to the same ratio above (yes, this won’t be accurate, but it’s an interesting ballpark) and we should expect roughly two events like this per year. By that account, too, this doesn’t seem Hillary-told-the-truth or Trump-said-something-thoughtful rare. 😉

Hondo

That would be 2 events per year in the entire US military. The Navy is a subset of that.

Assuming the Navy has 30% of the military’s women, that means the expected number of Navy occurrences would be 0.3 x 2 = 0.6 annually – or 0.3 every 6 months, the length of a typical ship’s deployment.

Assuming the navy has 30% of the military’s women also means that the Navy has about 60,900 women overall. Assuming a ship’s compliment (crew plus air wing) of 5000, let’s say that 750 (15%) are female.

Given a rate of 0.3 occurrences per six months, Poisson statistics indicates that there is roughly a 0.74081 probability that no such event will happen at all in the Navy during that six month period. There is thus roughly a 0.25919 chance that it will occur somewhere in the Navy.

For this to happen shipboard, two things must occur. The event above (a) must happen in the Navy during that period, and (b) must happen in that subset of Navy women deployed on-board. The probability of the former is 0.25919. The probability of the latter is roughly (750/60900) = 0.012315. Since the two are independent events, multiplying the two probabilities yields a probability of 0.0031919 – or one chance out of about 313.

Gamblers have terms for folks who like to play 313-to-1 longshots. One of the more polite versions is “a meal ticket”. (smile)

farmgirl with a mosin nagant

Ex-PH2, if you set up a gofundme, we can pass the hat so everybody can chip in some cash for the squidlet’s baby shower! Better diapers than some sailor being stuck mopping the pee…

Heck, if you set one up I’ll toss a few bucks into the hat first.

Ex-PH2

Oh, I think they’ve already arranged to send the mom and baby home, and have flown in diapers and other baby needs, too, until they can depart for home.

I just wish them well.

We girls gave our male boss a baby shower when he let us know his first one was due. He was quite pleased.

farmgirl with a mosin nagant

Aw, that’s sweet. Always nice to think of the guys too. My husband just let his team know today what’s going on; he’d told them he was going to be out on leave the end of the month prior but nobody asked why so he hadn’t volunteered. This time when reminding them (due to upcoming project dates) they actually asked, so he told them.

The shock was considerable, since they didn’t know I was pregnant…

Graybeard

Whoops – we got Ex-PH2 hacked at us.

In the defense of the male members of this elite confab, I suspect I’m not that different from most in my experience:

I’m eldest of 5, son of a nurse. We always knew when Mom was expecting.
Mrs. Graybeard and I have three living, one miscarried. The miscarried child was the only time we were not sure she was p.g. – i.e. very early pregnancy.
In our experience, there were a lot of ladies who shared stories of their experiences – never had a “I never knew” story.
Eldest daughter-in-law has give us 5 grandkids – always knew. She is of medium body build.
Favorite daughter has had 2 miscarried, two living – always knew. She (due to some inherited traits) is very overweight.
Youngest daughter-in-law who is currently expecting is willow-thin – and knows.
Same with all my sisters-in-law, nieces, etc. And that is not to count all the ladies in church, at work, and in other associations through the decades.

So – from a purely anecdotal standpoint, forgive me if I’m a bit skeptical about “not knowing.”
As you put it, there do seem to be some, but experience tells us “Not that many.”

We would need a study showing the number of instances of ignorance to knowledge to say “not rare” – anecdotally at least the evidence leans toward “rare”.

(Excuse me while I duck and cover now)

Ex-PH2

Too late! There’s a TV show about women who gave birth without knowing they were preggers.

Read the article. Like I said, the first story is about a woman who had given up the idea of having any children and had her first at the age of 47.

Those are not anecdotal.

Graybeard

I was referring to my experiences as “anecdotal” – just to be clear.

Graybeard

And… the work firewall won’t let me see the story. Figures.

Ex-PH2

Well, my sister looked like a balloon on legs both times she was preggers. My sister-in-law was quite tall and didn’t really ‘show’ for months. My brother, in fact, had a beer gut that made him look pregnant.

I have yet to find any pictures of my mother when she was pregnant so as far as I know, I was hatched by storks and dropped down the chimney.

I think what shows/does not show just depends on the women.

The Stranger

Oh Ex, you probably were birthed fully formed from Zeus’s cranium like Athena…

Ex-PH2

You’re probably right. The earliest thing I recall is a birthday cake with a big green #2 on it, and my brother wasn’t born yet, so it must have been mine. I have a picture of me with a tabby & white cat. Don’t recall the cat at all.

Sparks

TV show? Oprah doesn’t count. 😀

(Ducks for cover)

Hondo

It’s called a “cryptic pregnancy”, Graybeard. Rate seems to be approx 1 out of every 2,500. That’s not “win the lottery” rare, but I’d consider 1 out of 2,500 fairly rare.

I can’t say I’ve ever known anyone who found out they were expecting when she gave birth, either.

Graybeard

So, I can feel vindicated in calling it “rare” – or will you not dare Ex-PH2’s wrath with me?

🙂 🙂

Graybeard

Strike that last comment. I see where you posted it above.

I’ll keep a spot open in the bunker for you, Hondo

The Other Whitey

Well, my wife’s pregnancies were both pretty obvious. Then again, she’s a skinny Asian chick with metabolism to match, and both our kids were of a very healthy size. She started showing pretty early both times.

Graybeard

One of my co-workers in one of my past lives was a “skinny Asian chick” mother-of-three who, when she was 8-9 months along still looked skinny from behind. You honestly couldn’t tell – until she turned sideways or turned around.

As for when we were being delivered, I suspect Ex-PH2’s mother was much like most women of the day – they stayed at home and hid the fact that they were expecting until after the baby was born. Photos? Forget that. We forget how times have changed.

SFC D

There was a baby born at Bagram AB in 2008. Very similar circumstances, mother unaware, passed all pre-deployment screenings, about 3 months into deployment. Mother went in to sick call with stomach cramps, Doc says you’re in labor. Never made the news amazingly enough. Entire battalion (which I shall not disclose, in the interest of privacy) definitely knew.

SFC D

Same battalion, 1997. 6 mile battalion run on Friday, our female company clerk tormenting then-SGT D who is struggling with the after-effects of Thursday night beer. She runs a lap around the battalion with the guidon, generally acting like the 300+ APFT scorer she was. Delivers a happy and healthy baby on Sunday. Never told anyone she was pregnant because she didn’t want the (married) baby daddy to get into trouble. Didn’t even look pregnant.

farmgirl with a mosin nagant

Very much a civilian here, but apparently up til about 3-4 weeks ago, people were still giving me surprised looks when I told them I was pregnant. (Which was a little insulting, to me, but considering the case of Planet Walmart, I did my best to let it slide.)

Less running in my case, and running has never been my favorite thing to do – I’m built anyway more along Amazonian/Russian peasant lines, tall, broad-shouldered and strapping. I have however up til last week been doing the usual farming chores – rounding up sheep with mild jogging and lots of swearing, watering critters, picking fruit, etc. I know a few other civilian women running half-marathons at 8 months pregnant and I’m like – yeah, I’ll be over here minding my own business, y’all do that.

ex-OS2

She didn’t remember doing the deed? They don’t have ultrasound technology in the Navy? Rabbits? WTF, cocksuckers.

Holden Magroin

Things not to think about when sucking cock on an aircraft carrier

“These guys really seem like my new curves. It isn’t like it’s a baby or anything.”

Alternative: “I really like this guy since meeting him last week. We should have a baby together next week”

Holden

MCPO NYC USN Ret.

Nope
Won’t do it
No comment
Nada to say

Out!

Sapper3307

ITS A MIRACLE!

nbcguy54ACTUAL

The Mother (Petty Officer Mary O. Nazareth) and baby (Hayzeuz) are said to be doing fine…

SFC D

Mikey Whinestein is gonna shit a brick.

nbcguy54ACTUAL

Immaculate Dejection??

Hondo

Unjustified Conniption.

Hondo

In all seriousness: does anyone know whether women are given a pregnancy test as part of the standard pre-deployment medical screening – and if not, why not? Those are reputedly 99% accurate, and a quick check shows that the “quick and dirty” home versions are around $5 each, retail. I’m sure DoD could get them in bulk for half that.

Even if 20% of a ship’s crew/unit is female, for a carrier (crew of around 5,000) that’s still only $2,500 or so. I will guarantee it costs far more than that to pull someone off deployment early.

And please spare me any, “But men don’t have to take such a test, so that wouldn’t be fair!” static. Men don’t get pregnant and get pulled off deployment for that reason.

SFC D

Hondo, tread carefully! Saw a Doc at Huachuca get pilloried for recommending deploying females go on birth control. His intent was that it would help ease and regulate menstrual symptoms. A few of the females interpreted it as inferring they were going to spend the deployment on their backs.

Hondo

Different issue entirely. No regulatory requirement for birth control; that’s an individual’s choice, and is not allowed by some religions. I can easily see why someone might get bent out of shape by such a recommendation.

However, as I recall there IS a regulatory prohibition on pregnant soldiers deploying. Requiring a medical test to verify seems reasonable, if for no other reason than to preclude a possibly hazardous early redeployment that both wastes resources and unnecessarily risks multiple lives.

Ex-PH2

Well, and not all women can take birth control pills without side effects, either. It can have serious consequences. And the Doc in Huachuca can always be neutered, which would solve his problem, wouldn’t it?

Besides, Advil (ibuprofen) contains prostaglandin blockers which relieve the problem with menstrual cramps. It was a real blessing when that became available. You have NO idea what it’s like to feel like some alien has reached into your guts and turned them into a jump rope every fracking month.

farmgirl with a mosin nagant

I’m one of them. Hormone-based birth control turns me into a crazy woman, and not the fun kind! So, yeah. Backing you up on this one.

Martinjmpr

In all seriousness: does anyone know whether women are given a pregnancy test as part of the standard pre-deployment medical screening – and if not, why not?

Hondo I’ve deployed 4 times, twice with all male units (SF Battalions) and twice with mixed units (an MP company and a FA HQ Battery.) IIRC a pregnancy test was part of the pre-deployment medical screening.

Now, whether the Navy does this type of pre-deployment screening, I don’t know, the Sailors on the board would have to chime in on that. Maybe going on a float is so routine that they don’t do what we called POM (Preparation for Overseas Movement) in the Army before deploying but that seems like it should be something that is done.

Silentium Est Aureum

When I was on the tender, we never went anywhere long enough to worry about it, but my understanding is carriers did (or do) test.

I’d regard it as any other pre-deployment medical screening, including dental work, etc. You can’t tell me pulling wisdom teeth is okay but giving a pregnancy test isn’t.

Hondo

Well, if the Navy does that as a matter of routine . . . I think they might want to get a new supplier for their pregnancy tests.

My guess is that the Navy doesn’t do the test “across the board”, because a pre-deployment pregnancy test would have been 99+% certain to have prevented this. But I don’t know if I’m right about that or not.

farmgirl with a mosin nagant

Thing is, they’d need to do a blood test to be sure. The pee stick tests are much less reliable (my current pregnancy was undetectable by urine until I was well out of the first trimester, but detectable within weeks by blood test). So it’s a lab test if you want definite reliability, especially in the case of most of the women who are likeliest to have otherwise undetected pregnancies.

Pregnancies in cases of birth control failure, particularly but not exclusively hormonal, are also much more likely to slip under the radar for a longer period. This is especially true with some of the current forms of birth control which also do suppress menstruation – no monthly flow, so less of a likelihood of realizing that hey, something’s up. Without a menstrual cycle and with symptoms which can mimic, say, food poisoning, or insomnia caused by shifting to shipboard life, or sore muscles/backaches/headaches… these just aren’t symptoms which immediately scream ‘oh my god I’ve got a bun in the oven’ and are probably instead gonna be more like ‘crap, the Navy is feeding us lowest bidder food’ or ‘damn, this bed is not posturpedic’ or ‘that was a long shift’. Since they have no reason to think their birth control failed, weight gain (if any) can be attributed to bloat and MREs or, well, anything, since not all women gain a lot in pregnancy (especially with a hormonal form of birth control masking other processes).

I’m NOT saying that all women who get pregnant while on active duty fall under this category. But I am saying that enough women in general fall under this category – especially with some of the six months to five years forms of birth control – that it’s becoming increasingly common, statistically speaking. I know a few offline and many more online who had the ‘what do you MEAN, I’m pregnant?’ revelation at greater than six months in.

Roger in Republic

My wife always knew she was PG. She claimed that by the third day the smell of bacon frying made her puke. She gave me quite a scare before we were married. She even went to the doctor, turns out it was stress related. I was fixing to sue the MD that did my vasectomy.

Mick

Hondo,

From what I remember, females are asked during pre-deployment screening if there is any chance that they might be pregnant, and if they say yes, they’re referred to medical for pregnancy testing.

However, even if every female was tested for pregnancy prior to deployment, there would still be some who would become pregnant during deployment. It has happened on every deployment that I have been on since women began deploying aboard U.S. Navy ships, so it’s an issue that will still have to be dealt with regardless of pre-deployment pregnancy testing protocols.

There are simply way too many places for young people to ‘rendezvous’ out of sight aboard an aircraft carrier or large-deck amphibious ship, so it’s going to continue to happen.

Graybeard

So, is that a “bug” or a “feature” to those in the big Puzzle Palace and inside the Beltway?

Hondo

Different, but related, issue. And one all services deal with when they deploy mixed-gender units.

However, a pregnancy that begins any time during a 6-month deployment in general won’t result in a child being born during that deployment.

nbcguy54ACTUAL

“There are simply way too many places for young people to ‘rendezvous’ out of sight aboard an aircraft carrier or large-deck amphibious ship, so it’s going to continue to happen.”

You mean they don’t have dumpsters like we did in Basic Training?

The Stranger

Hondo,
As I recall from my last deployment, all females get a pregnancy test during mobilization training. However, that is Army…can’t speak for the wetter services.

Hondo

Army deployments are long enough that that makes sense. I believe 9 mo is the norm for Army deployments today; formerly it was 1 year. Anyone who deploys with the Army while unknowingly pregnant will therefore be gone long enough to have the child while deployed and will have to be redeployed early, often under conditions involving risk to self and/or others. That’s bad news.

Since Navy ship deployments are presumably still normally 6 months, they may well take a different approach.

HMC Ret

Navy Hospital Millington, overweight sailor comes in with c/o stomach pain. Popped out a kid right in ER. I saw it. It’s not uncommon.

Ex-PH2

See?

You guys still owe that young lady a baby shower.

Ex-PH2

Yes, Platoon Sergeant, some women still menstruate while they are carrying a load.

There are no certainties in life any more.

Sparks

“some women still menstruate while they are carrying a load.” One word…Dulcolax. 😀

Graybeard

And high-school girls, and their boyfriends, everywhere now have a new source of anxiety.

HMC Ret

I did RIA pregnancy tests for many years. A kit capable of 100 procedures was about $80 at the time. Throw out 20 for controls and standards, and still could do 80 for $80, or $1 each. That was decades ago. Extremely reliable procedure, very accurate and reproducible. Could detect pregnancy within a week, often earlier. Probably not done by RIA today … too much NRC paperwork and other methods much cheaper. Probably a straight up laboratory procedure, costing pennies each.

2/17 Air Cav

Today’s Navy cares. Today’s Navy steers clear of trouble, even if trouble comes right at it. Today’s Navy is diverse and inclusive. Today’s Navy is understanding and is tolerant. I get all of that. My question is, can today’s Navy fight? I know damn well that yesterday’s Navy could.

nbcguy54ACTUAL

So, how do you test a transgender without infringing on it’s rights?

Sapper3307

Pap-smear sounds worse for medics.

Graybeard

I’d do the pap smear – and if it had the wrong equipment the pap-smear would involve a rusty scalpel.

JimV

I saw a tranny at the VA last month. Damn, full make up, jewelry, and wearing a dress.

The VA has a transgender outreach for veterans.

The Other Whitey

And how soon exactly will the wee lass be getting her first plane ride on a Stateside-bound C-2 Greyhound? Obviously there’s no way in hell a new mother and baby can or should stay on an aircraft carrier any longer than absolutely necessary.

nbcguy54ACTUAL

Nope.

S-199 Mule or I-16 Donkey…

The Other Whitey
Forest Green

If you want to see a I-16, the link below gives you information to the Military Aviation Museum in Virginia Beach. They have one there.

http://www.militaryaviationmuseum.org/

The Other Whitey

I know just enough about them to know I wouldn’t want to fly one, with or without krauts, japs, huns, Spaniards, and/or Finns trying to kill me.

Graybeard

Just call it part of a “Tiger Cruse” and they are good to go.

SFC D

What goes on the birth certificate for “place of birth”? LAT/LONG CVN 69?

Graybeard

One thing, if the kid grows up and joins the Navy (s)he will always have bragging rights as “born a Sailor.”

SFC D

Take that a couple steps further and the kid serves on the Ike. Them’s some bragging rights lol

Graybeard

Yeah, if the kid gets to the Ike they’d have bragging rights to beat any plank-owner.

The Stranger

Dammit, Graybeard, you beat me to the punch

Graybeard

Bwahahahahahaha!

HMC Ret

Damn you Graybeard

The Stranger

I only have two words for that:

PLANK OWNER!

Ex-PH2

Born at sea on US navy warship the USS Whatever + Lat/Long, date and time.

MCPO NYC USN Ret.

You are correct.

However, techically lat and long is not required. When ship is underway USS Stork, date and time is all that is needed. A ships location is not important.

Ex-PH2

Au contraire, mon ami. Location is very important for doing natal charts later on.

HMC Ret

Mom should request a copy of ship’s log as well as medical’s log. Have each signed by Corpsman, delivery doc and CO.

SFC D

The Captain could be the baby’s Godfather

Dennis - not chevy

I keep imagining the new-born being detailed to chip paint whilst they wait to be sent to the land of the big BX. Someone get the child a rattle.

The Stranger

Remember, painting on a ship it a task without beginning or end…it just is.

Graybeard

I remember a story by a professor who had been in the Merchant Marine when younger. He was chipping rust on the hull when he chipped right through the hull.
He jumped ship at the next port…

Arby

My father’s diary of his time in the Navy can be summarized as “chipped paint on gun mount such and such. Painted gun mount such and such.”

Bubblehead Ray

Not to tromp on Ex PH2’s analysis, but I bring 20 years experience as a Nurse with two of them in Labor and Delivery and 15 in the ER to this conversation, and we call these patients “Cleopatras”. As in… The Queens of denial. They invariably have ignored a plethora of clues that would have alerted Helen Keller that they had something “goin on”.

Clueless is not the absence of clues, it is a mindset.

Ex-PH2

Okay, Bubblehead, but explain that to the lady in the article I linked to, who had given up the idea of ever having kids at the age of 47, and didn’t manifest the usual ‘symptoms’ of pregnancy.

Not the same thing as the women you’re describing.

Bubblehead Ray

But those are the vast majority of patients who “didn’t know”. I’m sure the 47 year old had symptoms, but she was of the mindset that she couldn’t be pregnant, so she attributed them to something else. (What do they think that “squirming” feeling is when the baby moves? Aliens?) Again, I say clueless is a mindset, not a lack of clues.

We had a dear friend who was very nice, but “not the sharpest knife in the drawer”. She approached my wife and was telling her about some strange symptoms including abdominal distention that she had been experiencing lately. My wife asked her “Honey, could you be pregnant?” And her reply was “Oh, I can’t be pregnant, Will and I haven’t had sex for five months.” ?

Needless to say, her first son was born about 4 months later. She had dismissed that as a possibility until my wife prodded her.

The clues are almost always there. It’s the lack of “connecting the dots” either because they consider pregnancy impossible, or they are closing their eyes and denying the possibility because it doesn’t fit their life plan and they’re hoping they’re wrong and the problem will just go away. The vast majority of the women I have cared for who “didn’t know” they were pregnant were young, unmarried, and there with their mother.

QM1

Pregnant chicks on carriers? Just another day of WestPac/MedCruise deployments in the Navy.

nbcguy54ACTUAL

Wait until it happens on a sub…

Dennis - not chevy

You mean “Operation Petticoat” wasn’t a documentary? Who knew?

Graybeard

I remember when the sailor starting up the ladder backed down, eyes wide, as a pair of pretty legs in a skirt appeared….

Silentium Est Aureum

Yeah, well, fortunately for big Navy, mommy was part of the Air Wing, and not part of Reactor Department.

Had she been a nuke some senior officers would be writing very long and detailed letters to NAVSEA-08 right about now.

Valerie

Well, if you are the kind of person who can ignore a 20-lb weight gain, and can confuse a little spotting with a period, maybe you won’t know you’re pregnant.

AW1Ed

Nothing new under the sun. Look you up the original meaning of “Son of a gun.”

*grin*

Hondo

What has Dr. Capers’ mythical “minnie-ball baby” got to do with anything aboard a ship? (smile)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legrand_G._Capers

Sparks

“You’ve come a long way baby, to get where you got to today…”

FatCircles0311

Men who can menstrat and women that don’t know they are pregnant until a baby pops out.

What an amazing time to be alive!

Sapper3307

Has their been a Seaman joke yet?

JimV

Nope, still waiting.

Ellejaye

In all seriousness: does anyone know whether women are given a pregnancy test as part of the standard pre-deployment medical screening – and if not, why not? Those are reputedly 99% accurate, and a quick check shows that the “quick and dirty” home versions are around $5 each, retail. I’m sure DoD could get them in bulk for half that.

They do in the Army.

lily

They just thought she was obese? I wonder if she will be able to file a VA claim for the baby if it gets some type of disease and she claims it had to do with the navy?

CCO
CCO

Oh and as far as rare or not, I think the definitions are in the front or toward the front of the Monster Manual. Common was 65 percent, then there’s uncommon (I don’t recall 35 percent, maybe?), rare, and then very rare.

Of course, the Monster Manual is probably weighted towards easier to handle numbers and is biased in that there has already been a determination that something was going to show up. Aggregate (or net) percentages per period would be whatever percentage the fractional change of having an encounter in the given time period (day, half day, whatever) times the above. Like there was a 1/6 chance of some sort of encounter happening in the morning. DM rolls a 1; you have an encounter; DM rolls percentage to see what it is. Net chance of meeting a rare creature any morning would be something like .167*.04~~.007.

OK, I totally geeked out on that one.

Out.

jonp

Some woman take “deployment baby” a little too seriously

Commissioner Wretched

The most amazing thing about all of this, to me, is …

They know what causes that kind of thing now!!!

Ex-PH2

I hope all of you silly men spend your next life cycle as women. (Snerk)

HMC Ret

I think our silly President is a woman, right now.

Guard Bum

I was part of the first MarDet of the Ike back in early 78 and I guess things have changed a bit from the days you left your seed in a happy sock. Glad I am retired.

JimV

I wonder if the father is on board the ship or someone she met while on shore leave?

11B-Mailclerk

Intruder Alert! Stowaway detected in sickbay!

(Guess I watch too much Star Trek….)

Hard in the Army

Well if she NORMALLY has really big tits, she could get away with it perhaps?? lol