As a newly pregnant woman who is unable to get to my first doctor's appointment until next month, I find myself frequenting pregnancy message boards and forums in an attempt to understand what is going on with my body, and using google as a means of education. This is both a curse and a blessing.
Largely these boards and searches have been a comfort for me. It's nice to hear that women who are just as far along as I am are going through many of the same things and I have already received some great advice and ideas. However, other times I feel that the more educated I become, the more fearful I become.
I am a part of one board that consists of mothers who are all due in January, like me. As time progresses, women have begun dropping off this board in waves. They will write farewell messages: "Well, I went to the doctor today and we didn't hear the heartbeat. Ultrasound confirmed my fears. Looks like my journey ends here." My heart goes out to these women and my fears rise. Just last week they had been chatting happily about their symptoms. I gulp as I think: it could happen to me! I could be next!
Whether they soothe my fears or inflame them, I largely have all good things to say about most of these women. Except for one thing. One thing really really really bothers me about baby-related message boards. The abbreviations!
What is the deal with all the lame acronyms?! If you haven't ever visited a pregnancy message board, I'll give you a taste of how a typical post might look:
"Well today I had really bad ms so I went to the bathroom and while there noticed I also had weird CM and my bbs were hurting and I thought I might be pg. This was exciting to me because I have been TTC for awhile. I already have one DD and one DS but my DH and I really want another so I took a POAS and got a BFP! It makes sense since AF hasn't been around for awhile and we had BD right around the time of OV!"
Now I understand if you're a little lost because the first time I read a post like this I was like "whaaaaat?!" I quickly realized that on pregnancy message boards, people like to abbreviate EVERYTHING! I imagine they do it in order to feel like part of a group while at the same time eliminating, oh, I don't know, that extra second they would spend actually writing out the word. Or perhaps they are too embarrassed to type words like SEX or CERVICAL MUCUS or PERIOD. But this still doesn't explain the need to abbreviate words like HUSBAND or DAUGHTER. When I read a post like the one above, I am beyond annoyed! It's the equivalent of reading the blog of some pre-teen's early days on the internet: "OMG like she was ROFL and I'm LMAO bcuz we gtg but he was like wtf! FTW! Luv u bff!"
Excuse me while I puke a little.
My biggest beef with the pregnancy-related abbreviations isn't the fact that they exist, but rather the "lameness" factor of the abbreviations themselves.
Consider the following abbreviations and their meanings:
- CM-Cervical Mucus. Bothers the hell out of me because when I see it, I read "CUM."
- bbs-BOOBS. Are people really that afraid of typing out two extra letters? Come on! They're boobs! Not bbs! I'm not going to put them into a gun and play cops and robbers with them!
- pg-pregnant. Yep. Can't just say "pregnant" can we?
- TTC-Trying to conceive. TTFN!
- DD-Darling Daughter
- DS-Darling son
- DH-Darling husband
The above three abbreviations piss me off beyond belief. Who calls every member of their family "darling" in real life? What is this, the 50s? I wouldn't refer to my husband as "darling" every time I talk about him so why would I type DH instead of "husband" or even more simply: "Mike"?
- POAS-Pee on a stick. As long as we're sugar coating things with most of these abbreviations, isn't it nicer to just say "test"? Or "pregnancy test"?
- BFP-Big Fat Positive. There is also Big Fat Negative. Wouldn't a + or - symbol suffice?
- AF- Aunt Flo. I.e. your period. Do we really have to cutesy up the name of our periods? Periods are not cute! They are the violent and bloody expulsion of the interior lining of the uterus. The proper name is MENSTRUATION. Not "Aunt Flo." Jeez.
- BD-Sex. Failing to see the connection? Oh, that's because BD stands for "baby dance." Yes. Baby dance. Uh huh, I'm dying inside too.
- OV-Ovulation. Finally, an abbreviation that actually makes sense.
All of these overly silly, cutesy and unnecessary abbreviations are the equivalent in my mind to those maternity tents women wore back in the 80s and early 90s. Instead of having somewhat fashionable clothing options available to them, women were forced to pick between unflattering tents often covered with fantastical and whimsical creatures: Winnie the Pooh, teddy bears, balloons, sailboats. As though they weren't merely HAVING a baby, they were BECOMING the baby. I feel the same looking at pictures of these women as I do reading an abbreviation-laden post on a pregnancy message board. Just because you are having a baby does not mean you have to start talking like one! Baby dance? I mean, come on! Stop having "baby dance" with your "darling husband" and start having some good old fashioned SEX. Don't let your brain turn into mush and start leaking out your ears just because you have a parasite living in your uterus that you are now responsible for feeding, clothing, and loving for the rest of your life.
What do you think? Is it just me or are women off their rockers with all these ridiculous pregnancy abbreviations?
BarniganFlarn@xanga
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Comments (130)
OMG like LOL. Sorry, couldn't resist.
I was doing well with the first set of abbreviations, but you totally lost me with the POAS one. I agree, sometimes it just seems to make things harder than it needs to be. Congrats btw.
agreed. i did some lurking on pregnancy message boards for giggles and was shocked at how little i understood and how much unnecessary abbreviation was going on. AGH
I use some abbreviations, but not all. I don't like the DH, DD, DS... I do it sometimes and I always cringe inside, so I've decided not to bother anymore.
I do like some abbreviations, CM is a good one- typing out cervical mucous can be a pain and a lot of people will probably misspell it. I don't understand the bbs= Boobs... I just say boobs. And pg for pregnant? I always like preggo. And I know it annoys a lot of people, but I really do like hossie, instead of hospital. lol
So yeah, I dig some abbreviations, and others I could live without having to see. But that is just me.
LOL "baby dance" now that's a new one to me.
@gwacemom - LOL, nice!
I think that some people (me included) just get excited, and cought up with using the easy abbreviations, despite the fact that other people have to read what we are typing. As you are further along in your pregnancy, you will understand more and more abbreviations...but i agree that some words, you may as well spell it out!!
Being a mom myself, I would have to agree with you there, those abbreviations are making me LMFAO, but they disgusts me at the same time. Seriously, the darlings? Give me a break! Let's give it a break and make some new ones! How about BD for baby daddy or SD for sperm donor! HAHA
Great post. Society is moving away from proper grammar and speech at an alarming rate. I understand the need for abbreviations in a text message due to space and time, but last I checked, keyboards have all 26 letters and most emails and blogs have unlimited space. Sometimes I wonder if, in a couple generations, our descendants will be using special, coded grunts instead of talking. Nice way of going back to the Stone Age!
That's just nuts! Lol
I freaking hate the abbreviations they use! And I hate all the cutesy terms for sex (baby dancing, making baby dust, etc) and OMG I really HATE saying preggo instead of pregnant. It's not freaking pasta sauce, it's pregnancy!
@Our_New_Beginning@xanga - Oh but BD means baby dance, they'll need something totally different for baby daddy... Maybe BDD...
And yes, they drive me crazy as well, so I try not to use those things, but sometimes I slip up!
To me message boards are like texting, I am just chatting with friends so I don't want to take the time to write out cervical mucous and then double check for spelling when I could just write CM. I don't mind the abbreviations at all.
And, it's not a parasite. It's a human.
I read those boards too, and I could not for the life of me figure ouw what DH, DS, and DD meant for the longest time. So, I totally understand and it annoyed me too.
haha. I must agree that when I first starting visiting pregnancy boards and forums and I was lost with the abbreviations. Now I'm used to them and hardly think about them. I don't usually use them though, except for pg, thats just easier to write than pregnant.
I've started reading some of those boards since we decided to start trying for a baby, and it drove me crazy to try and figure out what they were talking about! It seems like more work to learn all the abbreviations than to just spell things out in the first place. It can't take that much longer.
Haha.
I feel exactly the same way. I have been on those boreds for a little while now, and I didn't know what "BD" meant until I read this. I just type everything out. I may say LOL sometimes, but whatever. It's sad when we are shortening every word! *sigh*
:)
Me
I remember joining the board when I got pregnant as well. I kind of dropped my jaw when I read some of the posts, because I got lost. I eventually had to post on there, wtf? Ha! But I kind of got ate out and they posted on reply and it was a link to the lingo and what it meant. It cracked me up. I think I used to lingo once or twice because I read it so often that it got stuck in my posts every once in a while. But most of the time I just bluntly said,"Me and my husband had sex last night and it was painful! What do I do?" None of that weird lingo. Plus I read that the D that stands for Darling, also stands for Damn when you are writing an angry post... becuase you can guess the women on the boards get hormonal and a lot of them would complain about their husbands and other kids.
I think it'd be simpler to type the full words out. For them and everyone else.
I was.....oh about 7 or 8 months along when someone FINALLY explained what DS, DD, and DH meant...though I had known by that point what they meant, I just wasn't sure about the D. Too bad you and I weren't pregnant together, we could've confused all those people out there and used REAL WORDS together!!!!
@Kait82521@xanga - I hate preggo, too, for the same reason!
baby......dance?!?!?!?
Hands down the worst is "baby dance"
it just makes me shudder to call it that, it reminds me of 1984 where the main character's wife called having sex "our duty to the Party"
They all make me want to shoot myself.
Haha, all those abbreviations are what made me delete my CafeMom account. At first I had no idea wtf they were talking about. Then once I finally caught on, it just annoyed me to no end.
you are not the only one. I hate that. my fave pet peeves are with "preggers" and "prego/preggo" , for some reason it makes my head want to explode when people use them.
I will never, ever use those terms. a friend of mine did, and still does in refferal to other pregnant women or in speaking of her next pregnancy.. I cant deal with it. call me close minded but I just cant.
baby dance. ugh. I've also heard one caring mommy describe a vagina as a baby closet in her misguided attempt to explain it to a 6 year old.
prego is a spaghetti sauce. You are a spaghetti sauce?
I am so relieved to hear I'm not the only one. Here i was feeling like a horrible scrooge for not finding it cute.
HAHAHHAHAHHAHA.
ive never been on a pregnancy forum but this made me laugh. i was thinkin' what the hellll, is POAS? HAHA.
those abbreviations are stupid. you think youre old enough to have a baby when you cant even spell out direct terms and end up saying CUM. HAHA!