‘Gotcha’ Pregnancies Soar with Women in Their Late ‘30s

That family is no longer the strong institution it once was is no longer a secret, as countless studies made in recent years have shown that the divorce rate is increasing while the time span spent married is decreasing. Coming to show once more that the traditional family is progressively crumbling away is the rapidly-increasing number of “gotcha” pregnancies, as Kate Spicer says in a Daily Mail piece.

More and more women in their late ‘30s, knowing only too well that this could be their last “fertility train,” resort to one-night-stands to get pregnant, Spicer states. They are often calculated and choose their prey according to well-established criteria, which is where the term of “gotcha” pregnancies has come into play from.

However, unlike what ladies once used to do with men they were looking to marry, this time around, the sole purpose of the encounter is that of making a baby, regardless of whether the father becomes involved or not.

Surprisingly enough, Spicer explains, the phenomenon has not only started gaining proportions, but is also being developed down to an art. It also goes by the name of getting pregnant “accidentally on purpose,” and has women traveling to far-away places like India or exotic locations just to find the physically-perfect father, this, in case the nearest club on a Friday night just won’t do.

Ignoring for a second the health implications of such a random encounter, the moral ones are huge, Spicer believes, as ladies take it upon themselves to decide the fate of a man – and whether he will play any part in the child’s life or not – which they often do on their own.

“And much as I think it is immoral to set out to get pregnant in such a calculated way, sometimes you are just so bored with trying to find the perfect nuclear set-up that a small primitive part of you just thinks: ‘Ooh, let’s just see what happens with this one, and if this leads to a baby, then so be it.’ The older you get, the more tempting that becomes. If you have failed to find a partner who wants to have children, then, albeit subconsciously, you may find yourself engineering the chance to conceive in a somewhat ruthless way. It’s an emotional, hormonal urge in all fertile women, which is not governed by common sense.” Spicer shares, explaining this type of pregnancies by taking into account the changes that occur in a woman’s body once this critical age is reached.

In the defense of ladies who practice this dangerous sport of getting “accidentally on purpose” pregnant, Spicer says that desperate times call for desperate measures and that, in a life that really offers no more guarantees, all game is fair game. Given that pregnancy has been used as leverage by women since the dawn of civilization, it’s perhaps not so bad that they’re now resorting to it to fulfill one of the most beautiful urges ever known to man, the author concludes by saying.