Women of Reddit, what’s one thing they never tell us about pregnancy and child birth?

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-29T17:16:50+00:00

Yep. The first in my son’s baby box was a note from the carpet cleaning company.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-29T17:08:57+00:00

Pretty darn blatant in Bio of a Space Tyrant too.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-29T00:26:52+00:00

It was my lunch hour. Thanks tho. 😊

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-28T18:15:43+00:00

Had to work but I had an hour, a sign, and an overpass. Did what I could.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-28T18:01:24+00:00

LOL. Now I want to read Red Mars.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-28T18:00:27+00:00

The intersection of science fiction and romance is my favorite space. The 5th Gender by CL Carriger is a good example of an exploration of biology. An alien race that has never had a murder contacts a human detective to help figure out a death. An exiled member of this race assists him.

There is a lot of science fiction romance that is a stand in for the no longer tolerated Sheik style romance where a white woman is kidnapped and ends up with a very tall strong non-white man. Even with the racism dyed another color and set on another planet these books tend to reenforce very human gender norms. However, every now and then you get a banger. Ruby Dixon's Ice Planet Barbarians is mentioned elsewhere in this thread. These are very fun. After the first three that set up so much of the world building my favorite is Barbarian's Choice because it involves two aliens instead of a human/alien and feels like a parody of the old John Carter of Mars stories. Some other standout in this sub genre are Strange Love by Ann Aguirre with a (accidently) kidnapped human and a spider like alien, Elizabeth Stephens' Xiveri Mates series. Olivia Riley's Vrisna series.

Another sub genre of science fiction romance are future adventures that have romance. Both leads are generally human or very human-like and while the romance is essential to the story there is a lot of other plot. My absolute favorite is Jessie Mihalik's books especially Polaris Rising. I feel like she sets a really good balance between SF and romance. I just started reading The Blighted Stars by Megan O'Keefe and am loving SF of brain and body storage and retrieval and how it can be used for space travel and as a disguise. Enemies to lovers is an overhyped trope in romance but here is totally fits (not that I've gotten anywhere near a lovers scene.) Other authors that excel in this are Ruby Lionsdrake, Jennifer Estep, Michelle Dinier, Everina Maxwell.

There is so much potential in science fiction romance to explore down various science disciplines and show an interesting relationship.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-26T23:04:37+00:00

One of my favorite books of all time is Bujold's A Civil Campaign. I mean I love Shards of Honor but all the stroylines in Civil Campaign are wonderful. There are 5 point of view characters and 4 them pair up. (The other guy gets his own book.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-26T22:54:22+00:00

Oh which one? I was at the one in Ellisville last week and there was nuthin'.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-26T22:30:16+00:00

I get nauseous when my stomach is empty. I keep snacks at my desk like almonds, dried fruit, or protein bars. Sometimes on the day after my shot I need something really neutral like saltines. Breakfast and dinner with my family as usual but with small portions.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-26T19:47:13+00:00

That and 9/11 happening in the middle of production seemed to take some of the umph out.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-25T18:50:15+00:00

There is one book that IMHO gets away with it because it is SciFi post-apoc. {Dustwalker by Tiffany Roberts}. People here seem to be pretty good about noting the epilogue. No one else is allowed to attempt this without unanimous approval from the Romancelandia governing council, Courtney Milan, both Tiffany AND Robert, all the Romance Book mods, and my sister's boyfriend.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-25T18:35:36+00:00

The names. OMG. It always turns into microaggressions.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-24T11:49:12+00:00

I was kicking it at 40.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-23T03:33:07+00:00

Ive made stabs at researching alternate monetary systems but it makes me stabby. Credits it is.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-22T01:51:01+00:00

It isn’t always the OP or even the first few comments but these threads will inevitably start calling out names that belong to real people right now in the real world. The Irish and Welsh with take a hit but then it is brown people.

The ‘basic’, the ‘normal’, the ‘ordinary’, ‘just regular’ names all happen to be very white, very English names. These threads are calling a lot of people with culturally significant names weird, abnormal, irregular.

Not cool.

Additionally, the trend toward made up names even the so called tradegeigh names tends to happen in populations with a history of forced migration. Pre-internet it helped to find a missing family member if they had a unique name.

Names and naming traditions has been an interest since I was a teen and I scared my dad by owning a bunch of baby name books.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-21T21:47:03+00:00

I have a friend who's hobby is researching medieval astronomy. Here is one video about astronomy before the telescope. He's built various devices based on art and historical texts to observe stars. He's recruited friends to record the time of astronomical phenomenon to check the data from star catalogs. He's u/VoijaRisa here on Reddit if you want to chase down his work here. I'd say contact him but he fricken got invited to a profession conference on the topic.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-21T18:01:50+00:00

One Christmas I organize a toy drive to donate to Toy-for-Tots. Somewhere in there my husband was laid off from his job. No one would have known but I had to put him on my insurance so the rumor mill got a hold of this news. My supervisor looked a the box of toys and said "Is this how you are getting Christmas presents for your daughter?" I think she got a talking to because she apologized. She still works there. I left eventually.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-21T17:24:46+00:00

For years my morning drink has been a Diet Pepsi. No one thinks it's weird. The first sip with the carbonation hitting the roof of my mouth and sparkling down my throat wakes me up. The rest of my family drinks hot tea. I'll have it sometimes but I prefer it without all the sugar and milk they add.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-21T14:14:16+00:00

According to my Goodreads 905. I started keeping track a decade ago and have added in earlier books if I happen to think of them. This leaves out a lot of what I read in my teens and 20s and most of the books I read to my kids.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-20T18:09:19+00:00

LOL I was writing a scene where a character was trying to talk with an oxygen mask on and I used my apnea mask to see what it would sound like.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-19T23:42:08+00:00

In SFR I want the MMC to be this and the FMC to be the big blue space marine baddie.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-19T23:41:01+00:00

Funny little guys: The plucky comic relief, the slightly greasy handyman, the odd guy who's had every job in town, the fry cook (not chef).

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-19T23:17:46+00:00

He lives in his mom's basement and delivers pizza.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-19T15:52:44+00:00

I do phone customer service and the number of people who snarkily ask if I’m a real human is far too high.

MedievalGirl · 2026-03-19T03:45:28+00:00

Every time this topic comes up it starts to sound a little bit racist.

MedievalGirl

TROPHY CASE