Bill Smooshfoot is Just Reflectin' on the history of pregnancy tests. DadLabs' resident backwoods philosopher cannot understand the need that drives people quaff fresh whizz, inject woodland animals with lady pee, or go number one on plastic sticks. Why not just wait and see? DadLabs ep. 447 sponsored by BabyBjorn.

BILL SMOOSHFOOT: Finding out if a woman is pregnant is not a function of chemistry. It is a matter of observation. Her natural cycles are disrupted, her menses. She grows gravid.

Nothing comes to mind quite so quickly when considering a pregnant woman as the noble opossum. These ladies that you see walking about with those papooses and I say, “you’re such a happy opossum.” Of course it elicits a mixed response. It goes to show you how far we’ve come from our natural heritage.

Humans, buy some canine instinct have always known that the mystery of the beginning life lay submerged in an ocean of urine -- frozen in amber, as it were.

Who in the hell comes up with the damn topics?
The alchemists of old would test for pregnancy by taking a sample of urine and adding to it certain herbs to determine whether or not the woman was with child. The physician would often quaff the sample as part of the procedure.

It during the Coolidge administration, I believe, that scientists isolated the chorionic gonadotropin -- or pregnancy hormone to the layman. Shortly there after they discovered that injecting the urine of a pregnant woman into a rabbit. By dissecting the animal one could determine if the woman was pregnant. Who would want to serve a woodland creature thusly? Have you ever looked a bunny in the eye?

So the next time your woman’s menses have been disrupted and you begin to have questioning whether or not she might be with child take a month, maybe two and watch the natural developments and see if you can’t make a determination without her peeing on anything. And that’s me, Bill Smooshfoot and I’m Just reflectin’.