Getting pregnant from a hot tub: it’s every girl’s worst nightmare. Health teachers will tell you it’s just an urban legend, but they’re wrong. And I’m living proof.
That’s right: I got pregnant just from kissing in a hot tub and also we had sex.
I’d give anything to go back in time and stay OUT of that hot tub (I would also maybe use a condom). That 18 minutes of necking under the jets was not worth the constant, lifelong responsibility of raising a child. Don’t get me wrong: I love my daughter. Kimp is almost four now, and watching her grow is a joy that I wouldn’t trade for anything. But I know I missed out on the youthful, carefree times my hot-tub-spurning friends were having without me. All the nights I stayed up with her when she was a colicky hot tub baby, wailing and wailing while I tried to study for my GED, thinking, Poor baby, she can’t help that she’s made by precum that swam through chlorine.
I think back to that night often, wishing I could tell myself then what I know now. Jake and I had just seen X-Men: First Class and were understandably feeling frisky. We hopped the fence of the community pool, pulled back the hot tub cover, and started making out under the stars. We had no regard for the inherent pregnancy risk of sitting in a hot tub and also having unprotected sexual intercourse in that same hot tub. The thought did flash across my mind: Wait, could I get pregnant from making out in a hot tub and then having sex in it? But the pull of my hormones was too strong. Five weeks later I was sobbing, looking at two blue lines on a stick, thinking, Why didn’t anybody tell me?
I’ve tried to start touring schools to spread the message that you can absolutely get pregnant from a hot tub. Unfortunately, most districts are reluctant to teach actual sex ed to high schoolers who CAN and WILL be getting into hot tubs this summer. These kids just don’t get it. They’re going off to their richest friends’ pool parties totally unaware of the danger they’re in. Parents continue to buy hot tubs for their decks, not knowing that they’re setting their kids up for failure. These warm bubbly ecosystems are perfect for sperms to swim right across into whoever’s vagina happens to be sitting there, especially if that vagina then has sex with the penis that made the sperm. These administrators try to discourage my efforts, saying things like, “Please stop throwing blood on my hot tub.” But I know what they’re really saying: They’re scared. Scared to admit that their kids have urges to sit in hot bubbly water, just like they do (also sexual urges). I just hope I can get through to one of them someday soon.
Parenting any child is hard; especially when you’re a young mom; especially when you got pregnant from sitting in a hot tub with a boy also you had sex. Whenever we’re at the community pool and she points at the hot tub area and asks, “Mama, what’s that?” I have to hold back tears while looking down into her big, inquisitive eyes, and say, “That’s where some of Dada’s sperms swam through the hot tub water into Mama’s body and made you also we had sex and the sperms swam the regular way through my vagina.” She doesn’t understand yet, but believe me: one day, she will (I’m writing a children’s book about how reproduction works through hot tubs). And she’s not getting into a hot tub until she’s married.
So please, kids: Stay away from hot tubs. Whether it’s at your parents’ timeshare, your grandma’s condo, or Diana Craemer’s parents’ new backyard, you are not safe from swimming sperms. Also don’t have unprotected sex. Mostly the hot tubs, though.
