Latest / Privycast / Ep. 85 Pregnancy Tests

Transcript

Ep. 85 Pregnancy Tests · Privycast

0:00
>> Speaker A: You, they need to make ones that just
0:03
have words. Or, like, green means go, red
0:05
means stop and go see your
0:08
doctor because you're pregnant. But, like,
0:11
two lines is pregnant or just one? What color is
0:14
pregnant? It's all too much for me. It's too
0:17
anxiety inducing, you know?
0:24
Welcome back to privy. Privy is a
0:27
podcast about bathrooms
0:29
recorded from my home
0:32
bathroom. I'm your host, hunter
0:34
Hoover, and I love bathrooms.
0:37
Welcome back. Thank you for being here.
0:41
I'm glad you could join us. Uh,
0:45
it's kind of like we're all hanging out in my bathroom. Do you know
0:48
what I'm saying? Don't leave.
0:51
A quick bathroom update for you. Uh, I got a
0:54
text, a particularly classic, uh, text
0:57
from my buddy today. Um, to give you some
1:00
context, I
1:03
took the morning off from my job at the high school,
1:06
uh, to take a test for
1:09
my schooling. And
1:11
whilst I was
1:14
taking that test,
1:17
I got a message from. From a
1:20
coworker, a male coworker,
1:23
describing to me that a female coworker had
1:26
walked into the men's
1:29
staff bathroom and had, like, walked in, saw the
1:32
urinal, and gone, WHOOP. Men's room again. And
1:35
as we debriefed this, uh,
1:38
on our walk out, we both were
1:41
just kind of hung up on the again of that.
1:44
Do you know what I mean? Uh, fool
1:47
me once, shame on you, but
1:49
fool me twice and figure it out.
1:53
You got the wrong room.
1:57
I don't see a skirt on the man on the door. Do you know what I'm
2:00
saying? For goodness sakes. Uh,
2:02
also, um, I
2:05
ate out with a buddy this week
2:07
and, um, had some
2:10
mexican food. Now, what's weird is the establishment
2:13
that we went to, I have frequented,
2:15
and I am somewhat of a mexican
2:18
food coward in that I'm a jack of
2:21
a single trade on that. I just get the
2:24
same thing pretty much every time I go for the street
2:27
tacos. You can't sully a good
2:30
street taco. Too bad. Do you know what I'm saying?
2:32
Uh, I'm not
2:35
sure if it was the street tacos
2:38
or what, but.
2:41
Man. 03:00 a.m.. M.
2:43
Cablamo. The
2:45
deposit enters
2:49
anyway the tract that's ready to exit.
2:52
And it was just liquid situation for the next
2:55
hour and a half until I inevitably was like, you know what? I'm
2:58
awake. I might as well just get up and go to work, um, at 430.
3:01
So that was fun. But, yeah,
3:04
I think the moral of the story is you
3:07
can never be too careful. You never know what's going to happen. You
3:10
never know if a
3:13
coworker is going to barge in on you, um,
3:16
you never know. If you're going
3:19
to just have bubble
3:21
guts because of mexican food, you just never
3:24
know. Like, it tasted great. And I'm definitely going back to that place,
3:27
and I'm not even confident it was it, but I
3:30
just can't place what it was. Do you know what I'm
3:33
saying? Also, my buddy has
3:36
supplied me with a few, um,
3:38
sections of his meat stick in the last
3:41
week, uh, or so. And, man,
3:44
it's like, you eat the meat stick, and
3:47
there's three phases of
3:50
smell that happen. Phase one is meat stick
3:52
smell. One, which is, as you eat it, you can
3:55
smell the meat stick just really huffing on his meat
3:58
stick. But then once you have
4:01
devoured the meat stick,
4:04
it just kind of hangs out in the back of the throat
4:07
for significant number of hours.
4:09
Um, and that's fine. But
4:12
then the third round of meat stick comes when
4:15
it has produced all of its air. Uh,
4:18
and I'll tell you what, the
4:21
gas on that meat stick toot is
4:24
not that terribly different from the smell of the
4:26
meat stick when it first entered the system.
4:30
This week on privy, just a hard transition
4:33
there we went from talking about meat sticks
4:36
and the things that are produced by eating a meat
4:39
stick. And sometimes, um,
4:42
other things are produced via meat sticks. And
4:45
on a totally unrelated topic, this week
4:48
on privy, we're going to be talking about
4:50
pregnancy tests.
4:53
Nowadays, couples often
4:56
have to rush to the store for a test
4:59
if they believe their extracurricular activities
5:02
are the cause of some change for the
5:05
missus. Um, and I want to get ahead of it here.
5:08
Uh, just so you know, this week's episode
5:11
will contain discussions of
5:14
the products of sexual activity. So,
5:17
um, if that is a
5:20
barrier, feel, um, free to. I'll try to
5:22
put some time doodly doops in the doodly bopper.
5:25
But just note, we'll be talking about pregnancy
5:28
tests. You don't get pregnant by just chilling. You know what I'm
5:31
saying? Yeah.
5:33
Um, but couples nowadays, when they
5:36
believe that their extracurricular activities have changed and
5:39
things, they probably rush to the store, uh, and they'll
5:41
snag up a box of, uh, these little magic
5:44
wands to pee on. This
5:47
brings me to a somewhat bathroom, but
5:50
I, uh, think you'll enjoy it nonetheless. Related
5:53
hunter's anecdotes to keep
5:56
you afloat.
6:04
This hunter's anecdotes is brought to you by
6:07
running into people at Walmart and regretting it
6:09
always.
6:15
You know, they were out of the goddang uh, orange
6:17
vanilla. It's a real bummer. This
6:20
cherry, uh, this lime, cranberries, it ain't bad.
6:23
It ain't nothing. It ain't no orange vanilla. You know what I'm
6:26
saying? Uh, but, like, polar
6:28
seltzer, also, if anybody
6:31
tracks down that strawberry
6:33
cream or raspberries and cream Dr. Pepper,
6:36
you shout at me, I got to find me a big old jug of that
6:39
and try that. Also, while we're on the topic of weird
6:42
beverages, recently, um, the
6:45
PepsiCo or whatever company owned Sierra mist
6:47
canceled. Sierra mist slapped a new label on it
6:50
and called it starry. They said they changed, but
6:53
it all tastes the same. It all tastes like sprite. Like, it's
6:56
all sprite. Anyway, this, uh, hunter's
6:59
anecdote is brought to you by running into people at Walmart.
7:01
Now, I got to give you a little context,
7:04
otherwise, the real thrust of this is going to
7:07
get lost. So, in my job at the
7:09
school, um,
7:12
people come and go.
7:16
There's this gentleman, and he worked at the school for a while,
7:19
and, uh, he's a nice enough
7:22
guy. Um, and for whatever
7:25
reason, thankfully, I am
7:28
in a spot where I helped navigate
7:30
the hiring process for the people in my room.
7:33
Um, but if they're applying for
7:36
jobs outside my room, search me about why somebody doesn't
7:39
get a job. But this gentleman, he worked at the school
7:41
for, um, a season,
7:44
and he reapplied to come back the following
7:47
year, um, and I assume he did not get
7:50
it because he did not come back. And now that's not my business. I stay out of
7:52
that. Uh, but let the record show
7:55
he didn't return. Um, and I didn't ask, don't
7:58
ask, don't tell. Uh, but there's this
8:01
kind of sentiment. One
8:04
day, um, I am, like,
8:08
doing my thing.
8:11
And to overshare, uh,
8:14
we were in need of purchasing. This
8:17
week's topic. We needed to get some pregnancy
8:20
tests, um, because we had to check in on
8:22
something. Anna was a little late,
8:25
and we just wanted to make sure that things were all
8:28
kosher.
8:31
And if you're pregnant, you want to know. And so we didn't
8:34
have any, because here we are. Why would we have them just on
8:36
hand? And so, 930 at night. I'm
8:39
tired. I got up at
8:42
430, did my day. At the end
8:45
of a night, I'm just, like, ready to chill, and it's like,
8:48
hey, we need to get this. So I was like, you know what? All right, I'm running down to
8:51
Walmart. So we scoot on down there,
8:54
and, um, yeah, I get
8:57
up into Walmart barrier
9:00
number to. I know where they're at.
9:03
I'm just going to swoop in. I'm trying to be as incognito. I'm trying to
9:06
be as low key, keeping it on the down low
9:08
as I can. And I get up to where they
9:11
sell the tests and it's locked behind
9:14
the glass cage of
9:17
separation. And I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. So now I've
9:20
got to go find some bloke to let me into this. And
9:23
wouldn't you know it, I, uh, find just the
9:25
most
9:28
the poor kid, but just very
9:31
pubescent, maybe just out of
9:34
puberty kid.
9:36
Guy. And I'm like, hey, man, I need you to let me into
9:39
the glass case. He's okay, you, no problem. And he
9:42
walks over and he just assumes that
9:45
I need to get into the, um,
9:48
family planning materials.
9:51
And then I have to explain to, no, no. I actually need the pregnancy
9:54
tests. And my dude
9:57
like, hey, Walmart people, you
10:00
gotta read the room. You gotta learn how to read the room, because I'm very
10:02
clearly tired. I'm just trying to be in and quicken out, in
10:05
and out. And my dude's like, nice.
10:08
And I'm like, no, we're not doing
10:11
that. So I get the tests
10:14
and I take them up to the front counter,
10:17
and I'm trying to be cool. Like, I've got them
10:20
in my basket. I'm just trying to check out. I'm not trying to have a
10:23
conversation with every person. And I
10:26
just hear, hey, what's up, boss?
10:28
And it's the dude from the high school.
10:32
He's there, and I'm like,
10:37
I am not in the mood for this conversation.
10:39
And he walks up and he just is going. And then he's
10:42
like, what are we buying tonight? And he looks down into
10:45
my basket and he sees one item.
10:48
It's the one item I have gone there for.
10:51
And I'm just like, man, I really don't feel
10:54
like having this conversation right now. And what
10:57
was frustrating was like, I'm, um, genuinely trying not to be a
11:00
dill hole. When I said, hey, I'm not trying to have this
11:03
conversation. It's like, oh, okay. I'm like, dude, look in
11:06
the basket. Use your eyeballs and look in the basket. Do you see what
11:09
it is? Do you want me to explain to you how we got to this
11:11
point? So, anyway,
11:14
long story short, um, it was
11:17
negative. So there you go. This has
11:20
been another hunter's anecdotes to keep you
11:23
afloat.
11:31
Pregnancy tests are fairly readily available
11:34
for couples to test at home. And that's. That's a good thing, um,
11:37
whether or not they're pregnant. But before we get to
11:40
the culture and etiquette and pieces of these
11:43
tests, we need to look at the history of these magical little
11:46
pea sticks that, to this day, for the life
11:49
of me, I do not know how to read. Like, I
11:52
did all the research and I've written all the notes
11:55
and stuff for this show, and I remember reading about
11:58
what certain things mean. But if you
12:01
plopped a pregnancy test with the little lines on it down in
12:04
front of me right now, I could not decipher it indecipherable
12:07
to me.
12:11
They need to make ones that just have words. Or, like, green
12:14
means go, red means stop
12:16
and go see your doctor because you're pregnant.
12:19
But, like, two lines is pregnant
12:22
or just one. What color is pregnant? It's
12:25
all too much for me. It's too anxiety
12:27
inducing. I need, like, a
12:30
flipping chart to discern whether
12:33
or not it was effective or
12:36
not. But the thing is,
12:39
pregnancy tests go back all the way
12:41
to. I'll bet you you can't guess it. Drum
12:44
roll, please.
12:47
Ancient Egypt, wouldn't you know? Here we
12:50
are back in the land of cat dookie and the eyeballs and.
12:53
Yep, but they weren't little wands. So the
12:56
ancient Egyptians were not using little p wands.
12:59
Like, rather, you would be asked
13:02
by the medicine, the witch
13:05
doctor, the medicine man,
13:07
to pee on a basket or a
13:10
pile of wheat or barley. In
13:13
fact, this is the statement of this
13:16
procedure taken from the Berlin medical papyrus, which was
13:19
written about 1350 BC. So this
13:22
one goes way back. It says,
13:25
barley, wheat, let the woman
13:28
water the woman water them with her
13:30
urine every day with dates and the
13:33
sand in two bags. If both bags
13:36
grow, she will bear. She's pregnant. Um, that's
13:39
my note there. If the barley grows, it means,
13:42
that is a male child. If the wheat grows, it means
13:45
a female child. If both do not
13:47
grow, she will not bear a child. So in other
13:50
words, you pee on the grains and whatever one
13:53
sprouts tells you if you're going to have a kid or not. Um,
13:56
the belief was the things that are,
13:59
like inside the woman which make a baby
14:02
grow would be passed
14:04
and would cause plants to grow in the context of
14:07
seeds and plant material. Now, we've visited,
14:10
like I said, we have visited the ancient
14:13
Egyptians before. We have found ourselves
14:16
there. We talked about bath, we talked about
14:19
what they do with cat poopy and much of
14:21
their medical practices seem
14:24
rough. They don't seem too
14:27
great. They seem kind of outdated, mostly
14:30
because, and I'm not trying to disparage that they were
14:33
doing the best with what they had. And I would argue they did a
14:36
pretty good job. They actually had, as we're going to see, a few
14:39
things figured out, maybe ahead of time, but
14:42
much of their medical practices seem at least
14:45
suspect. I mean, again, they rub cat
14:48
poop in their eyes, for goodness sakes.
14:50
Go listen to that if you want. We already did that
14:53
one. But the interesting thing is here,
14:56
these Egyptians might have been onto something.
15:01
They might have been keyed in on something
15:03
that they didn't understand,
15:07
but it would come into play.
15:10
I don't think their approach is better. That's what I'm saying. Imagine if
15:13
we just had, like, bags of grain,
15:16
and whenever a woman or a couple thought that
15:19
she was pregnant, they would set up this weird
15:22
little science experiment in the garage. Like the husband
15:25
walks in, as she quote, and I'm quoting here,
15:28
quote, waters the plants. Like
15:31
jeepers. Like, dear. Can I
15:34
help you? Oh, uh, no,
15:37
I'm just taking a pregnancy test. As she
15:40
squats over like a big
15:43
pile of oatmeal. No,
15:47
we have to move past that. But
15:50
even though these ancient egyptian pregnancy
15:53
tests were not entirely accurate, the
15:56
Egyptians were onto something because the Egyptians had
15:59
it more square than the Greeks who came after them. The medical
16:02
papyrus had the next
16:04
diagnosis as well. The Greeks really latched onto
16:07
this one. So the greek philosopher and medical
16:10
great grandfather Hippocrates. Hippocrats.
16:13
Hippocrates.
16:15
Hippopanon suggested an altogether
16:18
different treatment or a different way, uh, of
16:20
detecting pregnancy. Parents.
16:23
If you had kids, you might want to hop
16:26
forward, call it four minutes. We'll do
16:29
that. Hippocrates thought
16:31
that if a woman believed themselves to be
16:34
pregnant, they would be encouraged to stick
16:37
an onion or other strong smelling
16:40
vegetable up their
16:42
lady zone, the vaginal
16:45
cavity, when they go to bed for the night.
16:48
The belief was that if their breath smelled
16:51
like that vegetable in the morning, they'd be
16:54
pregnant. Now, I'm not a doctor.
16:56
I can't stress this enough. This is one of those episodes where I have to tell
16:59
you, um, like, big branding iron,
17:02
just, Hunter's not a doctor. I'm not
17:05
a doctor. I'm not a scientist. Never purported
17:08
to be. But I don't think you have to be either of
17:11
those things to say this. Bet those
17:14
ladies ain't getting much sleep that night. Like, you get
17:16
a full bulbous onion just yoinked
17:19
fully up your zone, like, freaking mitt full of
17:22
onion and. Yeah, right.
17:25
Like, you ain't getting much sleep. Um, God
17:28
forbid you get a spicier vegetable, like, holy
17:30
goodness, ain't we glad that one didn't catch
17:33
on? Could you have imagined
17:36
if that was it, could you imagine, let's just say the
17:39
1% chance that the Greeks were on us and they weren't. This was
17:42
nonsense. Um, but
17:44
could you imagine? That's the pregnancy test of
17:47
method today. They stick the little
17:50
thing down there, and then in the morning it's like,
17:54
am I fresh? Does it smell
17:56
bad? How do you think I'm pregnant?
18:00
No. Stop it.
18:02
Ain't we glad it didn't catch on? But this is like an
18:05
outlier. Because most pregnancy tests
18:08
of antiquity relied on
18:11
urine. They had
18:14
the notion they understood something. There's
18:17
something in the urine.
18:20
In the 15 hundreds, a collection of women's medical
18:23
lore called the distaff gospels
18:25
stated a woman could pee in a basin
18:28
and put a latch into the basin, and then
18:31
in a few hours, when they remove the pee, there would be a
18:34
marking or an imprintation of the latch on the bottom of the
18:37
basin. Here again, we
18:40
see the assumption that the woman's pea, when
18:43
pregnant, is significantly changed to impact
18:45
the metal on this test. In other words, it's,
18:48
does the p react with the metal in
18:51
so much that it causes it to stain
18:54
or burn into the bottom of this basin?
18:57
It's weird, but
19:01
it might have worked. It could have
19:04
worked. A group of individuals arose in
19:07
the Middle Ages who claimed to be able to
19:09
predict a woman's pregnancy using a number of really
19:12
suspect urine tests. And these would
19:15
study the color of the urine, would mix the pea with
19:18
wine to see if there was a reaction. Don't drink
19:20
it. All I can think of when I think of that is
19:23
that scene in dumb and dumber where they
19:26
pass the highway
19:28
patrolman, just the bottle of wee that he thinks
19:31
his alcohol, and he just downs it.
19:34
Classic stuff. Great movie. Um, also one of the
19:37
best bathroom diarrhea dookie
19:39
scenes that exists. These tests,
19:42
um, that these, uh,
19:45
people would conduct were not limited to
19:48
pregnant women. They were called the piss prophets,
19:51
believing that there was something in the pee. And turns out they
19:54
might be right. And more on these
19:56
piss prophets another day. There's too much going on
19:59
there. But around the same time as them.
20:02
Physician Jacques Guillemo. Um,
20:05
Jacques Guillemu.
20:07
Wee wee monsour. Uh, thought
20:10
you could tell if someone was pregnant by looking into their eyes. Look
20:13
me in the eyes.
20:16
Look m.
20:19
Are you pregnant? Are you
20:22
looking into my eye?
20:25
If their eyes were deep set with droopy lids,
20:28
they would be pregnant. No, he probably
20:30
isn't. Right? But, like, modernity
20:33
has shown that there are changes in the eyesight of pregnant
20:36
women. So maybe Mr.
20:39
Gulemo
20:42
Gilemo was onto something here.
20:44
Or maybe their eyes are just looked
20:47
like they're set in because they're not sleeping as well,
20:50
because they're pregnant, because they're growing. A person
20:54
in the mid 18 hundreds, a doctor named
20:56
James Chadwick, God bless
20:59
him, believed there was a change in the coloration of
21:02
the skin inside the
21:04
woman's
21:06
anatomy at, ah, pregnancy.
21:09
Now, this is very likely to be real, but back then,
21:12
into, uh, just appear into a woman's
21:15
zone was just taboo.
21:18
Nowadays, you know what? It ain't easy
21:21
being a lady. That's all there is to,
21:24
uh, know. Actually,
21:27
no. So, letter Kenny. Great show. Love in Letter
21:30
Kenny. But there's this scene in letter Kenny where
21:33
a couple of the ladies from the show are describing to
21:36
some of the guys of the show the process of getting a
21:39
pap schmer and good night.
21:42
Um, but they weren't doing
21:45
those back then. To get
21:47
anywhere near that private
21:50
area of a woman was just taboo. They did not do
21:53
it. And so this
21:56
method of is their discoloration. It probably wasn't
21:59
used very much. Now, you may hear all of
22:02
these and think, wow, I can't believe they did that.
22:06
That's wild, man. I'm glad that was so long
22:09
ago. I'm so glad we've grown so much since
22:12
then. Well,
22:16
I want us to just, uh, do a little
22:18
practice here with each other.
22:21
I want you to imagine the most
22:23
unhelpful, ridiculous
22:26
test you could run to determine if you were
22:29
pregnant. And you might be thinking,
22:32
well, yoinking that onion was pretty high up there, but
22:35
I want you to think, do you have that in your
22:38
brain? This is kind of like
22:41
the dora the explorer moment, except for instead
22:44
of telling her where swiper the fox is
22:47
hiding behind the tree, we're all sharing
22:50
the worst possible method we can come up with of
22:53
determine if you're pregnant. I have a question.
22:56
Did it involve a rabbit?
22:58
No. Well, then you need to give it another
23:01
run, because while you do, I, uh, need to
23:04
tell you about the rabbit test. In the
23:07
mid 1920s, german scientist
23:09
Selmer Oskheim
23:13
Askheim and Bernard
23:16
Zondeck discovered there was a specific growth
23:19
hormone in pregnant women that was
23:22
linked to ovary growth. This is
23:25
known as hCG.
23:28
And so they decided to start
23:30
testing. Now, if we take the
23:33
pea, the urine of someone
23:36
believed to be pregnant, and inject it into
23:38
a. I don't know. Oh, hey, look at a rabbit,
23:41
a prepubescent rabbit. That is a rabbit
23:44
who, up until this point, is unable to bear children
23:48
because it hasn't gotten that
23:50
situation square yet. Then we can
23:53
kill the rabbit, cut it open
23:56
and see if the rabbit's ovaries had
23:58
swollen. It's just that simple. It's
24:01
the simplest pregnancy test that we can come up with.
24:04
You take the woman's urine, you inject it
24:07
into the essentially child rabbit,
24:10
and if the ovaries are swollen,
24:13
you're pregnant. I don't
24:16
see what the problem is. Now, they could observe
24:19
the ovaries without killing the animal, but, like,
24:22
that took more time and effort, so they just killed the
24:24
rabbits. Now, while most, if not all
24:27
rabbits died, and this is where I got to say,
24:30
many rabbits were harmed in the making of this pregnancy
24:33
test, uh, while
24:35
most of the rabbits died, the saying would go, if you were pregnant.
24:38
Well, the rabbit died. Um,
24:42
you know what? Next time somebody tells you, hey, I'm pregnant,
24:45
reply with that. Well, the rabbit died. See what they
24:48
do? And when they're like,
24:51
what in the flipping heck are you talking about? Uh, send them
24:54
our way. Point them over here to privy. Say, hey, I've got a
24:57
home for you. You want to come join hunter in
25:00
his bathroom? He's got rabbit.
25:03
Um, but, man, we wish we didn't have to kill all
25:06
these rabbits.
25:08
Let's try it on another one of God's great
25:11
creatures. Take your pick. Well, you selected a
25:14
frog. Well, you got it in one. The test
25:17
was the same, but the frog would survive.
25:20
And if the woman was pregnant, after the urine
25:23
was injected into the frog, as a result, the pea
25:26
containing the hormone the frog would produce eggs
25:29
within the day. So you take a frog, you plop him down,
25:31
you squirt the lady pea into the frog. Does the frog
25:34
produce eggs? If so, you are
25:37
pregnant. It's called the buffo test, named after
25:40
the species of toad. And the man responsible for this
25:43
was Lancelot hogben. Good
25:46
night. O to be those frogs.
25:49
It's the R. Kelly of frogs over here.
25:52
These urine based animal catalyst tests were
25:55
primarily for the rich or high profile of
25:58
society. Between m 1940 and
26:01
1960, thousands and
26:04
thousands of these frog tests were conducted by the
26:07
doctors of patients who believed to be pregnant.
26:09
But it's not conducive, it's not helpful,
26:12
and it takes a significant amount of time. It was a
26:15
hassle. You had to go see your doctor.
26:19
And most doctors would only grant these
26:22
frog bufo tests if there was an urgent medical
26:25
reason or if you could foot
26:28
the bill. I like the idea of
26:31
going to the doctor's office and he's just got a big cage of frogs.
26:34
You're like, hey, what's up with the frogs? You know, like how doctor's
26:36
offices have aquariums. Now, my thought is that
26:39
it's kind of like that where the frogs kind of live in the
26:41
lobby, and then
26:45
everybody knows what the frogs are for, but nobody wants to talk about
26:48
what the frogs are for. And then the doctor just comes from out of
26:51
the back room and just reaches in and just twink and just grabs
26:54
one of these frogs. And everybody stares at him and the
26:57
frog as they go, we know what's about to happen to you,
26:59
bud. Hang in there.
27:03
But these frog tests took time.
27:06
And with all of these tests, save a
27:09
couple looking at you, Greece. There
27:12
seems to be something
27:15
in the p. There seems to
27:18
pee. Something in the p. Get it? Pee. Um. When a woman
27:20
is pregnant, their pee
27:23
contains quite the cocktail of hormones.
27:26
The main one, as we have already discussed, is
27:29
hCG, which is responsible for
27:32
stopping the menstrual cycle to allow for
27:34
further egg development. But in
27:37
1960, scientists came up with a
27:40
breakthrough. It got rid of
27:43
the use of live animals, and in
27:45
time, they left behind the need to
27:48
test for hCG and moved toward
27:50
antibodies. Still used hCG,
27:53
but it was a lot faster and animals were
27:56
totally off the hook. Doctors
27:59
Brownstein and Ross developed a test in the
28:01
1970s that used sheep's blood.
28:04
Good night. In short, they would
28:07
see how the blood would clump if it clumped.
28:10
They were not pregnant. If it did,
28:13
they were. But you still had
28:16
to go to the doctor and they still
28:19
had to take the blood out of these sheep.
28:22
It was just a lot quicker. And no sheep were harmed in the making of these
28:25
pregnancy tests,
28:27
but it required a
28:30
ten step process science experiment. If
28:33
you wanted to buy these for your home, it was like one of those little kid
28:36
chemistry sets, except for instead of
28:39
mixing, like, vinegar and
28:41
stuff that you would normally find in your kitchen, it's your
28:44
urine and sheep's blood.
28:47
Yay. Come on
28:49
over. What's this in the cupboard I found?
28:53
It's a DIY chemistry kit. Oh.
28:56
Whoa. Oh. Let's read the instructions. Um. Pee
28:58
in the vat. Excuse me. Now,
29:02
it was a ten step process, and they were
29:04
97% accurate if done correctly.
29:07
But, like, the margin for
29:10
error was so great,
29:13
it was the first time a woman could
29:16
see if they were pregnant without seeing their doctor. Was
29:18
these at home? Sheep's blood compound.
29:22
Urine based pregnancy chemistry sets.
29:26
First time a woman could see if they were pregnant without seeing a
29:29
doctor, other than looking down and going, hm,
29:33
there's something underwater. Modern stick
29:36
tests didn't arise until
29:38
1988. They don't
29:41
involve sheep's blood and they're much easier and
29:44
more accurate. But they do the same thing.
29:47
They're still detecting
29:48
hCG levels, but
29:51
the antibodies react with dye agents,
29:54
causing that blue line. It is
29:57
estimated in the US that 20
30:00
million at home tests are sold
30:02
every year. It gave some
30:05
agency to women who were able to check their
30:08
pregnancy without a doctor from the comfort
30:11
of their home a day after their missed
30:13
period. All because some egyptian
30:16
blokes had women ping on bags of plants and
30:19
grain. Now, when you take a
30:22
test. Little etiquette here.
30:24
I have never peed on a pregnancy test
30:27
yet. Um,
30:30
but when you take a test, make sure you do it in a sanitary and
30:33
safe environment. Also, you
30:36
are responsible for disposing of the
30:38
test. If you simply throw it
30:41
out, anyone who looks into the trash
30:43
can and will find it. Maybe using the
30:46
packaging as a confidentiality sleeve could
30:49
be helpful. There are some
30:52
people and reports out there on the crazy
30:55
bedlam streets of the Internet
30:58
who keep the test. They hold onto
31:01
it. You can do this.
31:03
There's all sorts of options. You give it to someone
31:07
as a gift, take a picture, frame it,
31:09
put it in a box.
31:12
Some people are like, putting it next to their face.
31:17
Need I remind you, you just
31:20
peed on it. Stop
31:23
it. Stop sticking the pregnancy
31:26
test next to your face. To take the Instagram photo.
31:29
You peed on it.
31:31
Stop. Not to make this about
31:34
guys, but there's this notion that you can detect a hernia
31:37
with a pregnancy test. And I missed my
31:40
opportunity because Josh Werman had a hernia and I didn't have him
31:43
pee on. And
31:47
I just feel so ashamed that I didn't
31:50
ask him to. I am curious if a
31:53
man's been fixed. I wonder if he pees on a pregnancy test
31:56
if it comes out different. Mhm. I
31:59
might be talking to Werman yet. There's also this,
32:02
like, oh, if you mail it, but they know you peed on it.
32:04
Stop. I don't know. It's like
32:07
the people that keep the umbilical cord skin for like,
32:10
25 years. It's crusty and weird.
32:13
Um, I'm like, I know there's sentimental value,
32:16
but, man, when I find that,
32:19
um. Yeah, the whole hernia thing seems like
32:22
a myth, completely made up. Probably a pregnancy test
32:25
company is trying to make an extra buck. They're like, how do we get m the men involved?
32:28
Uh, they were already involved in a pretty big
32:30
way. What a world we
32:33
live. Pregnancy tests
32:36
can be amazing and an amazing way to celebrate new
32:38
life. And as I reminded you at the
32:41
beginning of this year, we need to take time
32:44
to be thankful. So let's be thankful
32:47
for pregnancy tests. They're convenient, they're
32:50
at home, safer. It's cheaper. Give some
32:52
agency to the couple. Let's be thankful
32:55
for every rabbit and frog that went before us.
32:59
A moment of silence for those rabbits and frogs.
33:02
Pregnancy tests can be an amazing way to celebrate new
33:05
life. And so, if you have a pregnancy
33:08
test, um, cool.
33:10
Congratulations. Um, I don't know how to say
33:13
that. Either way, this brings us
33:16
to the end of another episode of privy.
33:19
Thank you so much for joining us. As always,
33:23
we would love for you to leave us a, uh, rating
33:26
or review. The five star options are preferred. And
33:28
remember, a dollar for every rating
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33:44
we got to keep pooping in the free world. But the free world wasn't always
33:47
free. Follow us on social media.
33:50
We're at Privycast on all social media, trying to
33:53
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33:56
wall. Uh, you can follow me. I'm at Owlett seven. On all
33:59
those things, you can email the show, episode
34:01
suggestions, comments, concerns, pictures, um,
34:04
the like. If you want to be on the show, if you have a
34:07
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34:10
want him to come on the show and talk about it, email us
34:13
privycast at, uh@gmail.com, we'd love to hear
34:16
from you. As always, we want to thank Kevin
34:18
McLeod and Pottington Bear for the use of their music this
34:21
week. Thank you, Kevin and Pottington. This has
34:24
been another episode of Privy. Thank you so much for joining
34:27
us. Make sure you wash your butthole.
34:30
And now, as always,
34:33
don't forget to flush. It's
34:35
mhm.