Tea With Lena: 1:6 Scale Pregnant Dolls, Part One

As some of you may know, my beloved assistant Lena is expecting a baby!  She broke the news to her husband Ian (and all of us) on Father's Day, but I'm not exactly sure when she's due.  She doesn't tell me everything.  What I do know is that she's been feeling a little nervous about the whole experience these last few weeks.

I can (vaguely) remember the mix of excitement and anxiety that comes with a first pregnancy, and I know how nice it was to be able to share my feelings with other moms during that time.  So, I thought it might be valuable for Lena to have a little tea-time chat with another pregnant mom, and maybe hear a few uplifting birth stories in the process:

Lena in her new nursery.

Lena will host this review, but I'll be around to provide lots of extra information whenever necessary.

Hi everyone!  You probably know I'm pregnant by now, so that's old news.

But I've started to feel the baby moving, which is exciting and strange!

Emily thought I might have fun talking to another pregnant mom today, which isn't the worst idea she's ever had. 

So I have a guest, and I made some tea for her.  I hope she likes it.  She's a bit of a celebrity to me.

Let's go say hi to her.

Hi Midge, say hi to my readers.
Hi readers!

Midge is no stranger to this blog.  She had her own review back in 2014.

So, Midge, you've been pregnant since 2002.  How's that feel?

Well, haha, I've had some breaks here and there.  But I've certainly been pregnant a lot, and I'm pregnant again now.

I'll confess that I'm nervous about the whole birthing thing.

Were you scared the first time you had a baby?

Oh, goodness, that was so long ago now!  I can barely remember.

Do you have any friends who've given birth recently, or anything like that?

Absolutely!  I can think of at least ten.  In fact my friend Amber had her baby just yesterday. 

I'm going to interrupt for a sec here to say that Amber is from Amazon and, at $9 including shipping, is about the cheapest pregnant fashion doll that you can buy:

Knockoff pregnant doll from China, $9.

Amber came in a plastic bag with a bit of decoration and text at the top:

It says, we have a lovely baby in our family.  His arrival makes us very happy! So I guess we know ahead of time that this baby is a boy.

Also, the Happy Family brand name is a total ripoff of Mattel's Happy Family line that centered around pregnant Midge.

Amber does not balance on her own, so I had to pull out one of my doll stands:

Her outfit is pretty cute.  She's wearing a blue floral dress with red sleeves, and she has matching red shoes.  The dress has hemmed edges and even some elastic in the gathered sleeves.  The fabric is soft, too.  It's not a bad dress for the price!

She also has a believable pregnant profile:

She's very clearly pregnant.

Her face is bland Barbie clone, with a toothy smile and expressionless brown eyes:

Her bright blonde hair is gross.  It's stringy and coarse and looks even worse after it's been brushed:

The rooting is really bad, too, with lots of visible scalp:

Underneath her dress, Amber has a plastic body with hard vinyl arms and legs and a soft vinyl belly.  She also has insanely skinny legs, with no thigh definition whatsoever:

Stork legs.

The vinyl in her head and belly don't match the rest of her body very well, but the shape of the belly is pretty good:

The problem is that the belly is quite flexible, so it can be squished in, which isn't realistic:

And can't be good for the baby.

Amber has five simple points of articulation (neck, shoulders, hips).  Her head and legs can only spin around, so she can't look up or down or do side-to-side splits.  Her arms are more flexible: they can hinge away from her body and also spin around:

Unfortunately, she does not have internal knee joints in those skinny legs.  Also, her arms are stained from the red sleeves of the dress.

So...you get what you pay for.

But I should let Midge finish her story:

Amber told me all about her birth experience, which sounded pretty straight-forward.

She went into labor up in the sky, of course.  Because that's where the storks live.

And she said it wasn't painful at the start.

But then her stomach had to be twisted and pulled off, leaving behind a big hole.

The baby was right there!  Bright-eyed and smiling up at everyone.

He got a little stuck at one point, but once his head and arm were out, the rest was easy.

And he's such a cute little baby, Lena!  With big blue eyes.

He could twist around at the waist right after birth.

He could even sit upright!  He's quite precocious.

Amber named the baby Malcolm.

Malcolm is a good name and that's a cute baby, but Amber can't hold him or even look at him.  All pregnant dolls should have flexible arms.  It's such a no-brainer.

And Malcolm is made out of soft vinyl, which made the birthing process slightly easier than it might have been.

See?  That wan't too bad, right?

...Well, I feel like I'm obliged to step in and mention that after the birth, Amber's body didn't exactly recover gracefully.  She now has a gaping hole in her abdomen:

Hard to miss.

All I see what I look at that picture is a screaming face.  Like a Minion or something:

The cavity extends all of the way up to her neck:

It's a vast baby cavern.

Amber can still wear her maternity dress:

But it occasionally gets stuck in her belly hole:

Ooof.

What??  That's horrible!  I can't be a model if I have a hole in my belly!!

It's either a gaping hole or staying perpetually pregnant, I'm afraid.  At least that's how it works for Amber.  It might be different for other people?  Sorry.  I'm not helping.

You must have a better story than that, Midge!  Please tell me you do.

Of course!  My friend Melissa had a pretty easy birth.  She'll make you feel better.

Midge's friend Melissa is also from Amazon.  She came as part of a three-pack of pregnant friends that cost $22.  I didn't want to spend $22 for three virtually identical dolls, but I couldn't find the same type of doll sold as a singleton.

I decided to plunk down the money, mostly because the promotional photo looked promising:

I like the dolls' unique lopsided smiling expressions, and I see double-jointed knees!

The dolls showed up on my doorstep in a plastic bag, with the shipping label slapped on the front:

Pretty crude.

There are some simple decorations on the bag, including text hearts at the top that say "Your friend Your family" and "Sharing love Sharing happiness:"

Cheap bag Cheap dolls.

The bottom of the bag has a brand name, Dollbie, and it says "baby doll" underneath:

That's totally a Disney "D."

It also says "Soft Vinyl Lifelike & Realistic Baby Doll" which is not what I thought I'd purchased:

Fortunately, I did not find a lifelike and realistic baby doll inside the bag.

Instead I found the three pregnant dolls that I expected.  But they aren't quite like the promotional photo:

They have different faces and their knees aren't double jointed.  Boo.

None of the dolls can stand up, and this is because they have high-heeled feet but are wearing flat sneakers:

That was never going to work.

Here are the feet without the shoes:

They all have the same face, which is a copy of a Barbie (Generation Girl?) mold.  The lopsided smiles in the promotional photo must have come from some kind of filter or other AI nonsense.

There's a blonde character with blue eyes and a pink, white, and yellow dress:

And a strawberry blonde character with blue eyes and a pink and blue dress:

This doll's belly was broken and her baby had fallen out.  Also, her dress doesn't come off because that silver ribbon is a continuous piece and her head can't be removed.

Melissa herself is a brunette with blue eyes and a purple dress:

I thought that maybe if Melissa had some high-heeled shoes to wear, she'd be able to stand on her own.  Petra's purple boots helped a little, but it was still extremely hard to get this girl to balance:

So, I got the stand back out so that she had something to lean on.

I have to mention that the first thing I noticed about Melissa is that she rattles.  That baby is literally rattling around inside her belly.  It's a little disconcerting.

Her dress is extremely cheap, with a stiff skirt and a slightly softer bodice.  None of the edges are hemmed:

She has an obviously pregnant profile, but her belly isn't as rounded as Amber's:

Melissa has better hair rooting than Amber, though.  Sort of.  There's an extra row of hair in there, but still plenty of visible scalp:

I think this hair fiber feels slightly better than Amber's hair.  It's softer and less scraggly.  And the color is more natural.

Underneath her clothing, Melissa has what looks like a modified Barbie Gigi body, but with super-shiny cheap-o plastic, a pregnant belly, a wider torso, and short arms:

Those are itty bitty arms.

Here's Melissa alongside a Barbie movie doll who has a real Gigi body:

Pregnant knockoff doll (left) and Barbie with a Gigi body (right).

The difference in quality here is striking.  Barbie is such a great doll, while Melissa feels lightweight and fragile...especially with the rattle in her belly.

The two dolls have roughly the same articulation, as you might expect, but Melissa can only spin her head around, she can't look up or down.  This means that she can practically never look at the camera.

Melissa has a decent pregnancy profile, but her belly sits up very high:

Some people think that means it's a boy.

I'm eager to hear what Midge remembers about the birth experience!

As I recall, everything went really smoothly for her.

Up in stork land, she felt some pangs of discomfort as her belly started to loosen.

But the way she described it, it wasn't painful--just unusual.

Her belly snapped right off, and the baby sprang up like it was on an elevator or something.

The baby was small, so it came out really fast and didn't get stuck on anything.

And it's a little girl, despite everyone saying it would be a boy.

Omg, it's one of those chicken babies that I saw on Amazon a while ago!  These look like little roast chickens to me.  And those thick lines of molded hair don't help:

Don't be mean, Emily.  She's a cute little baby.

Melissa was thrilled, and named her tiny daughter Eileen.

That name means little bird!  See?  I'm not the only one who thinks she looks like a chicken.  At least Melissa can hold her baby.  That's more than we could say for Amber.

And Melissa was able to get her normal figure back in no time, thanks to a cool internal mechanism.  There's a compartment where the baby used to be:

The back of the compartment is spring-loaded, so it can be pushed down and will snap back up again.  It also spins around..

To reveal a flat belly!

The springs push the belly forward and into place.

If only it was that easy for everyone.

Melissa's dress is so stiff, it doesn't flatter her slim post-pregnancy figure very well:

It's also just a bad dress.

But Melissa's experience was certainly better than Amber's ordeal.  No question.

I have another friend, Molly, who had practically the same type of birth as Melissa.

Well, except for the fact that Molly was toting around a six month old baby when she was nine months pregnant with the next one.  Explain to me how that's possible:

Doesn't compute.

This was a set that I found on eBay for about $20.  I knew Molly's body would be very similar to Melissa's, but the extra baby piqued my interest.

The extra baby is a copy of a Barbie baby, but made out of cheap hollow plastic:

Knockoff Barbie baby.

Here's the knockoff baby next to my actual Barbie baby, Marigold:

Barbie baby (left) and knockoff (right).

Once again, there's really no comparison between these two.  The Barbie baby is made out of nice vinyl and has vibrant coloring.  The knockoff baby has an unhealthy grey cast and minimal paint.  But at least she has arm and leg joints!

Maybe Molly was babysitting for the older child?  It's a very confusing situation.

Molly has the same Barbie clone face that we saw on Melissa and her friends.  I think her face paint is prettier, though, with more detail and softer colors.  She even has earrings:

And a big black mark on her upper lip.

I like Molly's tight-fitting maternity dress.  It's something Lena might wear:

Lena likes ice cream...especially these days.

It's made out of a stretchy synthetic fabric and has an ice cream print that's very cute.  The tight fit shows off Molly's shape nicely:

She's also carrying high.

Molly's hair rooting is better than Melissa's.  There are at least four rows of hair!  And the hair fiber feels decent:

Decent compared to the competition, at least.

Underneath her dress, Molly has the same body as Melissa:

Complete with the T. rex arms.

Unlike Melissa, she has a big sticker on her back with some manufacturing information:

So glad I know her Batch Code.

I looked up that name, Guangzhou Kieka, and the closest thing I found was Guangzhou KIKA, which is a paper company.  The address didn't get me anywhere, either.  But at least we know the doll was made in 2025.

How'd Molly's birth experience go, Midge?

Well, it was similar to Melissa's...but with a twist!

She drifted into stork land right after her older child went down for a nap.

So that is her baby. Weird.

Yes, and anyway, you wouldn't have guessed it from her small belly...

But there was quite a surprise inside.

Molly had twins!

Two identical little girls.

C'mon.  They look like two angry old men.

The girls both have blue eyes and very dark eyebrows!

No kidding.  I think Groucho Marx might be the father.

And they could move around really well as soon as they were born, with very active limbs.

Molly has her hands full now!

Wow.  I'm really surprised that these babies look so different from Melissa's chicken baby Eileen.  And the joints are a great addition!  But the babies need some new face paint...or something.

Molly was just like Melissa in that her abdomen rotated into a flat belly:

And the great thing is, because her maternity dress is so stretchy, it looks good postpartum as well:

Very cute!

The first three dolls are all clearly cheap Barbie knockoffs, but I find it interesting that Molly's quality is quite a bit better than the other two.  She's a decent doll, especially with the articulated twins and the extra larger baby.  I don't recommend buying her, though, especially because she's a knockoff.  And she was definitely not worth the price I paid.  But she has the highest quality of the economy options.

The knockoffs make me wonder why Mattel hasn't continued to keep a pregnant doll in their lineup.  Buyers are clearly eager for this type of thing, and I know Mattel's doll would be way better than any of the imitations.  I guess pregnancy causes too many marketing and image problems, which is depressing.

I'm dying to know what Lena thinks of Molly's experience with those twins!

Well, I like the flat belly part, but I'm not sure I can handle twins!  That's scary.

Do you have any more friends who gave birth to just one baby?

Of course, sweetie.  Twins are very rare. You shouldn't worry too much about that.

My friend Joyce had one very sweet little baby just last week.

Joyce, and the rest of the dolls in this review, are vintage items from the 1990s.  This is the decade when pregnant fashion dolls were first introduced, and I was curious to see what some of the options were back then.

I find it especially interesting that there was more than a decade gap between the first pregnant fashion dolls (in 1991) and when Mattel finally threw their hat into the ring with Midge in 2002.

Joyce is an eBay find that I suspect is from the early to mid 90s.  Her box is cardboard with a flimsy plastic window, and there are some simple decorations.  But at least we know that the decorations weren't AI-generated!

I was able to find Joyce for $30.  There was another similar doll that I bought but the sale was cancelled.  She's called Fiona and looked like this:

So Joyce was apparently part of a series of pregnant dolls.

The inclusion of "Love" under these dolls' names, and the design of the packaging, make me think they're knockoffs of Simba's pregnant Steffi Love dolls from the early 90s.  The Steffi line was called New Born Baby.  Here's an example of a Steffi doll:

There are a lot of similarities between this and Joyce's box.

Joyce's box says "Baby New Born," which isn't trying very hard to be different from the Steffi doll's New Born Baby brand.  Opposite that title, there's a picture of a stork delivering a baby:

The stork is also pooping hearts.

On the side of the box, there's a photograph of Joyce and her baby:

Is that red hair I see?

The back of the box is mostly pink, with a trio of photos and minimal text:

One of the photos shows Joyce with her belly open and the baby exposed!  I won't show this to Lena:

It's like one of those educational anatomy mannequins.

The stork appears again at the bottom off the box, with the heart poops raining down on his head, seemingly poised to deliver the baby down the chimney:

Santa Stork.

Joyce came attached to a pink cardboard backdrop.  Next to her head was a bag of cheap-looking accessories that I ignored:

There are at least three brushes in there.

Joyce was held in place on the backdrop with wire twist ties that were so easy to remove!

I miss the 90s.

Right away, though, there were problems with Joyce.

First of all, her red shoes had stained her feet:

Or she has bad bunions.

Worse than that, one of her legs had fallen off...or melted off:

Eeew.

I pulled the leg away and this is what was left:

Double eeew.

I guess the vinyl in the legs reacted with the plastic in the torso.

On the upside, Joyce has internal click knee joints:

For all the good they do her.

Boy, the early 90s doesn't feel like that long ago to me, but I guess it's been nearly 40 years.  And Joyce looks and feels that old to me.  She has a moldy, melted plastic odor to her, and her hair is a tangled, coarse mess.  Her dress is about the ugliest thing I've ever seen:

Especially with no legs.

But!  We're here to learn about her pregnancy, and that part of her body was beautifully intact:

Wait!  Stop!  I can't handle this.  She lost her legs?  She's wearing that dress??  This is so depressing.

IAN!  We're gonna need some ice cream down here!

I feel like I can't breathe.

Here you go, love.  Is this enough?

Okay, this is better.  You can continue now if you want, Midge.

Even though her legs fell off, Joyce had a lovely birth!  Don't worry.

I stuck her legs back in place to help Lena feel better.

Admittedly, her belly had cracked open even before she went into labor.

So she won't be able to have any more kids, but I think she only wanted one.

The nice thing was that her broken belly practically fell off!

And she had the most beautiful baby boy.

Her stomach was a little caved in afterwards, but never mind.

Look at her gorgeous baby!

He was healthy and calm, and could move all around.

Joyce named him Noah.

He is really cute!  I agree.  And with five joints, too.  But I still wish Joyce could hold him properly.

The belly was a problem at first.  It has some melted areas from Noah's vinyl arms, and it was stuck back inside the torso:

But then a spring mechanism in the back engaged and the flat belly popped forward!

Ta-da!

The pregnant belly doesn't fit back on because it's broken, but Joyce can at least have an intact flat stomach.  Not sure she should keep wearing this dress, though:

Burn it.

Joyce reminds me a lot of Mommy-to-Be Judith, who I reviewed way back in 2016.  Judith is often heralded as the first mass-produced pregnant fashion doll, since she came out in 1991. 

I wonder if Midge is friends with Judith, too?

Okay, Noah is really sweet.  His little face is adorable.  But the leg thing is still upsetting.  Do you have anything to cheer me up?

I do!  In fact, I have another friend Judith, and everyone says that Joyce is always copying her.

The week before Joyce had Noah, Judith had her own baby.  And the experience was very similar.

Oh good!  I'm so glad Midge knows Judith.  Some of you might remember her from the old review.  Back then, I focused on Black Judith, who gave birth to a red-eyed demon baby named Matteo:

Mommy-to-Be Judith and her baby.

Midge is talking about a different Judith, though.  

I won't go into much detail, but Midge's Judith is a boxed doll who I found on eBay recently for under $10:

Baby-eating Judith.

Her packaging is the same as what I showed you in 2016.  Her blue denim outfit is also the same:

She has a very convincing pregnancy profile:

And an absolutely crazy-looking face:

Black Judith's face mold is much better.

Judith comes with Humpty Dumpty pregnancy underwear:

And a belly that looks a lot like Joyce's:

But isn't falling off.

Here's Judith in profile:

And here she is alongside Joyce:

Pregnant Joyce doll (left) and Mommy-to-Be Judith doll (right).

Joyce's packaging might be copying Steffi Love, but her body looks like a cheap knockoff of Judith.  Joyce has the same body as Judith, but her body parts don't match, her face is less detailed, her head is stiff, her arms aren't very flexible, and her hair is--if possible--even worse than Judith's.

I took Judith's ponytail down so that I could check the rooting...

And then immediately regretted doing it.  It's bad.

Judith dolls are also notorious for losing their legs. Half of the auctions on eBay are for dolls with missing legs, and both of the dolls in my 2016 review lost a leg.

This Judith, for some reason, has managed to keep her legs.  I dared to pose her in front-to-back splits, and nothing terrible happened:

She also has internal knee joints and very flexible vinyl arms, so her posing repertoire isn't bad.  But her hips feel fragile and I handle them with great care.

I don't think I commented on this in my 2016 review, but Judith's neck is a ball joint, which means she can look up and down and all around:

And her head pops off easily.

I'd also forgotten that these dolls have little painted wedding rings, which is cute:

Midge has one of those, too, which helped people accept her when she was first released.

Overall, Judith is slightly nicer than I remember, and is much better than knockoff Joyce.

So can I tell Lena about Judith's birth experience?

Yes, yes, of course. Sorry that took so long.

Judith's belly was secure, so her labor was more difficult than Joyce's.

But with a little wiggling and tugging...

The belly came off and a redheaded baby popped out!

It's a cute little boy named James.

Are we calling him cute?

James was super active and strong, right from the start!

He could even sit up on his own.  We all joked that Judith gave birth to a six-month-old!

But she seems really happy.

That's a good story!  And a familiar baby.  One of the Judith dolls I reviewed in 2016 had a redheaded girl who looks just like James:

Judith's baby girl from my 2016 review.

I wonder if Judith's baby is always a redhead?  Nothing wrong with that.

And Judith's belly sprung back to normal in no time:

She has the same spring-loaded mechanism as Joyce, and a few little melt marks, but nothing too serious.

I was surprised to see that Judith's maternity dress doesn't look bad on her with the postpartum belly!

Not bad for the early 90s, anyway.

So, you see Lena, that was good!  And she got a lovely redhead, like me.

I'll admit, Ian would go nuts for a redheaded boy.

I'm feeling pretty good now.  Do you have any more stories to tell me?

Well, let's see here.  I have a friend Sylvie who gave birth last month.  I think I remember her story! 

Sylvie was a bit of a mystery to me at first.  I saw her on eBay for $9.99, but she only had part of her packaging, so there was no brand information or anything like that:

She's clearly an older doll, and I wanted to look at a bunch of vintage examples, so I bought her without hesitation.

I also bought her so that I could figure out who she is!

Mystery lady.

Her listing said "pregnant Skipper," which I hoped wasn't the case.  Skipper is too young to be having a baby.

Sylvie has a nice outfit.  It looks like it's made out of linen, and there are multiple pieces.  She also has a head scarf and red sunglasses (but I'm not sure the glasses are original):

And her shoes are missing.

She has a realistic pregnancy shape in profile:

I was eager to see the face under those sunglasses!

Here she is:

I know her!

She has a distinct face that looks familiar.  She's a Steffi Love doll.  Here's a modern Steffi that's currently for sale on Amazon:

The koalas are great.

There's a similarity, right?  But the doll I got looks much older than the modern Steffi dolls.  So she must be a vintage Steffi.

I'm not sure when the first pregnant Steffi came out, except that it was sometime in the 1990s  I scoured internet photos for clues.  I found Steffi dolls with similar backdrops and their full boxes, like the one I showed you earlier:

That backdrop is just like Sylvie's!

But none of the boxes have dates, so I have no concrete data.  My best guess is that Sylvie is from 1999.

She has blonde, almost silvery hair (hence her name).  The texture is dry and unpleasant, but the rooting is pretty good:

It's possible that the hair was nice back in the 90s, but has dried out over time.  This is what a lot of collectors fear about polypropylene: it won't age well.

Sylvie's outfit has three separate pieces.  Underneath the polka-dotted pinafore there's a white long-sleeved shirt that looks very comfy:

Lena might borrow that at some point.

And underneath the shirt, there's a bra!

That's an uncommon finding on a play doll.

And underneath the pink linen pants, there's a matching pair of panties:

Sylvie's outfit is great, but her body is...odd:

Whose torso is that?

She has a plastic torso with vinyl arms and legs, but the color of her torso does not match the rest of her body.  And I mean it really doesn't match.  Like somebody got the body part bins mixed up.

Her pregnant belly is oval-shaped and not very natural-looking, especially in profile:

But she has a Simba mark on her back, so at least we can be sure of her brand:

She's definitely a Steffi Love doll.

Like Judith, Sylvie has seven points of articulation (neck, shoulders, hips, internal knees) and her head is ball jointed, so she can easily look up and down...or remove her head altogether:

Here's Sylvie next to Judith:

Mommy-to-Be Judith (left) and Simba's New Born Baby Steffi Love (right).

There are a lot of similarities here, but the two dolls clearly have different body molds.  Do they have different babies, though?  Only Midge knows that.

Yes, so as I was saying, Sylvie gave birth last month.

We all thought she was carrying a little strangely, and nobody could guess if it would be a boy or a girl.

Her belly was very big, round, and hard.

Yeah, like a giant mushroom growing out of her torso.

But it came off without too much trouble.

And Sylvie's baby was born!

And...well, let's just say that the baby takes after her mother.

She was an active little tyke!  Arms and legs flailing all around.

I believe Sylvie named the baby Dawn: when light and dark mix together.

Sylvie did pretty well after the birth.  She has a rotating belly compartment like some of the cheap Amazon dolls:

So once the baby is gone, the belly plate can spin around...

And reveal a nice flat stomach:

Now we know where the knockoff dolls got their body design.

One of the great things about Sylvie's outfit is that she can wear the polka dot pinafore by itself, as a short dress, which is a fresh look for her after the baby has arrived:

Okay, so she's not a perfect doll, but I'm happy to have her in my collection as an interesting piece of history.

And her birth experience was pretty good, right Lena?

I don't know. That baby is really weird.  I'm not sure I can handle all of this!

IAN!  Can we have more ice cream, please?

Yes, my love, of course. This is all we have left.

Okay so look.  I need a good experience with no crazy stuff happening.  Do you have anything like that to share?

Yes, I think so.  I'll tell you about my good friend Karen.

Karen was among the pioneers of the pregnant fashion doll world, coming out shortly after Judith in 1992.  She was made by the Raffoler company, which specializes in mail-order merchandise.

Karen dolls are quite easy to find on eBay these days, and tend to cost between $20 and $80, depending on the condition.  In the 90s, the dolls were mail-order items, so they shipped in plain brown boxes.  Because of this, getting the original packaging was not important to me.  But the dolls also came with papers that I was interested in looking at, so I made sure to get a doll who came with all of her original items.  This one cost $48:

Raffoler pregnant Karen doll, 1992.

The first piece of paper describes how the stomach mechanism works.  Basically, the pregnant belly is removed and then replaced by a separate flat belly piece...which came taped to the instructions:

Part of the fun is that as soon as the pregnant belly is removed we "will know whether Karen has a new little girl or a new little boy."  So I'm expecting the baby to be anatomically correct.

The other paper is a birth certificate for the baby:

I would have enjoyed this when I was a kid, especially the naming part.

Designing dolls that can balance on their own does not seem to have been a big priority in the early 90s.  Thanks to her wobbly vinyl legs, Karen needs the help of a stand to stay upright:

She has a cute, worried face with side-glancing eyes and pale pink lips:

Her dress is long and shapeless, with a loud floral pattern.  There's also a pink ribbon accent on the bodice, and part of the ribbon is sticking straight up and won't lie flat.  Sorry about that.  I don't think people actually dressed like this in the 90s, but maybe I've repressed it.

The dress is so large that it's hard to see any kind of pregnancy bump:

Karen's black hair is straight, voluminous, and dry.  It was difficult to keep it tidy.  Brushing only made it worse:

The rooting is good, though, which explains the generous volume:

Underneath her dress, Karen is wearing a pair of simple white boxer-style underpants:

Here she is without her underwear:

It's another case of the short arm syndrome!  Those arms look funny to me.  My hands reach down past my hips to below crotch level.  But maybe I'm the weird one?

Karen also has the smallest pregnancy belly that we've seen so far, which might explain why the dress hid her condition so well:

Karen has five points of articulation (neck, shoulders, hips).  Her neck is a ball joint, so her head is easily removable--just like Judith and Sylvie.  Her shoulders are simple rotational joints, but her arms (and legs) are made out of flexible vinyl, so she has some nice mobility for play.  Her hips are rotating hinges, so she can do full side-to-side splits:

And full front-to-back splits:

The catch is that her hip joints are extremely hard to move.  At first I thought her legs were fused to her body because I couldn't move them at all.  With some effort, they loosened up a bit.  There's still a lot of friction between the flexible vinyl of the legs and the hard plastic of the torso.

Here's Karen next to Judith and Sylvie:

Pregnant dolls, from left: Mommy-to-Be Judith, Steffi Love (Sylvie), and Karen.

They all have their own unique body shape, even though Judith and Sylvie have very similar birthing mechanisms.

I wonder how Karen's baby will be born?  Midge will have to tell us. 

It was very straightforward, I promise.

She hid her pregnancy so well, I think many of her friends were surprised when she went to stork land!

That little belly came off easily.

And at first, it looked like there was no baby at all!

But then a little face became visible.

Or maybe I should say a large face!  A surprisingly big baby emerged.

It's a little boy...with very pale lips.

He had a big scratch on the back of his head, but the doctors weren't worried.

Karen decided to name him Max, because of his impressive size!

To me, Max looks like a normal-sized baby and all of the others seem way too small.  But whatever.

After the birth, Karen's flat tummy snapped right on and now she has a (fairly) normal figure:

Her profile is strange, and I worry about that belly plate getting lost, but it's a decent mechanism overall.  And, as we saw, it puts less of a size constraint on the baby than the other designs.

Once thing I should mention is that while the pregnant belly came off easily, the flat belly is much harder to remove.  I followed the instructions carefully, but still struggled.

Karen's dress looks the same postpartum as it did when she was pregnant:

Time to go shopping for new clothes.

I hope Lena liked that birth story!

Baby Max is so big, though.  That makes me nervous.

Babies like Max are pretty normal, Lena.  It's nothing to worry about!

In fact, I have another friend, Beth, who had a baby exactly the same size!  I can tell you her story, too.

This purchase was another case of me being fascinated and wanting to solve a mystery.  Beth came in her box, with a Toys R Us price tag still attached!

$8.99 seems like a good deal.

Beth is from the Baby Surprise line, and has a Grand Toys company logo on her box.  I've never heard of Grand Toys before.  I gather it's a Canadian toy distribution company that handles products from lots of different manufacturers.  That tracks, since this doll came from Canada.

There's another stork on this box, and apparently the babies can be boys, girls, or twins!

If the baby is the same size as Max, like Midge claims, then I have no idea how twins would fit inside a single doll.

The perplexing thing here is that the actual doll looks like this:

And photograph on the box is the white version of Karen:

I'd know those side-glancing eyes anywhere.

And the babies are the same mold as Karen's babies.

There's another giant picture of Karen on the back:

I'm not sure what to make of this, but it sure looks like Karen photos were used to advertise a somewhat different doll.  Beth's details will tell us more.

She was still attached to her blue backdrop, which slid out of the main box:

She comes with a flat belly plate, a blanket, and a baby carrier:

The flat belly plate looks just like Karen's.

Beth can't stand on her own, but I've come to expect that of these vintage dolls:

She has a Barbie-like face with a big wide forehead, blue eyes, and a toothy grin:

Her hair is a curly, brown, frizzy mess...much like my own.  I wasn't able to brush it very well.  The rooting is good, though:

Beth's dress is better than Karen's.  It's knee-length, with ruffled sleeves and a nice blue and yellow flower print.  It hides the pregnancy well, too:

Underneath the dress, Beth has the same style of underpants as Karen:

And she has the exact same body, as far as I can tell:

Baby Surprise doll (left) and Karen doll (right).

Neither doll has any markings on their body other than a molded "made in China" on their backs.

I'm assuming that Beth has the same pregnancy mechanism as Karen, but we'll find out.

Beth did really well with her delivery.

Her labor was quick and easy.

And that little belly came off with no trouble at all!

The baby's head was big, sure...

But he came out smoothly and was totally healthy...

Despite some, ah, some little white marks all over.

But babies can look funny when they're born!  It's fine.  Everything's fine.

I can vouch for the funny-looking baby thing.  On the other hand, I have no idea what that white stuff is.  It doesn't wash off and it creeps me out a little.

Also, incidentally, I tried to put both Max and the new baby into Beth's body, to see if twins would be possible.  Despite both babies being made out of slightly flexible vinyl, this didn't work no matter what configuration I tried:

The twins are a lie.

But Beth's flat tummy panel snapped in with no trouble.  Thanks to that dress, she looks exactly the same as when she was pregnant:

I'm still not quite sure what to make of this doll.  She's exactly like Karen except for her head.  There's no real difference in quality.  Maybe she's the version of Karen that was distributed in Canada?  A version of Karen that was sold on toy store shelves instead of via mail order??  I might never know because there's very little information available about this doll.

Let's get back to Midge and Lena:

You see?  Big babies are not a problem.

I don't know, Midge.  The white stuff on him was icky.  I'm not feeling great.

Oh, gosh.  Well I have another story I could tell you, but it wasn't exactly a smooth delivery.

Go ahead.  I've heard about lost legs, gaping stomach holes, and babies that are moldy, mismatched and big.  How much worse could it be?

Okay, then.  Brace yourself.  I'll tell you about my friend Susy.

Susy was another vintage eBay find.  She's a Danish doll made by K.E. Mathiasen.  I think, based on her features and her eBay auction description, that she was released in around 1992 and purchased in Sweden:

K.E. Mathiasen Mother and Baby doll, 1992.

I wish I knew what her original packaging looked like.  I think it might have been similar to this:

Dockan som väntar barn means "the doll expecting a baby" in Swedish.

It's really easy to get confused about Susy, because other pregnant dolls share her face mold and pregnancy features but have different packaging and branding.

For example, Plasty made a nearly identical doll for the German market called Mam & Baby.  I think the Mam & Baby dolls are technically part of Plasty's famous Petra line, although not all of the boxes have Petra's name on them.  Incidentally, Plasty is owned by Lundby, which is the same company known for their 1:18 dollhouse dolls.  

I found a generous eBay seller who let me used her photo of a ~1992 Plasty Mam & Baby doll:

Plasty/Lundby Mam & Baby doll (~1992) photo courtesy of keycoobella on eBay.

This doll has both Plasty and Lundby marks on the back of her box:

Photo courtesy of keycoobella on eBay.

In 1993, Hasbro bought the rights to market a very similar doll called Mommy's Secret Surprise in North America.  These are fairly easy to find on the secondary market right now:

Hasbro Mommy's Secret Surprise, 1993.

I couldn't dig up much more of Susy's background, but if any of you have corrections or additions based on your own experience, I'd love to know!  I've become slightly obsessed with all of the different variations.

One thing I should say is that my findings here, with the K.E. Mathiasen Susy doll, don't necessarily translate to the other versions.  I don't know if things like hair quality are consistent across all three companies.

I think Susy has a really pretty face--certainly my favorite face of the pregnant dolls shown here today:

A little dirty, but still pretty.

Her dress is another shapeless floral muumuu type thing, but she has a nice big belly, so she still looks pregnant in profile:

Her blonde hair is glossy and soft, even after all of these years:

So it was possible to make good doll hair in the 90s.

And the rooting is good, too:

Underneath her dress, Susy has a hard plastic body with vinyl arms and legs.  Her arms and legs are nowhere near as flexible as Karen's arms:

She has a nice pregnancy profile, but her belly goes up pretty high on her chest:

Looks hard to breathe.

Susy's back has a molded K.E. Leg stamp (leg means "play" in Danish, as in the LEGO name).  This is the mark used for K.E. Mathiasen dolls.  I think the picture is a little Royal Danish Guard:

Susy has seven points of articulation (neck, shoulders, hips, and knees)...or eight if you count her belly!

Her neck is a ball joint (with an easily removable head) and her shoulders and hips are simple rotational joints.

Her knees are internal joints that can click into two bent positions:

She's a really lovely doll, and I was excited to see her baby!

I don't know, Lena.  I'm nervous to tell you about this next part.

Things started off well. It seemed like Susy's belly would simply rotate to the side to reveal the baby.

But the belly wouldn't budge.  It was stuck!

The doctors tried prying the edge of the belly upwards with a screwdriver, but that didn't work.

Then they tried heating the belly, but it still wouldn't move!

The only option left was to remove Susy's head...

And then take out the four screws on her back.

This allowed the body to be split in half.

And, finally, the belly was free!

And the little baby could be born.

It was worth the trouble, I think, because it's another cute redhead!

And he's a boy.

Um...we've seen him before.

He looks a lot like James, but he has a big birth mark on his face.  Susy named him Sam.

Once Sam was safely delivered, it was time to put Susy back together!

The belly has a pregnant side and a flat side, with a compartment in between.

When the two sides of Susy's body were put back together, they held the belly in place.

And now it spins around without any trouble...

So Susy can have her pre-pregnancy body back!

And then if she ever wants to get pregnant again, the lid on the belly lifts off and the baby compartment is accessible.

It's a nice happy ending! Right Lena?

Lena?  Lena!  Are you okay??

That was horrific.  How am I ever going to do this?

There are so many things that can go wrong.

That was the worst story of all, Midge.

Yeah, it was really bad.  

What had happened was that the baby pushed the belly compartment open so that the flat belly piece was loose inside Susy's body.  It was blocking the turning mechanism.  My suspicion is that baby Sam is not the original baby that was included with Susy.  It looks like he was stolen from a Judith doll.  Susy babies are typically smaller.  So the large imposter baby pushed open the belly compartment and jammed up the rotating mechanism.

And, by the way, the doctors should not have used a screwdriver.  That was a terrible idea, and left behind some dents in the belly.  Regrets.

Okay, well I have another friend just like Susy, and she had a great experience!

Yes, thank goodness there's another Susy-like doll to look at!  Once I realized that the first Susy's belly was stuck, I went to eBay and found another example--just in case I wasn't able to get that first baby out.

The second Susy that I bought is very similar to the first, with the same face and body.  She did not come in her original clothes, so I have her dressed in the Steffi Love pink pants and a random pink tee shirt that came with her:

I call this girl Sanna.

Sanna has the same face as the first Susy, with a slightly different hairstyle:

Her factory hairstyle was let down and her hair was straightened, so this isn't what she originally looked like.

As you can see, her body is just like Susy's:

But she has a little white arrow on her belly, showing which is the right way to rotate it:

One key piece of information about this girl is that she does not have the K.E. Leg mark on her back, but rather a simpler "CO" marking.  I think this was to make way for speakers and a battery compartment:

Or maybe she's not a K.E. Mathiason doll?

Sanna apparently has a sound feature!  That's a fun surprise.  It's also an interesting clue as to which exact doll she might be.  I know from my internet sleuthing (i.e. one tiny hard-to-see photo I stumbled upon) that some of the Plasty Mam & Baby Petra dolls have a sound feature:

Maybe this is Sanna?  No way to tell for sure.

Anyway, there was a lot of corrosion and some old batteries in that compartment, but I got everything cleaned up so that we can test out the sound once the baby is born.

Yes, about that baby being born, let me tell the story.

Sanna was so calm and happy during her whole labor!

And the doctors knew exactly what to do because of that helpful little arrow.

Her belly spun around so easily, she didn't feel a thing.

And then a...um, cute (?) baby came out!

It was a little boy with the brightest, most possessed--I mean vibrant!  Vibrant eyes!  They're vibrant blue eyes.

He flailed his arms and legs all around, and looked hungry right away.

Hungry for brains, sure.

And he has the cutest little bottom.

So that was a really good story!

It's okay, but I feel like I should mention that Sanna's flat belly plate is missing, so she has a big gaping hole in her torso once the baby is born.

Her clothes can cover it to some extent:

But I wish she wasn't missing that piece.  I tried to use the first Susy's belly plate on her:

The pants held it in place for a minute or two.

But it has different attachment points, so it doesn't fit.  That's another piece of evidence that perhaps Sanna is a Petra doll, not a Susy doll.

But let's find out if the sound feature works!

I popped in the batteries and screwed the battery compartment lid back on.  The sound feature still works, and is triggered by a light sensor on the inside of the belly compartment, which is really clever.

The actual sound is not the greatest, though.  It's the baby crying hysterically:

I don't think I'll be using that feature very often.

Okay, so the birth was easy, but she had a zombie baby who cries all of the time!  And she has a big hole in her belly like the very first story you told me!

Okay, maybe I messed up.  Show Lena all of the cute babies, Emily.  Quick!

Good idea. They are pretty cute, or at least some of them are.  Here are the ones that can sit up on their own:

From left: #1-3 are from knockoff dolls, Joyce baby, Mommy-to-Be Judith baby, Steffi Love baby, another Judith baby, Susy/Petra baby.

And here are all of the different types:

From left:1-4 are from knockoff dolls, Joyce baby, Mommy-to-Be Judith baby, Steffi Love baby, Karen baby, another Judith baby, Susy/Petra baby.

My favorites are the first baby, with that Kewpie face, the Karen babies, and the sleeping Joyce baby.

I know Midge has some more stories.  Do you want to hear them, Lena?

Honestly, Emily, I need a break.  That was a lot.  Maybe Midge can come back another day.

Okay, Lena, that's fair.  I think we could all use a break.

Bottom line?  It was fun to explore some of the very first pregnant fashion dolls to hit the market--and the knockoffs that tried to copy them.  Judith, Steffi, and Susy were all pioneers who tested the waters and cleared the way for the iconic Midge to make her debut more than ten years later.

Of those three types of doll, Susy is my favorite.  She has a lovely face, silky hair, decent articulation, and a clever birthing mechanism.  The trouble I had with the first Susy was because the baby didn't fit inside the chamber very well.  It's not the original baby, but rather one taken from a Judith doll.  With the second Susy (or Susy-adjacent) doll, we got to see what the babies are supposed to look like...and they're not very cute.  First of all, they're tiny.  But that's probably so that they don't jam up the birth mechanism and also so that twins can be an option.  What's worse is that they have beady little zombie eyes.  But the mold is fine, so maybe a bit of eye paint will fix the problem.  Overall, I'm a big fan of the Susy dolls and I wish I knew more about them.  They seem to be quite rare.  I also like Judith and Steffi, especially for their place in history.  I'm happy to finally have a Judith who didn't lose her legs, and someday I'd love to find an older Steffi doll who isn't discolored.

It was less fun to see the Barbie clones that are so prevalent at places like Amazon and AliExpress.  These are made out of very low-quality materials, with bad hair and cheap clothing.  The nice thing about most of these dolls is that they have easy-to-use birth mechanisms with pop-up flat tummies: a technology no doubt stolen from Steffi Love.  One style of baby even has arm and leg articulation, which I was not expecting.  Some of the dolls are definitely better than others, but they all look similar online, so it's hard to know what you're getting until you have it in your hands.  Not worth the risk, if you ask me.

There are several more pregnant dolls that I want to look at, including some modern Steffi Love options and of course the new Mom & Baby Zuru dolls.  So I'll give Lena a bit of a break and then Midge and I will be back with what I hope are some new and uplifting stories for her!