If you think nine months is a long time to be pregnant, spare a thought for the elephant mamas out there. They carry their offspring for almost two years before giving birth. The huge animals have the longest pregnancies of all mammals. But the 22 month gestation period is not just because of their size. Baby ellies need to stay in the womb that long for their incredible brains to develop properly.

Elephants are smart. Some would argue they’re even smarter than a few humans (read: poachers). Their brains have three times as many neurons as humans. And the babies are born really bright. Like really, really bright. Think about human babies for a minute. What can they do? Not much at all. For quite a while. They need help feeding, dressing, bathing, moving around, even burping. An elephant on the other hand is born ready. It’s able to keep up with the herd from the minute it's born. Scientists say this is all thanks to the extended time in mom’s womb.

Fairly recent research has found that mother elephants don’t miss a beat while pregnant. Or even shortly after. Rest? Ain't no mommy got time for that. Researchers from Oxford University worked with Save The Elephants to take a closer look at pregnancy and birth among African elephants. They put gps trackers on the giants and were amazed by what they found.

According to the university, “the average daily speed of the mother did not significantly change during pregnancy, birth and when moving with a newborn calf, except for a small dip in daily speed on the day of birth itself.” It turns out the mother elephants were just as fast the day before giving birth, as they were the day after.

"We speculate that this ability ‘to keep up’ may underpin why elephants have the longest gestation period [pregnancy] of any mammal in order to facilitate an advanced state of foetal physical development, and may have evolved to help elephant herds stay together," the lead author, Dr Lucy Taylor from the University of Oxford is quoted as saying.

On the other end of the preggie spectrum (for mammals) is an animal called the Virginia opossum, found in North America. And the rare water opossum, found in South America. According to Guinness World Records, “On rare occasions, gestation periods of as low as eight days have been recorded for some of these species.”

The marsupial moms can have up to 13 babies at a time. Unlike elephants, the babies are far from ready for life when they’re born. After birth, they crawl straight into their mother’s pouch. They stay there for at least two months. They keep cozy, nursing and feeding until they’re ready to face the big, wide world.

According to the the Wildlife Center of Virginia, “after two months, baby opossums open their eyes, and after a couple more weeks, start to emerge from the pouch and ride around on their mother’s back.” Opossums are only independent when they reach about four months old.

While elephants are born ready, aphids are born pregnant! The bugs reproduce at a rapid rate, and don’t even need a mate. The females can birth up to twelve live babies at a time. Most of which are also already pregnant. They’re considered pests to many farmers and gardeners. And it’s no surprise why. “Because each adult aphid can produce up to 80 offspring in a matter of a week, aphid populations can increase with great speed," warned the University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources.

Here’s another fun fact from the progressive world of animal pregnancies: Male seahorses are the ones tasked with falling pregnant and giving birth. Researchers from the University of Sydney studied seahorses to see just how they do it. “Fathers incubate their developing embryos in a pouch located on their tail. The pouch is the equivalent of the uterus of female mammals. It contains a placenta, supporting the growth and development of baby seahorses,” they revealed in this research paper.

The researchers described seahorse courtship as an elaborate process. “Males open and fill their pouch with water by bending forward and contracting their bodies to force water into the pouch, before ‘dancing’ with the female. Similarly, during labour, male seahorses bend their body towards the tail, pressing and then relaxing. This ‘pressing’ behaviour is accompanied by brief gaping of the pouch opening, with a series of whole-body jerks.” All of this allows seawater to flush through the pouch. And boom! Up to two thousand babies are born.

Animals are pretty impressive. Totally diverse in the way they carry and birth their babies. And most of the time, they do all of it without any help from a medical professional or midwife. Although, elephants are known to get by with a little help from their friends. The females sometimes form a circle around a mom while she's giving birth. After such a long pregnancy, who can blame a girl for needing as much protection and encouragement as possible?