Old Wives’ Tales

I never bought into the myriad old wives’ tales that supposedly predict your baby’s gender. First off, those old wives of yore saw nothing wrong with throwing back a glass of wine or two or three to ease the discomforts of pregnancy. And I know that if I drank as much as my aching and complaining pregnant body desired . . . Well, the only thing I’d be good at predicting is a hangover in the morning.

But really there are two main reasons I reject old wives’ tales. One, I can’t keep them straight. My cold feet means I’m carrying a boy? My craving sweets means I’m carrying a girl? What does my willingness to strangle perfect strangers mean?

Reason #2 is even more convincing though: no one else can keep these darn things straight either! I can’t tell you how many times someone came up to me while I was pregnant with Lilly and said, “Oh look at you carrying high — it’s a girl!” and then another person ten minutes later would say, “See, you’re carrying it all up front, nothing in the back — it’s a boy!”

The most annoying people were the ones who insisted they were right.

Annoying Person: Morning sickness, huh? I had it with both my boys. It must be a boy!

Me: Actually, it’s a girl.

Annoying Person: You never know! It still might be a boy!

Me: Well, I saw her ovaries and vagina on the ultrasound. So, I think it’s a girl.

Annoying Person: Just you wait!! It’s going to be a boy!

Guess what? It was a girl.

So, for the record:

• Morning sickness? Yes, but not as bad as with Lilly
• Carrying low or high? Low
• Acne? Yes
• Cravings? Yes, sweet or fried
• Feet? Always cold, pregnant or not
• Intuition? Not really. Walking into the ultrasound, I told Elliott, “If I had to put my money on one, I’d say boy.”

So, I guess that brings us to the current moment. When, just this morning, for the heck of it I took this Old Wives’ Gender Predictor Quiz. The result:

Your score is 40%. Congratulations! According to the Old Wives it’s a girl!

Oh those crazy old wives! Sometimes they get it right.

But not this time! Ladies and gentlemen, meet Lilly’s baby brother . . .

I opted to shield my baby from embarrassing internet pictures for a few more months (at least), but I assure you he has a penis.

He’s a bull-headed one too. Always has to drive the point home. Last night we announced the big news to Elliott’s parents over dinner. His mom quickly pointed out that the old wives’ tale about morning sickness might actually be true since I was much sicker with Lilly. Elliott and I immediately shook our heads and said, “Nope, I don’t think so.”

We could have left it there. I would have been fine with that.

But Baby Boy and my body apparently thought it would be funny to close the chapter on gender prediction with a bang. So, upon returning home, I promptly threw up the complete contents of my stomach for the first time in weeks.

Ugh, message received. Please, no more predictions.

The Old Wives’ Tales by MushBrain, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Terms and conditions beyond the scope of this license may be available at mushbrain.net.