Sweet Little Lies

As a pregnant woman I am all about the sweet little lies and superstitions.

The coffee pot and filter get washed in the dishwasher every night. I don't use dishcloths more than once. Laundry gets done more often. I am well aware that none of these actions will actually prevent a miscarraige but, as far as I am concerned, they are the magic tailsmans. There is actually basically nothing you can do to prevent miscarraige, outside the obvious, particuarly in the first trimester. It's all about genes. If your baby has something catastrophically wrong, you will miscarry. If your body is unable to support a pregnancy, you will miscarry. It's not, inherently, a bad thing. It was a pregnancy with catastrophic problems. At the same time, tell that to any pregnant woman, anywhere, and see how chipper she is about the whole thing.

The other night I had a recurrent dream. There was a long, black snake in the house. It was hiding under the trashcan. I was standing outside the house and trying to hold the door closed so that the snake couldn't get out and bite me but the snake was too strong. I had the dream twice. It never actually completed but, the second time I thought about it a little and decided that the snake wasn't going to bite me. It would scare me to death and stare at me but not bite me. I decided, in the bizzare way of the pregnant woman, that this meant I wouldn't have a miscarraige. The snake represented miscarraige and it would scare the bejebers out of me but, ultimately, not strike. Whether this has any basis in fact at all is beside the point. I now derive comfort from remembering a big black snake that passed me by.

Pregnant women are really wierd.