Old wives tale
Some old wives tales freak me out. I don’t take them to gospel as some people do - I’m carrying a girl to some people, a boy to others, just because of the way I look.
Heh, come on, I look like I do, because that’s my body’s make up. I have a long torso, so junior is able to squish up and look smaller than he/she is. I don’t have a huge belly, much as I’d love one, but I know I’m bigger today than I was last week and possibly will be even bigger next week. As long as Dr Max says all is well and bubs is growing fine, then I just have to ignore the insensitive people who tell me “gee, you’re small, you must have a small baby”. They just annoy me. Some times I think it’s better to not say anything at all - just be lovely and smiley and supportive. For heavens sake, hormones do enough damage to one’s ego - you don’t have to help that along!
Anyway, one old wives tale I heard recently really struck me as weird. Apparently if you have a craving, then scratch yourself, your baby will be born with a birthmark in the place you scratched. So if you were itching on your elbow and scratched after feeling a food craving, your baby will be born with a birthmark on it’s elbow.
Where do these stupid scare tales come from? What a horrid thing to tell a pregnant woman. It’s hard enough to wait for bubs to come out into the world and hope all is ok, not quite knowing anything for sure until you meet him/her. Why come up with something like this to scare the mother-to-be further? Harrumph.
3 weeks to go and no more old wives tales for me, thanks very much! I’ve had enough and just want to enjoy my last days of being a big fat pregnant woman. Goodness knows I’ve mostly enjoyed it up to this point.
July 15th, 2005 at 11:43 am
hey, i was just bloghopping and came along your site. i just have to say that i totally agree with you on how utterly insensitive people can be to pregnant women’s feelings! i’m just 31 weeks along and people have told me my baby’s probably going to be big because my tummy is big. it is so annoying!
July 16th, 2005 at 9:16 am
Oh boy, I know what you mean, Rae. With my first I was told she was “sure to be huge!” because I had a monster belly. Turned out that most of that was excess fluid, as I ended up with pre-eclampsia, and she was 6lbs born - not huge at all, thanks so much. Number 2 Daughter, I was constantly asked if “everything is OK” because “you look tiny!” and given nutrition advice by total strangers on the street. Funnily enough, no medical people were worried and rather favoured the idea that she would be a decent sized baby. What do you know, Elizabeth was 9lbs 4oz - not such a tiddler after all, despite what all the “old wives” predicted!