A boy named Cate

Pregnancy is a journey down the rabbit hole. The wonderland of expectation rarely involves croquet or Cheshire cats, but it is chock full of characters telling you what to do based on crackers laudanum logic.

What to expect. 

Happily, pregnancy is also a journey into the kindness of strangers (not the Tennessee Williams kind).

Strangers regularly express sympathy over my frontal planet and offer directions to the nearest swimming hole. The random kindness phenomenon happens even in Britain, where late pregnancy is considered one of the only acceptable loopholes in the no-conversing-with-strangers rule.

Friends and family have again surrounded me with help, affection, celebration, delicious food (including suggestive cake...) and a plethora of lovely little boy-shaped clothes.

In my pre-ultrasound days, acquaintances proved surprisingly astute at detecting the presence of a boy, in spite of my insistence that I was carrying a girl called Cate. Apparently my shape (large beach ball) and that green pallor in my cheeks all indicated a male of the species.

My own predictive abilities are weaker. I have now thrice mispredicted the gender of my children, and twice mispredicted the birth date. So I've quit trying to predict anything. For the moment, all this generous good will it is a lovely way to pass time while I await my date with the inductioner (out with her baby!).

I know from experience that some of this voluntary kindness will will taper off when I am the proud owner of a screaming infant.