Safety pins, superstitions and the Sustaita's

I spent a few days at home during the holiday break and came back a little bit wiser on my family's pregnancy superstitions traditions.

Allow me to educate you. First, did you know that if the "father to be" does not experience any pregnancy symptoms, then the baby will be a girl? This piece of knowledge was passed down to me by my dad. Our first conversation went as follows:

Dad: Hi Gorda (translation: chubby), how is Geoffrey feeling?
Me: Fine, why?
Dad: He doesn't have any of your pregnancy symptoms: nausea, faintness, cravings?
Me: Nope.
Dad: Oh, then you are going to have a girl.

He then proceeded to ask me to stand up so he could see my "bump" and noted that since I was carrying "low", that also confirmed that I will be having a girl (altho, I've read it should be the opposite!).

Next, my mother, along with a few of my aunts/cousins, insist that we will have a boy simply by looking at the ultrasound. The reasoning behind this is that "boys develop faster" and since they are already able to make out LT's body/limbs, they've come to the assumption that LT must be a boy!

My mother also has indulged all my cravings (mostly for her Mexican food, which have always been there btw), because she doesn't want LT to always have an "open mouth". She still encourages me to fulfill my cravings so that this doesn't affect the baby.

However, the most interesting of these traditions involves safety pins, red underwear and eclipses. And wouldn't you know it, I happened to be home during the recent eclipse in December! My mother made my little sister go out and buy me a box of safety pins to--get this--put on my underwear (red is the preferred color for underwear)! I was also forbidden to go out during the eclipse or to take a shower the day of the eclipse. The reasoning behind this is that eclipses have such strong force fields that they do harm to babies in the womb. They may be born with a deformity. Apparently, when my younger sister was pregnant and living at home, she would get her laundry back and find that all her underwear had safety pins on them. I decided to do a little research and it turns out that this tradition dates back to the Aztecs, who believed that "an eclipse was a bite on the face of the moon" and if  a mother-to-be watched it, the same thing would happen to her baby. Interesting, huh? You can read more about this here or other Latino pregnancy traditions here.

My mom insists that I wear safety pins on my undies for the rest of my pregnancy and as a loving daughter, I shall oblige, even if I do find it a little whacky.

Also, we find out the gender of LT this week! I am taking an official poll of what people think we will have. Comment your guess!