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In addition,” (she sounded like a game show host. I started imagining Bob Barker on The Price is Right saying, “Come stand right over here and take a look and THIS!”) “as time progresses you'll receive the gift of discerning truth from your kids and you don't even need a magic lasso.”
    She saw that I was doubtful. She took my hand in both of hers and said, “Being a mom is the best thing going. I guess I can't describe it in a way that you can relate to; you have to experience it for yourself. Raising them is the most difficult and rewarding thing I've ever done. It is not what I imagined, but it's better in so many ways, and it has made me better person. I know right now you don't think it's possible, but you can do this. The universe has given you nine months to get ready. Listen to yourself. To God. Once you hold that baby in your arms, you'll be blown away by the amount of strength you have.”
    Back at home, I told Mike I was warming up to the idea of being a mother. While making me pancakes he said, “Hey I thought of something. Remember our list of dreams we wrote down in the cafeteria? We are fulfilling number 10 – having a family. One down, nine to go! Where is that list anyway?”
    I told him it was true that we were fulfilling the dream, but it was not how I had planned it. Then I said I didn't really feel like pancakes so we walked to Dairy Queen, and I ordered two foot long chili cheese dogs. Mike eyed me suspiciously. “So it's come to this, then, has it?”
    â€œWell,” I said taking a huge bite and continuing with my mouth full, “I am eating for two now.”
    Maybe being pregnant and having a kid would work out okay after all.
    Strangely, for the next two weeks, I seemed to have a violent case of the stomach flu. Friends told me it was morning sickness, but the book I was reading described a morning sickness far easier than what I was experiencing. To be safe, I saw my doctor who told me I might be “one of those women” who goes through a more violent morning sickness.
    â€œNothing to worry about,” he said. “It should lessen by the end of the first trimester.”
    I came home depressed thinking I had two more months of throwing up. I told Mike I was likely “one of those women,” a fact which didn't surprise him.
    In the weeks that followed, my body became the host for an extraterrestrial life form that was intent on taking over. I recalled the movie Alien and the disturbing scene of a reptilian-like head pushing its way out the stomach of its human host. My whole system received some subversive message in my recollection and revolted. I was so ill I couldn't even keep down water. I threw up so many times a day I got tired of making the trek back and forth from the bed to the toilet and set up camp in the form of a blanket and pillow right on the tile floor so I could be close to my porcelain altar. Here, I thought, my very life was being sacrificed. I dropped out of classes. I dropped out of life.
    Experienced, well meaning friends came by and offered me ginger cookies. They brought over meals like “tuna surprise,” which looked curiously similar to something I offered up in my altar earlier that morning. A few women from church who dropped by had been pregnant themselves, so I listened to all of their hints. Hopeful, I ate a whole box of saltine crackers and waited. It was not long before they reappeared for an encore. Tonic water, one said. Dry toast for sure, said another. Nothing worked. By the time I was into the 3rd month I had lost 11 pounds. The doctor was concerned, as I was thin to begin with. He admitted me to the hospital for hydration and prescribed medication to calm my nausea.
    True to the doctor's prediction, by the end of the first trimester, I rebounded. I was ravenous. I made up for three months of no food in one sitting. I leaned back in the chair, patted my distended belly with