The Pencil Test

At my 11 week ultrasound, the radiology tech gave me her guess of what the sex of our little peanut is. I asked her if that was just a "guess guess" or if she could actually see something. She said it's an educated guess based on her training and experience, but we won't have confirmation until January or February. And you know, waiting just isn't any fun.

Last week while at Walmart with Mom, a friend told us to do the Pencil Test - which I'd never heard of, but Mom had. She said to tie a string to the eraser end of a pencil and hold it over my tummy and if it spun or made a circle it was a girl, and if it went up and down the length of my body then it was a boy. Have you ever heard of this? I confess, it stirred images of a craggy old witch chanting as she stood over some pregnant woman who just wanted to know the sex of her baby. But, considering that we don't know any witches and we don't chant, we decided we'd give it a try.

Mom and I went back to her house and she dug out a pencil and some string. She'd heard of the test, but was told to do it over my wrist. First, you have to understand that my Mom and I can't do anything like this without laughing and giggling the entire time. I videod to try to get the results on camera, but I think we laughed too much. I googled the Pencil Test and found some conflicting (and concerning) information. We decided the string was getting twisted and we weren't getting a true result, so we called my aunt Charlotte, because it was her relative that initially told Mom about the test and we figured she'd be an authority on the subject. She told us to stick a needle into the eraser and thread the string through the needle and hold it over my wrist. I'm telling you, this felt like the most hocus pocus thing I've ever done and we couldn't stop laughing about it. We never really got conclusive results, over my tummy or over my wrist.

I had D try it with me the next morning. He didn't giggle nearly as much as Mom did. I'm wondering if the person holding the string has to be like someone who's witching for water and have "the touch", because we got the same inconclusive results as the night before. I guess I will have to either find someone with "the touch" or just wait a couple of months to get word from the doctor. Based on our highly technical test results, I think the Pencil Test may be hocus pocus, but it gave us a good laugh. :)