Psychic, or crazy, whichever comes first

Because it's Monday, and I'm home alone, and I have to work the rest of the week, and it's crappy weather outside, and my stupid carbon monoxide detector keeps beeping almost every minute saying "Low Battery" and I can't figure out how to turn the damn sucker off...I thought I might try to distract myself and write a fun light hearted post.

Do you believe in psychic abilities? I'm not sure I do. I certainly don't believe it works the way it does in movies where the psychic can turn the ability on and off at will, or that the psychic goes into a trace like state and 'sees' the exact thing that will help solve the mystery or the crime. But I do believe that our brains have a lot of untapped resources and some of these might include heightened awareness.

People in my mom's family believe in psychic abilities. While I was pregnant, my aunt actually visited a 'professional psychic' (yeah I know...sounds super hokey if you ask me). He told her, among many other things, that she knows a nurse...and that that nurse would have a son. A little strange, I guess...but come on...nursing is a very large profession. Pretty much all of us either know a nurse or have come into contact with one on occasion...and half the babies born these day are, ya know, boys. Still...it was kind of 'odd'. When I found this out my first thought was "did the psychic happen to mention if that nurse would have any other kids?! Like you know...soonish?" Sadly not.

My mom herself actually claims to have had some psychic experiences in her life. She doesn't go on and on about them or anything, but whenever the subject comes up she reminds us of how, as a child she possibly saved the life of her younger brother. Early one morning, when she was about 7 or 8 years old, my mom had a dream that the curtains in her bedroom were on fire. This scared her and made her get up and go downstairs. She didn't know it but, her youngest brother was already up and was making tea for their mom. Unfortunately to heat up the water he had to use the gas stove. When my mom got to the bottom of the stairs, she saw her little brother, aged 4 or 5, standing silently in the doorway of the kitchen, not speaking, not crying, just standing there...with his night shirt on fire. My mom screamed and her mother came running. My grandmother was able to grab her youngest son and put out the fire, but sustained bad burns on her hands. My uncle spent months in the hospital recovering from 2nd and 3rd degree burns to his chest and neck.

Freaky huh? Now you could explain it a million different ways, I'm sure. My mom heard him get up and that's what made her get up. She heard him use the stove and that caused her dream about fire, and it was a total coincidence that he happened to at that moment be catching his own clothes on fire. There may be a total rational explanation, but it's still a little odd.

I have never had anything quite so dramatic happen. I've never saved any one's life by any intuition (other than nurses intuition and that's a developed skill which would be a whole post unto itself), but the last couple of weeks I've had two things happen which I would consider took advantage of my 'heightened awareness'. Not grand things, or even that important really...but when both of my 'inklings' turned out to be correct, it made me pause and go 'hum...interesting'.

The first I've already mentioned in a previous post. When I met my preceptor at my new job she, in passing mentioned her kids. She referred to her eldest daughter as 'Amelia'. Amelia is the name that was the runner up for my best friend's daughter who is now 6 months old. If she had been born before noon on her due date, she would have been named Amelia. Since she was born after that, my friend got her way and her daughter's name is what it is now. I secretly wanted my friend's daughter to be named Amelia because it of course sounds like the exotic version of my name "Emily". Anyway, then my preceptor said something about her son. She referred to him only as 'my son'. When she did this I immediately thought I bet his name is Aidan. A few hours later, at lunch I asked her what her children's names were. She confirmed my intuition. I have yet to ask her how her son's name is spelt. I'm curious to see if it's the 'correct' spelling Aidan, or if she went with the Americanized version Aiden.

Okay, I know...not earth shattering...especially considering Aidan/Aiden has become super popular. But still, it was funny that I immediately thought that ahead of time as soon as I heard she had a son. My intuition was likely based on knowing her daughter's name was Amelia. Another soft name which flows nicely with Aidan. With a daughter named Amelia there was no way her son was named Hunter (too last namey) or Blake (too wishy-washy) or Justin (too rough and tumble)...those names just wouldn't flow with Amelia. Still of all the manly soft boy names that are popular right now such as William, Ethan, or Owen (or 7 years ago when she named him), it was kind of odd that his name was Aidan...and that I knew it ahead of time.

The other happened this past weekend. First some background info.

My friend, A. got married last year, (on August 15th 2009, exactly one year prior to my due date) to a guy that I don't know that well. She met him after I had moved away from the city that we grew up in together, and we currently live about two hours away from each other and don't get to spend that much time together. I hardly knew him at all before they got married last summer, but in the days leading up to the wedding I got to know him and his family a little better. I met his parents and his two sisters. His eldest sister looks just like him. His youngest doesn't at all. She is Korean and was adopted from Korea as a child.

A. and her husband came to visit us this past weekend and it was the first time I'd seen them since before my pregnancy. I was a little nervous about them coming because it would be 'the first time since the dead baby'. Would we talk about Aidan? Avoid him entirely? He's been the biggest change in my life since I last saw them, so how could we not talk about him? I was also nervous because I don't know how her husband was going to react to dead baby talk. Would he think we were odd? Would he act all uncomfortable? I was a little worried...but then I had the thought "he probably won't be weirded out at all...he has an adopted sister...I bet his parents lost a baby too." I suppose I thought that because his family mirrors my father's. Two biological children, and the third adopted, after my grandparents experienced the stillbirth of their third.

So, they arrived and we chatted and we went out for dinner and then something about death came up and I mentioned that we haven't yet put Aidan's ashes in the ground because I couldn't bear to leave him if we decided to move. My friend agreed this would be difficult and then turned to her husband and said

A: "Isn't Christopher buried somewhere near your house? Does your mom ever go see him?".

A.'s husband: "Yeah she still goes there on occasion".

And just like that I found out my friend's husband has an older brother who died when he was 5 days old. He was three years older than my friend's husband and was his parent's first baby. He suffered a lack of oxygen during delivery and his parents were told he would grow up with severe cerebral palsy. He is buried in the cemetery of their small rural town, where his parents have lived all their married lives. He was not younger than A.'s husband like in my father's family...but still a pretty good 'guess' on my part.

So my pregnancy, along with widened hips and 7 lbs weight gain, has granted me Aidan name intuition and dead baby radar.

I'm a freak of nature.

Now, if only I could figure out how to rip the batteries out of my carbon monoxide detector, life would just be peachy.

Do you believe in psychic abilities? Ever had any 'funny' experiences? Did your pregnancy grant you special powers like mine, or did all you get was stretch marks and a belly pooch?