Danger Will Robinson, Danger!

A little bit of Google will make a grown woman crazy. It's like a knowledge slot machine-- will you get three lemons? If you do, beware, because that's a bitter dose of knowledge. I dare you to try-- first, pick a few innocuous terms, plug them into the google search bar, and pull the lever.

[Casino noise inserted here]

My first example: "estrogen." This should not be scary, folks, because let's face it, approximately 50% of the populace manufactures estrogen naturally. (Well, okay-- wait a minute, even men get estrogen too, but hopefully you are following the general gist here.) However when you put estrogen into good old Google, you get this, where you are immediately warned "Estrogen may increase the risk of heart attack, stroke, breast cancer, endometrial cancer, and blood clots in the lungs or legs." Super. (This bliss can also be achieved if one actually reads the information that comes with the estrogen patches. Still, this is about googling.) After reading this, it's helpful to pop that little blue pill chock full of heart attacks, strokes, breast cancer, endometrial cancer and blood clots, aka Estradiol, into your mouth. Mm-mm good!

Next, try this fun one: "pregnancy and overweight." You might google this because you are paranoid that you are already a bad mother even though you don't even have children because you are considering a pregnancy under less than optimal health conditions. (Sidebar: You might also think this because when you talk to friends about watching the Six Nations Rugby Tourney, you wonder how you will do this without having more than a few pints of the old ale. You might think often about the length of time you will have to give up booze. This will cause some serious mother guilt, even if you don't have children. Now back to googlemania and our current search terms, "pregnancy and overweight.") If you pick the first site that comes up, it's not so bad until you read this: "Being overweight and pregnant puts you at greater risk for complications such as preeclampsia and gestational diabetes." But that's nothing you didn't know already. So keep looking, and keep feeling worse, but don't forget to suck down that regular Coke, full of sugar, and then stumble upon this gem. So, okay, not only are you fat, but now you're dooming the kid before it's even born. You should stop googling now, but it's like a little drug of looming dark clouds (almost like the Estradiol!), and you just can't stop your fingers.

And you know you shouldn't, but you do it anyway, and you google "gestational diabetes," which is definitely pulling a three lemon result on google, and it's far to scary to even outline, so you think, you're done because you've got your winning result of doom and gloom for the day.

However, if you're like me, you then google a fairly vague like description of something the nurse said she saw on your Partner's ultrasound this morning. You weren't there, so you didn't see it, but when your partner calls you, you think, "Huh, that sounds odd. I think I'll google it!" Don't. Do. That. Because then fifteen minutes later you will be crying (probably because of the Estradiol) and thinking about how you will sell your house and ask your parents for a big loan and the lyrics to old Billy Joel songs will enter your head with words like "good" and "die" and "young." Somewhere along the line, you will call three of your good friends who will all tell you to calm the fuck down and stop attracting negative energy and you will mostly listen to them because what other choice do you have? Hopefully you will also remember that your primary calling in life is that of "writer" which means you make up all sorts of really good stories all the time, and this is probably another one of your (maudlin) fictions. After all, your partner has been having ultrasounds every two days, and this is the first time anyone has ever seen seemingly scary looking thingies in uterus, and according to your friend, Irish, maybe it was just a spot on the ultrasound screen. (Yeah! Yeah! A spot on the screen!) You will end up keeping your phone tucked at your side, because your partner said she told the RE office to call you after referring ultrasound images on to doctor, who will not only look at thingies in uterus, but also the nicely progressing follicles. Breath deep and focus on the good.

And then consider unplugging the internet connection on your computer in order to stop the incessant google searches, but realize if you do that, you will be cut off from the blogworld, and that will never do. Instead, consider valium, and then you can start the whole cycle of feeling like a bad mother even though you don't have kids and this can, in turn, initiate a brand spanking new round of google slots!

Have fun, kids!