Hoshanah Rabbah Custom for Pregnant Women

I have a new pet peeve which may become one of those small battles in my life that I'm willing to take on. It's apalling to me how difficult it is to find out about customs and prayers for women to say while pregnant. It's not like we haven't been procreating since the beginning of time. It's not as though this is a small or non-life-changing, non-life-threatening experience. There are a few books, but they're harder to find than you might think, and most women I know don't seem to be aware of them.

One example is Out Of The Depths I Call To You. Please note it is written by Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin, a female rabbi, so is likely to be disregarded immediately by Orthodox that say women can't be rabbis. (By the way, I happen to agree that women can't earn the same title of rabbi, but that the title of rabbis is sometimes a misnomer. I also think that there are ways women can be regarded as a very similar resource to a rabbi although they usually aren't. I could explain further on this, but this is obviously not the time.) The prayers in here seem perfectly legitimate copies of prayers women have been saying for centuries. But it annoys me that I always forget to say the one that I OUGHT to be saying daily as part of my regular prayer, because it's not in my regular prayer book and I think it should be.

There is also a book called The Jewish Pregnancy Book. I like this as a resource too for many reasons. There is a lot of modern innovation in here (some that I both do and don't like) which would be uncomfortable for some people who, again, rely only on tradition and Jewish law only. But there are also customs that women have been doing for many years.

Today is Hoshanah Rabbah. (The 3rd paragraph of the description in this link is the most useful for my purposes here.) The second book I mention above has this awesome custom:

As you may know, in the story of creation, Eve is punished for eating from the fruit of the tree with pain in childbirth. Many believe the fruit on the tree was not an apple, but an etrog, which we use every day of Sukkot. So on Hoshanah Rabbah, which marks the end of Sukkot, you take the etrog and bite of the tip, called the "pitom," and spit it out. Without this tip, the etrog can no longer be used to fulfill the obligation (mitzvah) of waving it with a lulav on Sukkot. Then you say,

"Lord of the world, because Eve ate of the etrog, all of us women must suffer such great pangs as to die. Had I been there, I would not have had any enjoyment from [the fruit]. Just so, now I have not wanted to render the etrog unfit during the whole seven days when it was used for a mitzvah. But now, on Hoshanah Rabbah, the mitzvah is no longer applicable, but I am [still] not in a hurry to eat it. And just as little enjoyment as I get from the stem of the etrog would I have gotten from the fruit that you forbade."

In six and a half weeks I'll let you know if it worked!