Week 13: Belly Up to the (Salad) Bar

I’ve started to notice that in virtually all pregnancy books and magazines, the size of your growing baby is compared to produce. At week seven, my embryo was likened to a small raspberry. At nine weeks, it became a medium green olive. (Why not a black or kalamata olive, I have no idea.) By then, my uterus was allegedly the size of a grapefruit. Sometimes the descriptions veer into the condiment category, especially early on when the embryo is compared to a grain of salt or a peppercorn. (One book called it a “BB pellet,” but that was the only deviation from the food theme. Maybe that one was written by a guy.)

Since I’ve always had more of a preference for sweets than produce, despite the fact that I’m a vegetarian, I prefer to think of my baby-to-be in terms of candy. The first few weeks, he or she was no bigger than a speck of sugar from a Pixie stick. Gradually, the embryo grew to the size of a gummy bear, then a jelly bean (the regular supermarket variety, not the tiny gourmet ones). Now I reckon it’s about the size of a Circus Peanut.

Of course, after a certain time – say, following the Chunky-bar stage – I’m going to run out of candy big enough to describe the baby-to-be. Sure, I can claim it’s the size of a giant Hershey’s Kiss – the 2-lb. kind you see at Christmastime – but that’s sort of cheating. I suppose I’ll have to move on to snack pastries. She/he will grow from a cupcake to a Hostess Apple Pie. Next it will become a Cinnabon, and then I guess I’ll have to go with a pound cake. Eventually, the kid will end up as a family-sized carrot cake like you see at discount warehouse stores. Or maybe one of those gigantic lemon pies topped with a towering cloud of meringue displayed in the dessert case in old-fashioned diners. Sounds a little less scary than a watermelon, anyway.

So you might be wondering why, in all my first-trimester entries, I haven’t brought up the issue of morning sickness. After all, lots of women suffer from nausea and aversions to certain foods or smells. One friend of mine could only bring herself to suck weakly on sour hard candies throughout most of her pregnancy. But I’m happy to say I got off easy on this one. Aside from a mild distaste of the smell of coffee and hamburgers cooking, my stomach has been pretty calm. I like to think it’s because the universe owes me.

When I was a baby, my grandmother dubbed me “Vesuvius” since I was always erupting like that volatile volcano that buried Pompeii. As a kid, I had the world’s weakest stomach. The tiniest thing -- a bumpy car ride, setting foot on an airplane, a 3-D movie, the anticipation of my birthday, eating too much, eating too little -- could set off my sensitive tummy and send me running for the nearest bathroom. It didn’t help that my parents were big travelers. I’ve hung my head over toilets in Canada, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Greenland, Mexico, Scotland, Spain, and most states in America. OK, I’m exaggerating – I didn’t always make it to the bathroom.

Anyway, with all the stomach troubles I’ve had in my lifetime, I think it’s only fair that I get through pregnancy nausea-free. And as for food cravings, I can’t say I’ve had any strong ones. Sure, I’ve developed a taste for reduced-fat sour cream and onion Pringles, Orangina, and cinnamon candies, but I don’t send my husband out at 3 a.m. to fetch them. Though I have been known to get a little cranky if he dips into my stash. I tell him to lay off my chips and go make a fruit salad or something. I think this week we’re on to peaches.