TALES AND TUMMYS

Today our embryo turned ten weeks old and is now referred to as a foetus.  Weighing in at 4 paperclips, and with fully formed ears and upper lips, it has also started breathing (inhaling the amniotic fluid) and has decided (quite wisely I would say) to abandon its tale so it stops resembling a dinosaur and work on looking like its parents more desired result – a human. 

The book I am reading goes on to say that I may even be starting to show – which I am, a lovely little pooch that I am quite enamored with, but it follows by saying that has nothing to do with my baby, and is in fact, my distended bowel.

Now I’ve always eaten a lot (I remember as a little girl being embarrassed at sleep-overs as I always ate more than the other girls and still came home starving) and I will concede that growing your own penis or vagina (which also happens in week ten) sounds like terribly hard work, but does that really mean I need to consume the following all within a four hour period;

4 grilled asparagus

one hard poached egg (yes I did read the dangerous food sections and have abandoned my loves, the runny egg)

one grilled tomato

one slice of brioche

half an almond croissant

half a bowl of fruit salad (I had to share it with my friend’s two year-old son)

one orange

one tin of baked beans on a slice of sourdough toast and,

four large salt and vinegar rice crackers with spicy capsicum dip on them (which yes, I now realise is on the banned list and probably means my kid will come out with that tail after all). 

When my friend fell pregnant, her nutritionist told her all she needed in terms of extra caloric intake was the equivalent of half a cheese sandwich.  Half a cheese sandwich!  Pre-prego days I could eat that on my way to the table for dinner.  That’s not even a snack, doesn’t even count as an appetiser, it’s just something you grabbed on your way past the fridge.

The book continues by saying that if a woman only puts on the weight necessary for carrying the baby and breastfeeding, she will have no trouble regaining her pre-baby weight.  The additional one to two kilos most mothers tend to find difficult to lose, is not, the book claims, the fault of the baby, but the fault of the mother instead. 

Quite simply, it says, we have over-eaten whilst carrying our young.

That seems a bit unsympathetic to me and I beg to differ. 

I rarely eat pasta, haven’t even bought it in the last seven years, I don’t really like it, it tastes like glue.  But now I do.  Copious amounts of it, wrapped around homemade Bolognese or creamy carbinara. 

This is not me, this is the baby inside.

And brownies too, dangerously dropped off by a thoughtful friend.  Now those I would have indulged in pre-baby as an afternoon or evening treat with a steaming cup of caffeine included tea.   I would not have had it for lunch.  In main meal size portions.  Eating until there weren’t anymore brownies left to eat.

And then, after eating to satisfy the alien inside, I am lured to my bed, or couch or head first down on the desk if it’s all I can manage.  Anywhere I can shut my eyes and wake up ninety minutes later with numb arms, drool down my cheek and paper lines embedded on my face.

I’ve never been a napper, in fact I sort of considered people a bit of a daytime failure if they took one, but now I am possessed.  There is nothing I can do to prevent these afternoon siestas.  The worst part being that I awake and feel none of the refreshment such an afternoon luxury should provide.

Eating and sleeping, sounds like every person’s ultimate dream.  But it’s hard to pull off when you’re trying to keep the reason for your hunger and lethargy a secret.  The only thing I have thought of to say is tapeworm and a serious, but undiagnosed case of narcolepsy.  People seem to be buying it so far, which doesn’t say much for me.  Two more weeks and then I might post a list of activities my body has been up to and see if people want to judge my behaviour then.  I dare you to grow a new person’s limbs on half a cheese sandwich.  I reckon you’d get as far as the big toe and that wouldn’t do at all.