Really, Fetus? That's your survival plan?
I’m 27 weeks and counting! And things are looking great so far. Except for my feet, which are getting harder and harder to see.
Well, as of 4 weeks ago, I am finally on the far side of morning sickness. But I have to say that after 10 weeks of living in a constant semi-nauseated state, I still don't get the point.
How has evolution snuck this one past us for so many generations? Isn't it kind of self-defeating? Baby Ecklet is dependent upon me for all of its* daily nutrients. Everything it needs to survive has to come through me. So why is its preferred survival plan to make eating as difficult and as fun-sounding as climbing up a ladder upside-down in the rain while holding an umbrella over some ducklings that just pooped on your car?!?
Seriously. Wouldn’t it be a better plan to make me insatiably hungry and eat as much as possible? Instead of making it hard to even eat saltines? Which really can't be a healthy diet for a developing fetus. And it won't even let me take the usually delicious, fruity-flavored gummy prenatal vitamins I'm supposed to take.
And what’s up with the time limit on cravings? Heaven forbid I’m at home and start craving a food that takes longer than 30 minutes to cook, because, odds are, by the time it’s ready to eat, it’s not going to sound palatable anymore. It's like some sick version of that timed Wii cooking game. Thankfully, I mostly craved ramen noodles with an egg mixed in, macaroni and cheese (hold the hot dogs), KFC, and Taco Bell. All under-30-minute options.
The only way I can begin to understand morning sickness is imagining that Baby Ecklet is in fact sending me sophisticated directions and messages in fetus-talk, and I am too distracted, coddled, or otherwise evolutionarily far-removed to understand what on earth it's saying. Maybe Baby Ecklet is as frustrated with me as I am with it.
The one pregnancy side effect I can get behind is the super sense of smell. I get why evolution kept that one around. It probably helped our ancestors sniff our poisonous or rotting food or other dangerous things nearby. Like that seriously nasty Chinese food the people downstairs were cooking last month.
But then the morning sickness got in the way and at a time when I should have been fighting or flighting, I was instead throwing up.
So seriously, what’s up, morning sickness? What’s your game plan?
*Yes, I now know that Baby Ecklet is a "she," but when I was sick, Baby Ecklet was a genderless it in my mind. Hence the gender-neutral pronoun. As an editor, I think and worry and fret about little words like that way too much. Hence this long footnote.