Eating for Two

This is what it's like to be pregnant: You are governed by the whims of your body, every minute of every day. You might be sitting there, minding your own business like a normal person, and then you are gripped with the sudden, visceral understanding that you must have a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup right this very minute, or someone is going to pay. Never mind that you just ate your first lunch an hour ago. You will literally knock over loved ones who innocently stand in the path between you and that grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. But then you decide that the husband you almost knocked down on your way to the kitchen makes better grilled cheese sandwiches than you do, so you threaten to cry if he won't make you one. And can I get an amen on this: No husband wants to deal with a crying wife.

So he makes you the sandwich and you inhale your "second lunch" in two seconds flat. And you feel better, but you know that is short lived. Soon enough, you'll be hungry again and you'll have to think really hard about what you want to eat, because there are only approximately five things on the planet that you like to eat right now. Right now, these things for me are: the aforementioned grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup combination, egg salad, chicken salad, Chipotle burrito bowls and the kind of salad you get from a pizza place, with the mix of iceberg and dark lettuces and the light Italian dressing you can somehow only procure from Italian restaurants and pizza joints. I could drink that dressing right now. Oh and, because I love to be a cliche, pickles. Little gherkin pickles mostly, especially the little gherkins called cornichons, whose name makes me feel fancy and French, and slightly less disgusting when I eat the entire jar in one sitting. Okay, that is an exaggeration. Most of the jar.

The other day, I ate two entire boxes of Annie's shells and cheese. I wish I were kidding. I had one box and then I realized it hadn't even made a dent, so I made another. I told myself I would just have a few more bites, but that was a farce: I inhaled the entire box faster than I had the first, I think because it seemed like if I ate the whole box quickly, it would be like it didn't happen. Believe it or not, that actually made sense to me at the time. Anyway I ate these two boxes and I felt exactly as you'd imagine I would feel after inhaling two boxes of pasta with rehydrated cheese. With respect to Annie's, I cannot recommend this on a regular basis.

The good news is, I also crave fruits and vegetables. This is a statement that, were it coming out of the mouth of someone like, say, pregnant Gisele, would fill me with irrational rage. But it's really, truly true. Sometimes the cravings I have are for kale chips or roasted broccoli, or an orange or mango. So at least there's that along with the kid food (I also crave bagel pizzas).

And although I am stuffing my food folder on Pinterest with sinful looking dessert pins with the full and real intention of going on a dessert bender after delivery, for right now I am using every iota of willpower I can muster in my Advanced Maternal Age bones to avoid processed sugar. Literally the only "treats" I have had since we did the transfer are bowls of Honey Bunches of Oats (the only cereal I've ever eaten in quantity without growing tired of it) and banana bread I make with less than half the called-for sugar (Have you ever made banana bread with this recipe? If not, please do it soon.). That's it. No chocolate. No nougat. No fun. I am trying to avoid the carb/hormone cycle of PCOS by cutting down sugar, just as I did with H., which is possibly mostly unnecessary, but I'm doing it anyway, for the same reason that I also switched to natural bath products (another post for another day). It's called taking things to the extreme, and I was born to do it.

So all in all, I'm eating when I'm hungry, and eating some good, some not so good, but I think the sum total of all of this (particularly reducing refined sugar) is that so far, all the weight I've gained in my 16 weeks of pregnancy is right in my little bump. I'm hoping I can keep this up -- I mean in the scheme of things, who cares, but bouncing back more quickly this time might be a nice little bonus.