I don’t know about you, but sometimes my unborn child tells me things “from the womb”. Usually those things are food-related, as in, “You need cake.”
Last night I was talking to a friend when the craving for cake came to me so strongly that I interrupted my friend with, “I’m sorry, but I need to go because I need cake RIGHT NOW” and I hung up the phone.
Sadly, after an extensive search of our pantry, fridge, freezer, and secret lolly hiding places, I could not find any cake. And it was 10pm and I was in my pyjamas, so too late to hit the supermarket.
“So, are you going to bake a cake?” my husband asked from where he was sitting Zenlike on the sofa, sipping green tea and reading a book, while I whirlwinded around the kitchen muttering about cake and slamming cupboard doors. “Of course not!” I snapped. “It wouldn’t be done until midnight, and by then I won’t want it any more.”
Because that is the nature of my pregnancy cravings – I want cake right now, but don’t bring me cake tomorrow because it will repulse me by then. We have learned this lesson the hard and expensive way, when one week I put “tamari almonds” on the supermarket list and my husband duly brought them home, at $11 a bag, and then I ate precisely one and then threw up. It turns out no one else in my house likes tamari almonds, so out they went.
With my previous pregnancies, my cravings were very specific and lasted for a good long while. Bacon sandwiches. Fruit salad. McDonald’s Chicken Caesar Wraps (sadly, I don’t think they do those any more). This time around, the cravings are random and fleeting. I’ll want something one moment, and then I’ll actually get whatever it is and think, “Nope, not having that!” Also, I can’t deal with the seafood section of the supermarket (gah, the smell!) or any fish. At all. Even battered and deep-fried, served with hot chips. Nope. So I have anti-cravings, too.
I dream of a new business opening up around the corner from my house, dedicated solely to pregnancy cravings. It’ll be open 24 hours and have all the weird food combinations you can think of available at all times, freshly prepared with the highest food hygiene standards in mind, and served at the ideal temperatures to kill all the bugs which will give me listeria or e.coli or whatever other things pregnant women are supposed to avoid. It’ll serve pregnancy-safe versions of sushi and custard and soft cheeses, and have non-alcoholic wine that tastes like the real thing. There will be cake. And wide, comfortable seats with adequate back support. And a masseuse. And someone to paint my toenails because I can no longer reach them. And… Have I gone too far?
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