Column: Savagemama

My Pregnant Body: Not Exactly a Temple

By Jennifer Savage, 1-17-08

Lately Eliza is finding her words. She calls milk “nilk,” cats “neow” and her dolls “bebe.” She calls me “me-me,” Seth “da” and Imogene, “mo mo.” When she wants a bite of whatever I’m eating, she says “bite, bite, bite” reaching her little hand into the air toward me and furrowing her brow as though I’ve not fed her in weeks. She keeps shouting “bite” (why say it once when you can say it 16 times!) until I give in or gobble up the small portion of food I’ve managed to keep for myself and say, “all gone.”

Although it may sound like it, I’m not depriving this voracious little angel of sustinence. Most of the time I’m trying to keep her from eating the crap that I’m craving these days.

I wish I were one of those pregnant women who crave oranges or nuts, that my sweet tooth could be sated with a nice fresh apple or a glass of juice. But I haven’t proven that lucky. While I try, trust me I do, my pregnant body is less of a temple and more of a shrine to the white powdered donut.

Last week I bought a bag of these donuts and ate them in three days. I also bought a bag of sour cream and onion Ruffles at ate it in about the same amount of time. Under normal, non-pregnant circumstances, I like to think I eat pretty well. But while housing and growing my children I can’t get enough of processed sugar, trans fats and hydrogenated oils.

The other day I stopped at a gas station to buy Seth a Snicker’s bar. Sometimes I go find him on the job site and take him a snack in the middle of day. Eliza was milling around the store and when I bent down to pick her up a Moon Pie caught my eye. A banana Moon Pie. I had to fight with all I had to leave it in the store. But thinking about it now, it sounds so good. Two layers of marshmallow sandwiched between something resembling a cookie covered in fake banana coating. Yum.

When I’m not pregnant I don’t really even like sweets. I ask for the smallest slivers of birthday cakes (no icing please) and holiday pies not because I’m watching my weight but because I really can only eat a small of portion of something so sweet. Most of the time I get about four times as much as I want when people at potlucks generously dole out the desert and I always give my nearly-full plate to Seth.

When we first met, I used to ask for a bite of his ice cream. “I just want a bite,” I’d tell him. And I really did. I think he used to think “just a bite” was girl code for “I really want half of your ice cream but I don’t want to appear piggish and order my own.” I understand this mentality given how women in our culture are trained to be skinny, and coy when it comes to food but this psycho-social repression of women really had nothing to do with it. I just wanted a bite of his ice cream. He finally figured it out and now he gives me a bite when I want it knowing I’m not going to scarf down all of his Oreo delight.

I’m normally not a big fan of chocolate either. A good friend used to bring chocolate bars on hikes and share when we’d stop to take breaks. It was so sweet on her part to give something that she valued so much but I finally had to tell her how I really felt because I got tired of faking it.

“Um, I’ve got to tell you something,” I said one day as we were sucking wind up a particularly steep hill in the Mission Mountains.

I think she was intrigued by my serious tone.

“Well, what is it Savage?”

“I don’t really like chocolate. I mean, I like it, you know, it’s okay. I just don’t love it. Especially chocolate bars,” I said back peddling hoping to save our friendship. 

I think she was a little shocked but we remained friends and now when the chocolate bar comes out, she just passes me by saying “oh yeah, you are the weirdo that doesn’t like chocolate.”

She would probably be shocked to know that yesterday I brought two bags of Valentine chocolate because it just looked so good in on the shelf at Target.

There are some things about pregnancy that remain a mystery. Food either sounds awesome or repulsive and, in this case, what I would normally think repulsive sounds awesome. So there are a few things I’m doing to do to keep this situation from becoming disastrous. I’m staying out of gas stations. I look the other way when passing Wendy’s. I keep the pop tarts (yes I bought pop tarts) on the top shelf so I have to really want them—and maneuver my rounding body onto the counter—to get them. I eat bacon only on weekends and I’m starting everyday with a protein-filled, good-for-me-and-baby smoothie. I follow that with something healthy – say a grilled chicken salad – for lunch and a peanut butter covered snack. I eat nuts and fruit and drink what feels like gallons of water. And in between, on the margins of good food, I squeeze in a few donuts, a Reece’s cup, a Dr. Pepper.

And when Eliza says “bite, bite, bite” and points at the chips I’m eating, I give a piece of cheese.

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