Week 13: Aversions and cravings are no myth, darnit!

12 weeks, 5 days.

So there is some debate (or at least there was on one of these pregnancy websites I don’t even know why I bother to read anymore) as to whether or not cravings are just something pregnant women use as an excuse to get their husbands to go buy them Rocky Road ice cream and pickles at midnight. I’m sure most of the folks who are questioning this craving thing are men, because let me tell you…

These cravings? They are evil, overpowering, and all-consuming when they hit sometimes. (By the way, Christian… feel free to go get me some Rocky Road ice cream if you read this …)

The cravings are so real. Like today… I really, really, really wanted some pasta with seafood, preferably lobstery or crabby, and I wanted it as soon as I got up. The other day, I was dying for – get this – pork and beans. I don’t even eat pork and beans. But this morning, it was seafood pasta.

Me, I’m thinking… I’m just hungry. I’ll eat some granola and a kiwi. I’ll be fine.

But no… I got the kiwi down OK, but the granola? It almost made me sick for some reason. And afterwards, I still wanted seafood pasta.

Finally I gave in and took myself to Macaroni Grill for lunch and settled the score with my stomach.

On the other hand, there are the aversions, which change less often than the cravings (the only craving I seem to have constantly is for Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, which I don’t even like, and certainly don’t eat – that’s one craving that’s going unsatisfied, stomach… seriously). And the aversions can wait to hit right up until the food is in front of me. So today, I had ordered a salad to go with my pasta, to at least ensure there was some vegetable content.

The problem is that, even when I’m not pregnant, I’m picky about lettuce and salad greens. That is to say, I hate iceberg lettuce (which you might as well call “water-bearing tasteless cellulose”), and I hate the parts of other lettuces that taste like iceberg lettuce (that is to say, don’t taste like anything). So even romaine lettuce, which I can usually stomach, turns me off when they try to feed me less colorful, stiffer bits of the lettuce. I love arugala and spinach and red lettuce and all sorts of baby salad greens, but iceberg lettuce can bite me.

Now, pregnant, I actually want to throw up when I put the dreaded tasteless lettuce in my mouth. And so my salad did not go down particularly well, and I made a deal with myself that I could save half of it to take home for later, just so that I wouldn’t throw up before I got to the food I’d been craving.

Why is it that I seem to have aversions to some of the least offensive things out there? I mean, I’ll happily eat a spicy Indian curry or strange fruit or whatever, but give me bland lettuce or anything too sweet and my stomach sends back really evil messages.

Bad stomach. No cookie. Unless it’s not too sweet. Then I’ll have 3, please.