Gametes In Love

Pregnancy does some weird things to you, dude. My feet have grown (this is actually a good thing — I can now wear “big girl shoes”), and my taste buds are not as picky. I can now eat AND enjoy things I would previously snub my nose at. Like fish. Cooked fish to be exact.

For as long as I could remember, I never enjoyed cooked fish. It’s definitely not an allergy thing. It’s a taste thing. To me, all the fish I’d tried was too dry, or had little flavor. I remember my dad’s mom making some delicious fish when I was really little, but she died when I was pretty young, and was the only one to make that recipe, so I had kind of written off fish. Over time, I tried sushi in high school (though was hesitant to do so) and was hooked, so I had to revise my “no fish” rule, to be “no cooked fish”. Yet since I’ve been pregnant, I tried fish and you know what? It wasn’t bad! At the Yahoo! cafeteria I tried grilled Red Snapper, and it was delicious. Then Telapia, and it was good too. I like sea bass, and fish n’ chips (and whichever fish they stuff in there), so I have 4 cooked fish checks to my name.

Next up? Peanut butter. I couldn’t stand the stuff. I can’t explain what this tastes like to me. Aside from the fact that it’s dry and sticky, just the flavor was so… off. Yet again, since bring pregnant with S2, I could tolerate it. It came as part of my protein snack (thank you again, Yahoo! cafeteria), and it was good. I even, recently, did an afternoon snack of sliced apples and peanut-butter. I have to be mentally prepared for it though. G surprised me by sticking a spoon-full of PB in my mouth a few weeks back, when I thought it was sunflower butter, and BOY did I have to fake enjoying that one.

Lastly? Tolerance to capsaicin-based spicy foods. I am such a whimp when it comes to spicy food. This is actually one item that physically makes me ill to consume. To a point of crawling up into a ball in the bathroom. I just don’t digest it well, so it’s not a matter of it burning going in — it was a matter of me feeling like hurling about 30 minutes later. Horse-radish based spice is no big, but pepper-based spice was my arch-nemesis. The bell-pepper was about as spicy as I can eat. Yet, since G, I can tolerate a little bit of spice.

These changes are all well and good. I’m a much less picky eater now.

But if pregnancy could give me these unexpected side-effects, I just wanna know… why couldn’t it also make me taller? 2″ too much to ask?

UPDATE: Hmn… I see now why people think this… but I am NOT pregnant. I’m just reflecting on how having been pregnant has changed my relationship to food. For what appears to be permanent.