One of the great joys of pregnancy is sharing the details of the changes going on in our unborn children’s lives with friends, family, and complete strangers I randomly meet while waiting for the subway train
When kids are older (i.e. out of the womb), you can brag about their eating habits, ability to track objects, and innate understanding of quantum mechanics. But while in the womb, about all you can do is show the occasional ultrasound and reference websites or apps that describe the developmental stages the fetus is going through.
My beloved shared a couple of these websites with me, but I was struck by the way the fetuses were always compared to fruit. Thinking there must be something better, and less food-fixated, I finally downloaded Sprout for the iPad since our OBGYN recommended it.
Alas, even the good people at Sprout must be using hungry, pregnant women to write their content, as every entry relates the size of womb-bound babies to food. At fifteen weeks, our twins have morphed from the size of sesame seeds to grains of rice, peas, blueberries, grapes, olives, shrimp, figs, key limes, small lemons, avocados, and next week they will be back to lemons again.
I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to suspect that the whole thing is simply a recipe for some elaborate fruit salad with shrimp. The only downside is it will take me 40 weeks to get the entire recipe.
Then again, perhaps it is for the best. I mean, if it were written by men, we would probably have to read how the baby is now the size of a Vienna sausage, a small hot dog, a chicken leg, a pork chop, and a decent cut of steak.
Still, I could not help but wonder why descriptions were not simply given in length and weight – and then I remembered those words of wisdom handed down to me by my father and his forefathers before him: “No two pregnancies are alike and every pregnancy is different for the father.”
Truer words were never spoken: first we had one child, now we’re expecting twins. Applying my daughter’s background in quantum mechanics, I can assure you there is no way we are going to risk having triplets next.
Fruit salad anyone?
Photo by elefevre7 via Flickr
