Slow down. Eat. Unbutton. Make bones!
Pregnant! No, not me, silly. But a new friend of mine is newly pregnant, and this is very, very good news. Except that other day she indicated that she might be eating too much because at 10 weeks, her pants are getting snug. You are not supposed to be eating for two, the experts say, she says.
Hmm, are the experts enduring pregnancy when they say that? Are they hungry at 2am and relying wholly on cheddar bunnies for survival? Must the experts drink juice because water tastes like poison?
Are these experts making bones for someone else out of thin air, like miracle workers? I consider myself a pregnancy expert, because I lived to tell the tale of (complain about) my own pregnancy. I lived through the heartburn and the low blood pressure and the nausea and the nothing fitting. I worried about not being able to stomach my calcium, or any nutrient-rich foods, and what effect this would have on my child. Well, since I’d behaved myself before the onset of the glorious disease state of pregnancy, I got a glossy, gorgeous, fat, spirited baby.
My expert advice is that when you are pregnant, it is your job to take care of yourself, and during this brief period, taking care of yourself may include getting fat. This changed body state will help you to make a baby: one with bones inside of it, and everything. Do you know what you need to do in order to make bones? For someone else? You need to eat a lot of full-fat organic dairy, and take naps. You need to have a whole closetful of pants that don’t fit. No one is going to let you take a hot bath to unwind, or have a Tequila Sunrise, or even a caffeinated latte, so the only thing left to you is cheeseburgers, and you may as well have a few of those, because it will help the baby get bones and hair and all of the other stuff we wish for our children to have.
Slow down. Eat. Unbutton. Make bones!
Amen.
Church Avenue Chomp 
Indeed! Love my OB, but she had never been pregnant, and when I weighed in 15 lbs heavier at 16 wks, she told me in no uncertain terms was I to gain a pound a week.
I told her to stuff it. Seriously.
And now *she* has a baby, and she understands:)
I like the phrase, “during this brief period.”
I heartily agree!
This is not what you are talking about here, but your post applies also very well to surviving chemotherapy. The experts have a lot of opinions but it turns out that very few of them have actually hooked up to the IV drip and poisoned themselves week after week. And that is why they don’t know that chocolate milkshakes are key to survival. If you can’t get a milkshake, chocolate milk will work in a pinch. And I finally discovered why hospital cafeterias universally have such good chocolate pudding! When pregnant, I didn’t listen (too much) to the experts either, but rather to my friend Marjorie, who had a beautiful daughter and who taught me that it takes a lot of Dove Bars to make one. It worked for me!
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