A friend just gave birth to a little girl, and while I was plotting what treats to bring her when I go visit tomorrow, I was remembering all the delicious food that our loved ones brought us last year when Oliver was born. This line of thinking led me to realize that I can tell the story of pregnancy, birth, and new motherhood through the foods I connect to this year in my life. Is that true of every memorable episode in our lives? What is it about food that it becomes such a visceral part of my memory?
December, first trimester. I am standing at the stove in my boss' kitchen, frying latkes for our annual holiday party. It is hot, the smell of grease is nauseating, and I am paralyzed with worry
for this tenuous new pregnancy.
January. Dark and wet weather. I am home with my parents for a week. My dad and I watch the final season of West Wing in epic marathon form, episode after episode. After each ends, we look at each other, say "one more" and hit play. My mom tolerates this indulgence with good humor, and keeps my otherwise constant morning sickness at bay with a series of delicious small bites, brought to me on the couch. Bliss. I eat a lot of corn tortillas with butter and brewers yeast--kind of weird, but a comfort food from childhood.
February. I have strong cravings for pumpkin and artichoke hearts. Not together, though.
March. I am on a interview committee, and pack my purse with snacks to stave off the nausea. Between candidates, I munch on almonds, baby carrots, and string cheese.
April. I feel better, but now I'm just always starving. Alonso brings me a snack about ten minutes after I lie down to go to sleep each night. I wake a few hours later and stand over the sink, eating yogurt from the carton.
August 5th. Two days past a round of false labor, and I have decided the baby is never coming. I wake with a burst of energy, clean the house, mail a package that has been sitting on the desk for months, walk to the farmers market, take a nap, and make a huge green salad for dinner. After dinner, the contractions start back up, and this time they don't stop. I snack on cubes of watermelon and chocolate pudding.
August 6th. The hospital keeps delivering trays of disgusting smelling food, which I don't touch. I'm concentrating, because it feels like my body is breaking apart. Staring into Alonso's eyes keeps me rooted. I ask for jokes and try to remember poems I once memorized. I am nauseated, and decide that next baby I might avoid eating salad around my due date.
Night falls. I feel like I did as a small girl, sick with the flu and having spent the day on the couch, robbed of my sense of time and somehow unsettled that it is night again. The window goes black, and the room closes in. One light is on, focused near my doctor, who sits at the end of my bed. I am pushing, and have been pushing for as long as I can remember. I am hotter than I have ever been in my life. My mom gives me sips of lemon flavored sport's drink after every contraction. I gulp it, but can't quench my thirst. The nurse fans me with a packet of gloves, jokes with the doctor about this brand not working as well for fanning as the old kind did.
10:25. He is here. He cries angrily at first, then settles on my chest and looks at us with wide eyes. I am caught between amazement at this small, perfect creature, and sheer overwhelming relief that the contractions are over. And OUCH as the nurse bears down hard on my uterus to stop the bleeding. But before long, he is nursing, and that first time it is perfectly easy and wonderful. I am feeding our son.
Midnight. Three bites of an egg salad sandwich our nurse managed to find for me. Best food ever.
August 7. We enter parenthood in a blur of exhaustion. I have no appetite. My parents bring food to the hospital but I can only nibble.
At home, with a new little person in our arms. My family has cleaned, warmed the house up, and cooked dinner. Hot soup and garlic bread sustain us through a long night waking confused, shaking with cold and tiredness. We wake Oliver to nurse and change his diaper throughout the night. I snack on zucchini bread and banana bread, deli salads, pizza, brought to us by friends and family-all things that taste like heaven and are easy to eat without taking my eyes off of a small miracle. Gillian cooks for us all that first weekend: waffles with whipped cream, lasagna, salad. My appetite returns; nursing makes me voraciously hungry. I eat my way into my new life.
Blender Tuts
3 months ago
