From Fall 2023 to Spring 2024: Seasons of Change
“I have never had a more complicated relationship with food.” This is what prevailed in my thoughts during the winter of 2023.
Dad stayed with Wayne and I for a period of time towards the end of 2023, a trip initially motivated by a business meeting and extended by his hope to spend my birthday with me.
Throughout the three weeks he was here, he cooked us every meal, including doing dishes. As quick and diligent a learner as he was in every possible thing that I know, using the dishwasher was one thing he refused over and over again: “the hot water in the sink comes so quickly. Look how efficient it is to just rinse out the dishes and you are done with it,” he said repeatedly. It was my first time having him cook for me for more than one day on a roll. As I grew up, he always reminded me verbally that he was a good cook, but it was always mom who did all the work in the kitchen, from grocery to prepping to cooking and cleaning (without having the support of a dishwasher). This time having him cook for me, I was amazed by how familiar his scrambled tomato & eggs tasted like — just like Mom’s, which is the only way I’d take it. I liked mom’s version so much that I never make this dish myself so that I will never disappoint myself, or the dish. There were also a few dishes that Dad whipped up that I hadn’t tried from mom: tender beef slices soup, braised fish, and oxtail…he made everything so quickly. It clicked with me that I am a cook just like him in the aspect of speed.
The unfortunate part was that I had to vomit seventy percent of the good food he made every night. Before, I thought it was called “morning sickness” but later learned from the handbook and my own experience, that it could be “past noon sickness,” if not “all day sickness” for me. For someone who was known to have to lie down on a ferry boat even after a dose of dramamine to keep myself from getting seasick, I reluctantly dealt with my new routine for the whole time dad was here.
It started before mom took off in October. Mom happened to visit during Wayne and I’s move from Jersey City — a populous neighborhood with high-rise apartments and easy commute to Manhattan, to Princeton, the college town an hour-drive away in the suburbs. It was great that mom happened to be here during this big move because no one I know of packs more meticulously than mom and unpacks so efficiently. She was the program manager of unpacking. While I appeared tired and out of breath every few hours, she was adamant about me resting instead of reaching out for a bag to be useful.
As you may have suspected from my description, yes, I got pregnant. It’s a planned pregnancy, but it still defeated me for the better of the first four months into it. Before I got pregnant, my mind was always fantasizing about the idea of becoming pregnant, mostly naively hoping for what often happens on TV: unplanned pregnancy with one’s loving partner out of passion or careless, and then the female character has all the power deciding what to do (well, when having a choice about their body was still protected). In real life, I learned it’d require serious conversations within myself and between my partner and I; it’s a bigger decision. I believe that I am the more spontaneous, carefree, and naturally nurturing one. My husband, on the opposite, the planner, archiver, and no-regrets type.
After we aligned and finally started trying and found out we were pregnant, the constant buzzing of “when will it happen” finally faded away from my little brain. In return, my body started protesting this “foreign object” in my belly, which was not what I had ever expected to become a challenge. I never had a complicated relationship with food or eating; not during the year I gained 20 pounds or during the semester I was only eating yogurt for dinner. I always had my fun with food. I’ve always been the one making the decisions and control about it, good ones or bad ones. A few weeks into the pregnancy, I had to get in line with a new practice: eat now, or be more nauseated; while ultimately, most of the food would still come out of my body through my throat. I became a stranger to food. [need to expand and transition] One day, an ad from Planned Parenthood popped up on my feed, an organization that supports women’s abortion rights. With a quick click, I made my share of a small donation. All I was thinking was, if my planned pregnancy is still giving me such a sense of loss of control, imagine the scale for those who cannot access resources for their unplanned ones.
The third and fourth months of the pregnancy remained the hardest. The vomiting was one main part, while the other side was the bland taste in my mouth: towards the end of a meal, the moment there is nothing left in my mouth for me to chew or sip, I’d feel a bad feeling in my mouth. But why wasn’t it a good thing? Meaning I had the appetite to continue eating? Not so much because then, I had lost control again. The uncomfortable, empty taste in my mouth prompted me to take one more bite of something, anything, just to escape the void. I had read about this symptom in books and heard similar comments from elders who’ve had babies. But without having experienced this myself, I was just curious, how bad could “bland taste” be? Apparently, it’s no better than tasting constant bitterness in the mouth. Unfortunate new norms like this urged me to start noticing things that I always took for granted. It reminded me to even be thankful for breathing -- thank god I didn’t have problems with breathing! I urged for normalcy and returning to the “default taste” of my saliva, which I actually had no idea what it was like.
On some days, I became so uncomfortable from the nausea that I even dared to empathize with cancer patients. From the few things I learned from TV and drama, I knew how cancer treatment could make a person tired and nauseated with crushing headaches, which was how I often felt. Since I was little, I always got motion sickness easily, especially on a boat like many people do, but it was never about my relationship with food. I knew I could get out of the sick feeling once I stepped off the yacht, and my life would be normal again. With this pregnancy sickness, I dreaded it could never end. Every day, I did a deep browse of all different types of food. Some were things I was craving for the whole night but didn’t have access to (Japanese yakitori skewers, for one), while some other things I normally would consider soul food but felt disgusted by. Day by day, my no-no list of food got longer while I continued to search for new food that’d provide me with energy.
I don’t remember the day when I stopped vomiting for good. I didn't want to get too excited and jinx it. It started with some back and forth, but I finally felt like I could hang on to something again.
I am now past my seven-month mark. Wayne recently signed up for a series of prenatal classes in a nearby hospital for us to take as a couple. In the intro, the teacher asks each of us couples to share our highs and lows so far into the pregnancy. One couple starts by sharing that the expecting mom was still nauseated every day (the horror!). Wayne also mentions that he never gets to understand what the “bland aftertaste” is and how he can help me with that. As he is talking, I check my saliva -- I don’t feel that bland taste in my mouth anymore. And I don’t need to suppress my urge to vomit anymore. I can say “I’ve been there” and how sorry I feel about those who are still feeling sick, but I am finally out of it. I don’t even want to sympathize with miserable myself if I don’t absolutely have to. Have I become more brave after all this? I don’t know.
In the 2-hour long prenatal class, I notice myself moving gently in the chair to keep my back from aching. I fantasize and plan meals in my head again. As the instructor proceeds with the intro class, I grab a snackbar and take a bite. This Japanese chocolate bar, what a beautiful invention.
