Pregnancy cornucopia

Every week I get an email newsletter from Babycenter.com reminding me how many weeks pregnant I am, which has been surprisingly useful this time around—so unlike my first pregnancy when at any given moment I could have told you how many days pregnant I was.

My favorite part of each email is the food/fetus comparison: for instance, I am now 30 weeks pregnant, which apparently means the baby weighs as much as a head of cabbage. Mmmm, delicious baby cabbage.

Some of the comparisons have to do with length, some with weight, but all of them are sort of funny—all these fruits and vegetables, and the inevitability of imaging each one sitting inside my belly. Next week: four navel oranges!

BabyCenter's Food/Fetus Comparisons, Which I Am Totally Not Making Up:

4 weeks: Poppy seed
5 weeks: Sesame seed
6 weeks: Lentil bean
7 weeks: Blueberry
8 weeks: Kidney bean
9 weeks: Grape
10 weeks: Kumquat
11 weeks: Fig
12 weeks: Lime
13 weeks: Medium shrimp
14 weeks: Lemon
15 weeks: Apple
16 weeks: Avocado
17 weeks: Turnip
18 weeks: Bell pepper
19 weeks: Large heirloom tomato
20 weeks: Banana
21 weeks: Carrot
22 weeks: Spaghetti squash
23 weeks: Large mango
24 weeks: Ear of corn
25 week: Average rutabaga
26 weeks: English hothouse cucumber
27 weeks: Head of cauliflower
28 weeks: Chinese cabbage
29 weeks: Butternut squash
30 weeks: Head of cabbage
31 weeks: Four navel oranges
32 weeks: Large jicama
33 weeks: Pineapple
34 weeks: Average cantaloupe
35 weeks: Honeydew
36 weeks: Crenshaw melon
37 weeks: Stalk of swiss chard
38 weeks: Leek
39 weeks: Mini watermelon
40 weeks: Small pumpkin

Comments

[Michelle]

And what, may I ask, is an English hothouse cucumber? HA! These made my day :) I'm sure he's a cute little cabbage!

[Laura]

I have totally noticed the Random Food Item comparison! I often write a weekly pregnancy update including many fields, such as "How I'm Feeling" "What's Happening With Baby" and "Random Food Item to Explain Baby's Size". I don't know why they always have to give us a food item, like we're incapable of understanding the dimensions of anything else? Some of them, as you mention, are quite a stretch.

Also, "average rutabega" would be a good name for a band.

[Ellen]

Wait a sec... It goes from lime to medium shrimp? isn't a lime bigger than a medium shrimp? DEAR GOD, WHY IS BABY SHRINKING?

I'm not pregnant or really panicking, I just thought it was odd.

[BRash]

In what world is the mid-point between a lime and a lemon a medium shrimp?

[Julie]

Not just any rutabaga...and AVERAGE rutabaga.
This list is great.

[Jaidnoire]

"English hothouse cucumber"...ummm...ok...lol.
*running to google jicama*

[Christina]

Do you know what is funny is that I received these the first time I was pregnant and I NEVER noticed the fruit/veggie reference (and if I did I was not fully conscious of it.) A friend is pregnant and due in Feb. and she pointed this out to me.

Right now my fetus is a blueberry which is very cute and I like blueberries. However, I am unsure what to think of a Large jicama (what the hell is that??)

[JenniferB]

Okay, the only thing they got wrong is that when my #2 was born her HEAD was the size of the small pumpkin and the rest of her still looked like the hothouse cucumber. ;)

[superblondgirl]

I like how specific they are - "large heirloom tomato". We ain't talking small hothouse tomato, or medium-sized vine-ripe tomato, here. We have a SPECIFIC tomato in mind. Your kid is a PARTICULAR tomato.
Also, for some reason fetus as shrimp freaks me out an awful lot.

[Trena]

mmm....jicama slaw (like cole slaw, but better for you).

I had a hard time with the newsletters...for some reason it was weird/creepy trying to do the mental picture comparison re: my baby. I am also the weirdo who couldn't look at the pictures of my in-utero baby until he started to look like a baby--those first few week pictures (look! it's a nematode! I mean, our future pride and joy) coupled with morning sickness about made me ill.

[Melanie]

It's like some Baby/Foodstuff Advent Calendar!

[Leslie]

Are you counting the days until Swiss chard?

[My Buddy Mimi]

I'm envisioning the BabyCenter editors going "Quick, someone give me a vegetable that is shorter than a leek but longer than an English hothouse cucumber."

[Kori]

For the past 13 weeks, husband and I have been unable to eat whatever is being used as the comparison.

Peas? Out. But then back in! Blueberries? Out. But serve 'em up in a week!

Thank the Lord it's winter and the farmer's market is closed...

[Gina]

Ha!

I am currently carrying a "large heirloom tomato"; my husband and I were just laughing about that one.

Fittingly, we had just grown some huge heirlooms this summer, so I had a good recent comparison. I wondered if most other people could relate??

[Michelle]

I loved those comparisons. My sister, now in her 18th week, still calls her fetus KUMQUAT occasionally because of week 10.

[samantha jo campen]

My boy's a spaghetti squash as of tomorrow :-)

I, too, love these updates. I always cut and paste the descriptions and send them to my husband and my mom so they can be inthe know. But yeah, sometimes we're all "Waa? Avacado and then a turnip?" But then I realized some of these were for weight comparissons or length, not just overall size. That made more sense.

The avacado week I went to the store to get stuff for salsa. Saw the bin of avacadoes (I needed three) and I just thought "Those could be all of my children." So we had salsa without them!

[Mychal]

Four navel oranges and a partridge in a pear tree.

[Mychal]

I find it hilarious that not just any tomato will do for week 19. It must be a large "heirloom" tomato. Also, who the heck knows what a stalk of swiss chard looks like? I'm going to have to Google that one.

[nonsoccermom]

I am so glad I'm not the only one that noticed these ridiculous comparisions! Let's see, I'm 36 weeks tomorrow so I guess my baby is now at the crenshaw melon stage. Whatever that is.

[Liz]

I just had to comment on this. I'm 32 weeks (Large jicama - as though I even know what that is) I get these emails and have been laughing about them for months

[Sarah]

This bugged me with both my pregnancies. Why, BabyCenter, why the food comparisons? Can't you use average household objects for comparison without bringing produce into our mental images?

[Shawna]

Some of those make no sense to me. Why an "heirloom" tomato instead of a regular tomato? And why diverge from things that are actually round or at least baby-shaped? I mean, I know what a stalk of swiss chard looks like, but I'm not sure how big it is and it's distressingly flat to compare to a baby. And what the heck is a "Crenshaw" melon? Also, am I the only one that thinks that the cuke reference seems a little dirty? Like how did an "English hothouse cucumber" get up there, mmm?

[Giillian]

Totally in keeping with the topic -- I have been poised waiting for you to tell us where we can find you when Club Mama gets clubbed. Wither goest thou o bearer of cabbage? (ah...segue to topic!)

[biscuit]

I have a pineapple in my crotch.

Awesome!