Testing, testing

I have two pregnancy apps. One compares the fetus to fruits and vegetables, the other to animals. They both throw in some other facts, like about how her skin is translucent, and she's producing some kind of tar-like substance, and now she can hear things, but the comparisons are the main event. Every week we try to guess what the next one is going to be, but it's hit and miss. There are too many animals in the world, and I am very certain that grapefruits are not bigger than coconuts.

As far as visualization goes, the ultrasounds are far preferable. Once she stops looking like a raccoon, anyway. It's a simple enough procedure: A woman -- always a woman, usually Eastern European/Russian -- smears some -- very warm; they keep it in a special heated container -- goop on your stomach and then jams a knobby wand against it, lower and harder than you think she should. Then you watch the screen while she measures things and occasionally calls out, "leg," "arm," or, I suppose in the case of a baby not mine, "penis." She did make an offhand comment last time though, about how the baby kept moving around and she was having to chase her to get a good picture. I felt obscurely proud. This was no selfie-generation baby. This was a baby on the move. She had things to do.

Sometimes they offer to change the picture from that black-and-white astronaut profile to a "3d view." On no account should you take them up on this. The 3-d view looks like melting candle baby.

There are less fun tests as well, most of which involve peeing in a cup. For the first few visits there's also a lot of blood-taking. Next up, as I understand it, is the glucose test, where I get to drink a massive amount of some foully sweet technicolor liquid... before peeing in a cup. My favorite was the blood test where they say very gently to you and your partner "Now, in addition to testing for several horrible genetic diseases, this test could also reveal, shall we say, unexpected facts about the baby's parentage." We'll chance it, thanks.

And at every visit, and in conversations with coworkers, and sometimes randomly on the train, someone's bound to ask, "You're taking the vitamins, right?" Like for fuck's sake, how did we survive as a species before we all took our goddamn vitamins? Isaac Newton's mother didn't take the vitamins! But of course, I'm taking the vitamins. And before you ask, they contain both folic acid and DHA, whatever that is.

RECIPE: Lasagna, but not the bechamel-ground-meat version. I make this several times a winter, but with a bag of frozen spinach mixed into the ricotta, hot Italian sausage, and no parmesan.