I have a parasite

I always sort of wondered about how when you're pregnant they tell you to eat this, and that, and the other thing, "for the baby". The baby is growing healthy bones and internal organs, it needs calcium! It needs iron! It needs spinach so it will be strong like Popeye! Whereas we all know that millions of women don't eat well during pregnancy, and have babies with bones, and internal organs, and normal birth weights nonetheless.

Well, finally one of my books explained it to me. I feel like maybe this is something I should have known all along, but it came as a revelation. Fetuses need calcium and iron and all that other good stuff, but you're not eating it for them. If you don't eat it, they will literally suck it from your own bodily reserves. You could probably get through a pregnancy or two with no calcium at all, but I wouldn't be surprised if you broke a hip soon after. They're little parasites; if you don't supply extra, it will just take yours.

It's a little bit like having a cannibalistic neopet, I imagine. I've never had a neopet, so I can't vouch for this, but I was thinking about it in the shower this morning and that's the analogy that comes to mind. Right now I haven't yet eaten breakfast and it is eleven o'clock. Instead of sending me email to indicate its distress, the fetus is gnawing at my insides. Soon I will feel sick and dizzy if I don't eat. But the cleaners are cleaning the kitchen and I don't want to disturb them. Or maybe it's more like having a tapeworm, which I also wouldn't know about firsthand. (I prefer the neopet idea, all in all. Ew, tapeworm.)

On a tangetial topic, can I say how much I hate the fact that most pregnancy books refer to the little zygote/embryo/fetus as "your baby"? Even the supposedly progressive ones! "This week your baby is about two inches long and has begun to develop its lungs and liver." It is not a baby, goddamnit. Right now it is a fetus with baby potential. Every child born in the United States is potentially a future President, too, but nobody tells you "I have three Presidents, ages four, six, and twelve," or drives around with bumper stickers about how their President is an honor student at Franklin middle school. I will be reviewing all the baby books once I finish them, and you can bet that this kind of unthinking bullshit will get authors docked major points.