Baby "bonnets," goose eggs, and other random pregnancy recollections

Newlyweds in our little mobile home

Lately I've been thinking back on my very first pregnancy.  It’s funny how clear those mental images remain.  All of my senses were assaulted, together forming indelible impressions that endure to this day.

The first five months of pregnancy with our “honeymoon baby” (Christopher), we were renting a single wide mobile home in Grand Prairie while attending graduate school through the University of Texas in Arlington.  The classes were held at the International Linguistics Center in Duncanville.   This missionary training base was a self-contained campus with dorms, dining hall, library, classrooms, faculty offices, day care center, etc.

One day after word leaked that I was expecting, I strolled over to the mail room with a friend, and noticed that I had a package.  It was wrapped like a baby gift, not in a mailing envelope or brown paper like you might expect.  Never one to stand suspense, of course I tore it open right then and there.  Many curious eyes were on me as I pulled out a white lacy object, which I believed to be a baby bonnet.

“Look, how sweet!  My first baby gift!”  I squealed.  Pulling it out of the box I realized (too late) that it was in fact not a bonnet, but the most gigantic nursing bra I have ever seen in my life.  I was so embarrassed as I tried to shove it back in the box.  I don’t remember anyone but my friend actually laughing, but suddenly everyone got busy doing something else with eyes averted (like they hadn’t noticed), especially the guys.

That gag gift is probably still being circulated to this day.  Here is a photo of Jim and one of our trailer-renting neighbors wearing it like a bonnet for conjoined twins.  See?  I am not exaggerating.  

Jim and a friend modeling my first baby gift

And speaking of gags...

Living in a mobile home those first four or five months of the pregnancy proved a bit of a nuisance.  Within a short time I began complaining of a terrible odor that no one else could smell.  Later even Jim admitted that something stank.  The trouble was that we couldn’t locate the cause.  Finally we pulled the mattress off our bed and put it on the floor in the living room, which seemed to be farther from the source of the smell.

After another day or two passed, I couldn’t even walk in our house without rushing straight to the powder room to deposit my lunch or whatever was in my stomach.  Jim and the landlord finally started taking me seriously, and dug around under the end of the mobile home where the bedroom was.  Sure enough, there was a dead and decaying raccoon under there. 

According to the landlord, a litter of raccoons had been born under the trailer some years earlier, and one returned to its original nest to die.  Thankfully we moved out of "Mobile Dorf" (mobile home village) before the demise of any raccoon siblings.

Landlords of Mobil Dorf

Meanwhile my hyper-nose caused further problems with nausea in those early months of pregnancy.  I took linguistics classes three times a week, and then worked as a substitute teacher for the Grand Prairie school district on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  First thing I would do in a new assignment was to meet the teacher next door or across the hall, because predictably I would need to have her supervise my class right after recess.  The stench of sweaty little bodies coming back into a closed room would force my breakfast back up every single time.

The worst nausea trigger was the smell of my vitamins.  I took a daily packet of prenatal vitamins that came in a cellophane wrapper and stank almost as bad as the dead raccoon.  I would gag every time.  Sometimes I could swallow them and keep them down, but not always.  Finally it got so bad that the mere sound of the cellophane would trigger the gag reflex.

Jim thought this was funny and would sometimes rattle the wrapper on purpose just to see me heave.  Then he would stand in the doorway as I knelt at the enamel altar, and ask, “Are you SURE you’re really pregnant?”

Once I was in a grocery store and someone innocently rattled a cellophane package, sending me flying to the back of the store frantically looking for a ladies room.  An employee saw my distress and pointed the way, not wanting to clean up the mess.  It was a close call, I can tell you that.  Jim just laughed when he heard about it.  He’s the one who had trained me, like Pavlov’s dog, to respond to the stimulus of the cellophane “bell.”

Another bad trigger was the smell of a goose egg omelet I once tried to cook for supper after we returned from a trip to some friends’ ranch.  I was not actively sick until I actually tasted it, and I could not handle it.  Later Jim, who obviously had too few amusements in those days, would smile not-so-innocently and say “goose” – sending my stomach into convulsions.

Sounds, smells, tastes, even the sight of certain foods, would do me in.  Ah, the memories, the memories.

Thankfully my stomach was never quite as weak in later pregnancies.

Easter at the ranch, 1985, when we got the goose egg