Since this is my fourth pregnancy, I’ve experienced a wide variety of the symptoms that go along with being “with child”. It’s amazing to me how every pregnancy is different, even when they are experienced by the same woman. Pregnancies are as different as the personalities of the children that result. Is it possible then, that a child’s personality can actually be displayed through the symptoms of the mother’s pregnancy? For example, my aunt told me that when she was pregnant with my cousin, she craved spicy food after not really liking it before. My cousin, the result of the spicy food pregnancy, is now 31 years old and has always been a fan of spicy food!
When I was pregnant with my oldest daughter, my husband would blend a huge glass of juice for me every morning with lots of fruits and veggies in it. My oldest daughter now prefers snacks of fruits and vegetables to junk food. I didn’t really crave the fruits and veggies, so that’s a different example, but it’s still an illustration of how womb behavior may affect the child throughout life.
My second daughter was, for lack of a better word, crazy in the womb. She was the last thing I felt before I fell asleep at night, and the first thing I felt in the morning, and let’s not forget all those middle of the night bathroom trips… she was kicking and rolling during those too. I would often joke that I didn’t know if this baby ever sleeps. Once she was born, I got the answer: she doesn’t ever sleep and never did apparently. It felt like she was tearing me apart from the inside out with her strong movements in the womb, and to this day, she is our strong-willed, “spirited” child.
My third daughter was very gentle as a fetus. She rarely moved – compared to her older sister at least – and when she did, it was always in one spot. As a toddler, she has a very sweet, patient, and obedient demeanor. So, as for #4… so far she moves a lot. I don’t want to jinx anything here, but her movements remind me of our second daughter – the spirited one. But I’ve also experienced some strange symptoms with this pregnancy that I haven’t felt before. First, I’ve been having nightmares. It’s common in pregnancy to have more vivid dreams, and I’ve experienced that, but lately I’ve had lots of nightmares, ones where I actually wake up too creeped out to go to the bathroom… Strange. And with this pregnancy, red fruit has been especially tasty. I don’t crave it, but things like tomatoes, strawberries, and especially red grapes (I’ve always preferred green to red until now!) taste extra yummy to me. It’s so weird to me how tastes can change during a pregnancy. I’ve never liked bologna and still don’t, but during my first pregnancy, I liked it and ate it quite often.
There is probably some scientific research out there that speculates about how much a mother’s pregnancy symptoms impact the resulting child, but rather than research it, I think I will just wait and see what my girls are like when they enter adulthood and we can sit down and read my pregnancy diaries together, compare their personalities with that of their womb behavior, and share some good laughs.
