Thursday, June 16, 2011

Fifth Sense

  You hear a lot about people with "sixth senses", whether they be reading minds, knowing emotions, seeing dead people, etc etc. I, however, have been functioning most of my life without even the customary five.

  I've never had a great sense of smell. I could immediately tell if something was "too strong" a smell merely by the fact that I could smell it at all. Whenever a crowd of people would sniff delicately and say something like, "What IS that??" I would take deep breathes and smell nothing at all. Then, ten minutes later, once everyone else has become accustomed to the stench, I would suddenly exclaim, "Holy cow, that DOES smell bad!". I was fine this way. Honestly, because the only things I could smell were either right up by my nose or extremely pungent, smells seemed overrated and distracting to me.

  Then I became pregnant.

  I smell EVERYTHING now, and often before everyone else. It was overpowering for a few weeks, especially with my constantly churning stomach, and I would often rant to McKay, "Why does ANYONE want to smell things? This is horrible, is this how life always is for you people?" And that wasn't even on the day I sat next to a man with BO in my British Lit class. Which was probably the longest hour and a half of my life, by the way.

  Of course, there are nice things about having a sense of smell. When McKay and I go on walks, I can smell which houses are doing laundry, and roses that are a yard away. But I think my poor husband is hoping as fervently as I am that I am left with four senses again once our baby is born, so I can once again participate in such fun activities as cleaning the cat box (though I wouldn't be doing this even if I still could not smell it, as it is dangerous for pregnant women for reasons that have been explained to me dozens of times that I keep forgetting) and doing dishes. Due to the amount of gross-smelling chores that have automatically become delegated to McKay, my daily phrase to him is now, "You're a good man, Charlie Brown." And, boy, is that the truth. Cuz having a wife with five senses is no joke.

  Any of my pregnant/been pregnant/know someone who has been pregnant readers have any stories of superpower-like senses due to developing a fetus?

2 comments:

  1. I had the smell thing too, but I live every day with exceptional hearing. This may not seem like a big deal, but it drives everyone crazy. I hear every mutter, I can understand the tv when it is down at 8 (out of 50), I am super-sensitive to loud noises and I especially love those people that like to "share" their music from their cars. Between my super hearing, Andrews sensitive eyes, James exceptional colon and your new found sense of smell we are like some sad little group of wana-be super heros.

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  2. Please tell me that Super Smell is how you knew something was up and led you to get a pregnancy test.

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