Summer of '73

The quality of this photo is poor but if you look closely you will pick up a certain heaviness. The chin needs support. The lips are pressed closed and the nose is crinkled – a miasmic protest against the normally bracing scent of the sea. I was probably about six weeks pregnant in this picture. It was my second pregnancy feeling lousy but not out of control awful. I was due in March and delivered a boy, the younger brother of Megan MacTech whose gestation brought me to my knees – in front of a porcelain bowl more tha once a day, and with nothing of substance in my stomach ( I actually grew afraid of eating food) only a bitter viscous egg-yolky blob would jet out.
This image of my face came to memory recently as I saw its exact replica on my daughter. She is due in February and she's just coming through the worst of this.
They say this aversion to so many foods and their smells is a protection – a preventitive against ingesting toxins that might be harmful to a developing fetus. That's pretty amazing when you think about it. As I told Unwellness, the pains of childbirth can be forgotten but this queasy sick fog that envelopes you for weeks (even months sometimes) is hard to forget. Long after the bundle of joy has been delivered you'll remember, like whenever a stomach flu grabs hold or the morning after a particularly celebratory night or even when you think about something you said or did that you wish had never happened. I wish I had morning sickness to steer me clear of those toxic moments.