Craving cravings

Here I am at 30 weeks (plus a couple days). I'm a little surprised I haven't gained more weight--I weighed myself yesterday morning and was a 227.4. That means I haven't gained any weight in the past two weeks or so. Surprising, especially since I feel like a whale. I'm much more conscious of my size and much more aware of my stomach getting in the way of things like clipping my toenails and drying my legs when I get out of the shower. I feel like I'm waddling a lot more, and I'm having a lot more trouble sleeping comfortably and a lot more heartburn (which is surprising since I take Prilosec regularly for heartburn anyway). I'm definitely glad I'm getting close to the end, although this has been a really easy ride so far. I'm sure I'm getting off a lot lighter than a lot of other women.

There are a couple of observations I've made that I find interesting. While I don't think I've had any true cravings--nothing I've suddenly sat up and said "I must have this NOW"--I have noticed that I've been eating a lot more fruit and drinking a lot more fruit juice than I used to. This is certainly a good thing. But there hasn't been once particular fruit that I've craved. I've eaten a lot of bananas, plums, cherries, strawberries, grapes, and watermelon, in no particular order. I also have noticed that I've wanted cold sweets, namely ice cream and popsicles. I've stopped more than once at Dairy Queen and gotten an ice cream cone, which is a rarity for me otherwise (not that I don't like DQ, but it isn't the sort of thing I would normally have done, pre-pregnancy). While there's a "wives tale" about craving sweets meaning one is having a girl, I find lots and lots of people on these pregnancy sites and other forums saying that they had craved sweets, and had boys. And I am pretty sure, with the photo we got during our ultrasound, that we ARE having a boy.

The other thing I've found interesting is the one thing that has made me feel sick, after the initial morning sickness that is. And that one thing is...beef. Now, this seems completely crazy to me, because I am a steak LOVER. Normally, few things make me happier than a rare steak. And I always like a good hamburger. But there have been a few times during the pregnancy that I have found myself feeling like I was right on the verge of barfing. And each one of those times, beef has been involved. A couple of times we've gotten hamburgers (once at McDonald's, and a couple of times at Fudrucker's) and I've had to pause while eating and stifle the urge to throw up. And we went out for steak at Texas Roadhouse and I got my usual (prime rib, rare), and again I had to slow WAY down and fight the feeling. I don't have any idea why the hamburgers and the steak would have had such an impact on me. The only time I've ever actually thrown up, the whole pregnancy, was early on, in the first trimester, and I ate a banana right after I got up and promptly yakked it back up. And the beef isn't ALWAYS a problem; I've also eaten steak and hamburger and felt just fine the whole time. But I haven't CRAVED red meat during the pregnancy, and that is VERY unusual for me. Under normal circumstances, I have steak cravings every few weeks. So maybe what's interesting about my pregnancy is not the cravings, but the LACK of cravings.