With the first two pregnancies(girls), I had to have lobster and crab legs, popsicles and chocolate milk. I drank 2 gallons of chocolate milk a week.
With the third (and last) pregnancy(boy), crab legs, chocolate milk and beef, lots and lots of beef.
I don’t remember any aversions to anything and did not have any morning sickness at all.
I’ve driven my husband crazy during this pregnancy with my newfound likes and dislikes. For the record, pre-pregnancy I was the least picky eater I know. I’d pretty much eat anything you put in front of me and rarely complain unless it genuinely tasted bad or was really under/over cooked. Now it’s a daily guessing game that I might possibly enjoy eating whatever he’s prepared for dinner, but don’t count on it. He was getting pretty offended in the beginning when I’d take a bite of something and declare “This tastes like sweat, I can’t eat it” and make myself peanut butter and jelly for dinner. But it didn’t take long for him to get used to it and he just shakes his head and tells me there’s plenty of bread and peanut butter in the kitchen.
In terms of likes and dislikes, in the beginning frozen pizza was the only thing that sounded good on a daily basis, which meant that if everything else tasted like ass, I could eat frozen pizza anytime and be happy. Then the Hot Pockets craving kicked in, had to have those for breakfast every day for almost 8 weeks. Other cravings include ice cream, oranges, black licorice, dill pickles (and they HAVE to be Mount Olive classic dills), cold grape juice, salted peanuts, sparkling mineral water, fresh strawberries, spaghetti with meat sauce, Italian cold cut subs, and cheez-its. The things I’ve really disliked include onions (anything that smells, tastes, or looks like it has onions in it is off limits) and chicken to an extent – it has to be very crunchy to the taste and not too thick. Absolutely no big thick boneless breasts without crunchy coating, you might as well stick your finger down my throat and call it a night. Also, if I get a piece of chewy fat or cartilage forget about it, dinner’s over.
Oh yeah, and LifeOnWry, I know EXACTLY what you mean about knowing what you’re going to order from a restaurant as soon as you sit down. It’s not even a matter of thinking about what sounds good. When I go somewhere I know that tonight is the night that I’m only eating pizza/shrimp scampi/peanut M & M’s/whatever and this menu better have that.
Taco Bell, absolutely! Loved burritos or just about anything from there while pregnant. The only real craving, as opposed to the gee that sounds good normal type of craving, was for Ram’s Horn chili-cheese fries. I’m a pretty big fan of ccfries normally, but there was something so very right about the way the local Ram’s Horn restaurant made them. Piled on the tobasco and everything, since bread or oatmeal or water could (and did) give me heartburn, why not enjoy what I’m eating, eh?
No really memorable aversions that haven’t already been covered, smell of meat cooking had to be avoided, although I was fine with the finished product. Just an increased sensitivity to smell, period.
I don’t know about the pregnancy cravings translating, my kid can’t stand chili or cheese on his fries, go figure. When my mother carried me, however, there was a taco stand just starting out in the neighborhood, running a take-out from their kitchen until they had enough capital to start a restaurant. She used to waddle over there daily getting her five tacos for two bucks, according to the family lore. Growing up we often visited the restaurant they eventually opened, the proprieters would come out and make this giant fuss over me, look how big she’s grown type stuff, and I loved their food. The older folks died and the kids sold the place, now there’s a bar there, but I still love mexican food.
I couldn’t stand the taste or smell of cantaloupe. Normally I love love love them, so that was weird. I couldn’t drink enough orange juice. Normally I don’t drink it much because it gives me indigestion, but when pregnant I drank gallons of the stuff. My sense of smell (normally pretty sensitive anyway) was just amazing. I’m glad it is not that sensitive all the time!
First child: No aversions / cravings that I recall. I did eat a lot of chili toward the end of the pregnancy, then again I eat a lot of chili all the time. I had very little nausea, fortunately. Dweezil, not surprisingly, likes chili 
Second child: I learned to loathe Thai food because I had some for lunch early on, when my tummy was a bit unsettled, and my brain associated “thai food” with “nausea”. I’ve since re-learned to enjoy the stuff, luckily. I did develop a short-term affection for cheeseburgers and fries, which I very rarely eat at any other time. And no, Moon Unit doesn’t like chili at all for some reason.
The grossest food I ever heard of any friend eating was peas with mayonnaise. Mayo is a foul substance in any situation, I’m certain I could never have stomached that combination!
For me, it was tuna salad sandwiches on white, with Miracle Whip. Every day. For breakfast. With a glass of V-8 juice.
Mmmm! My son hates tuna salad, and Miracle Whip. But he likes V-8 ok.
I had a strong aversion to breakfast sausage cooking. My husband would cook these giant sausage “burgers” for a sandwich – used to gross me out so bad I had to go outside. I still can barely tolerate the stuff.
Well, ladybug is on her 14th week, and without too many particular cravings besides fruit. Fresh fruit. As in, everything is out of season but its gotta be fresh fruit untouched by knives or other food preparation equipment other than washers and sorters.
And the particular fruit changes daily. Goddamn pineapples are $5 each at Vons. At least the oranges and grapefruits are reasonable. And the Pink Lady apples at Trader Joes are a frequent request. She hasn’t peeled and eaten a lemon, yet, but I won’t be surprised when she does.
I don’t know what to do when she requests cherries. There are no fresh cherries in April.
And the peaches from Brazil are hard and tasteless.
She also has the “nose like a bloodhound” condition. She smells things I cannot, and I have a pretty good smeller. Things that are making her uncomfortable, I can just barely smell. And some normal every day smells are things that threaten to make her ill.
I was making chicken kabobs last nite, and used a little sesame oil in the marinade… that sent her running! And I had to eat them alone.
Needless to say, she’s living mostly on fruits, salads, and grilled cheese.
First child: anything with tomatoes. Tomato soup, pizza with extra sauce, chili cheese fries.
Second child: BAD aversion to almost every food. I gained 9 pounds during the entire pregnancy, and the baby weighed 8’13. Came out of the hospital weighing less than I did when I got pregnant.
Third child: Green olives and ham salad. And CHEAP nasty strawberry ice cream, the kind that’s so cheap it’s gummy.
With all kids, I craved the smell of Pine-Sol. Maybe it just signifies Clean to me, and with the nesting instinct… I still love the smell of it.
With my daughter, the only things I could eat were chicken soft tacos from Taco Bell with extra cheese and sour cream and fish from Long John Silver’s–completely soggy with malt vinegar and copious amounts of salt. The only thing I would drink was milk and I drank a lot. I was going through at least three, sometimes four, gallons of milk a week. I don’t even really like milk. It occurred to me at one point that I was eating mostly vinegar, salt and milk–basically, pickles and ice cream components. Weird.
I also ingested many, mnay bottles of Tums over the course of my abbreviated pregnancy. Had I gone all nine months, I’m pretty sure I would have just been crushing them and adding them to all my food.
I certainly got my calcium! I’m sure that’s where Emmy gets her absolute love of milk from. That child will choose milk over juice any day.
Interestingly enough, when Emmy was born as prematurely and small as she was, the nurses just assumed that with the long NICU stay and the not knowing if she was going to live, that I would certainly develop post-partum depression. Several of them tried to talk to me about it. I never did. A few months after she came home I read a study that said that research has shown that pregnant women who eat a lot of fish are much less prone to developing PPD.
I crave beef, oranges, and things I can’t get here (Donair, Ginger Beef). I can smell everything. People in the next house over are eating fish? I can smell it. Ugh.
Fruit stays down ok. I need to go grocery shopping and buy more fruit. Melons, oranges, bananas.
My grandmother had cravings for wallpaper paste and plaster (this was in the 1920s). My ex-wife had no cravings, but her sense of smell got really sensitive and she spent alot of time outside on the deck while I cooked.
Before my first pregnancy, I couldn’t stand Mexican food, at all. Never ate it. During my first pregnancy, I began to crave Mexican food, as long as it wasn’t too spicy. My second pregnancy, I not only craved Mexican food, I suddenly wanted it very spicy, even though I never cared for spicy food previously. If I ever have another child, I’ll be drinking Tabasco straight or something.