SuperMami

One of the most common platitudes heard by first-time expecting parents would have to be that pregnancy is (go ahead, say it with me) “beautiful and natural!” And always in tandem, too: Beautiful and Natural. It’s as if everybody is selling hair products or foundation make-up and all they can think to say is Beautiful and Natural, Beautiful and Natural…



And why not? What other processes are there connecting us to the rest of the natural world? Eating and crapping? Sure, that’s natural, alright, but rarely beautiful. New life (especially babies) is definitely a beautiful thing. I can’t even watch a National Geographic special about the Hatching of the Sea Turtles without saying, “AWWW” so many times that I drown out the narration of David Attenborough. And that’s reptilian cute. Maybe a farmer or an Ob/Gyn can transcend the “awww” reflex, but then we’re talking that force of sheer repetition that allows a trickle of water to pulverize a boulder. Beautiful and natural, beautiful and natural, beauty, nature, beauty, beauty, nature, beauty.

The hitch here is twofold. First of all, the repetition of the phrase takes a back seat to its appeal, and secondly, the phrase almost never originates from the mouths of comic dorks. Look, even if it were only said once and then never heard again, an appealing message has the kind of lasting impact only matched by a brutally honest barb. “You look great in black” was said once to Johnny Cash and you know how that ended. It’s like when someone asks you if you ate garlic the night before and then you never eat it ever again, or when somebody else says they can smell the gin on you and you resolve to start drinking alone. When you’re toying with the notion that you may, in fact, be doomed and somebody comes along with, “how perfectly beautiful and natural!?” it replaces your woes with comforting, warm fuzzies. Period. But that’s not the way anyone who ever read a comic book would see the thing.

Living in a world of more or less constantly suspended disbelief, the average reader of comics is always on the look-out for the powerful. To us (“us” being huge nerds) pregnancy is like being a super-human. Pregnant women have incredible capabilities that ordinary women do not possess. No, I am not talking about the fact that they are liable to have a head dangling out of their crotch. They have real, legit powers. For serious. They have their Kryptonite, too, but let’s try and not dwell on that.

Everybody knows that pregnant women have super stretchy skin, which is either a sore subject (pun!) or blows the G rating (again). I’ll leave that one alone. Besides, a big belly in nine months: what’s the big deal? That sounds like Freshman year at college; junk food and keg beer can do that just as soon as pregnancy.
The real super power of growth is happening within. Mommies’ babies expand by a factor of 1000 times the original size from zygote to newborn. In nine months! That’s an average of growing three times your previous size every day! I’d be 140 feet tall by this weekend if I grew like that. That’s Godzilla big.
Having a literal bun in the oven (cinnamon rolls, brownies, baked goods, etc) makes the whole house smell grrrreat. Who’ll argue with that? It’s common knowledge. Factuality. Well, here’s another fact that you perhaps were unaware of and which speaks volumes to the super-human nature of those with a figurative oven bun: Pregnant women have acute olfactory senses. Heightened sniffer prowess. It’s not so much that they are sensitive or that they smell good, but they do develop an exaggerated sense of smell. They smell very well. Gosh, I’d even say they smell swell!

Also, they get really large buh-zoombas, which is roughly equivalent to having the ability to control the minds of men.
I’m not saying pregnant women have bullet-proof legs or nothing like that. .Heroes and villains often have secret identities, pregnant women are prone to frequent mood swings. And they cannot fly either. Far from it. Jeesh, try getting them off the sofa past Seven PM. So they have their Achilles heel. I mean, for one thing, alls you have to do is say, “salt and pepper” and they’re liable to barf for half an hour.

Morning sickness aside, it is a fact that pregnant women are more susceptible to food poisoning than the non-incubating segments of the population. I wouldn’t wish that on my Arch Enemy.

Finally, what trait do all super-humans share (besides powers and weaknesses) that is also a mainstay of pregnant women? Form-fitting outfits, that’s what!
But just as pregnant women make great heroes, so do Comic fanboys make perfect expectant fathers. For one thing, they are used to having to wait for exciting arrivals. Cliff-hangers are nothing to comic geeks, who are only dissatisfied in the absence of a startling, twist ending. And we know that there is no situation too dire to become an amazing save-the-day moment. I almost wish there was an umbilical cord around my neck as I write this!