Produce, anyone?

So Leah was checking out some websites when we found out we were pregnant a while back. She came across a website called BabyCenter which offers a free weekly e-mail that tells you about what's happening with the baby inside. These emails come every Wednesday under the title "Your Pregnancy at x Weeks". There is some good information in these updates, no doubt. 

However, in order to give soon-to-be parents a visual of what's happening inside Mom, the email compares the size of the baby to...a fruit or vegetable. At first it was okay. At Week 4 she was the size of a poppy seed, Week 6 moved up to a lentil bean, and by Week 8 our little girl was the size of a kidney bean. Okay, not bad so far. By Week 12 she was about the size of a lime and moved up to a lemon two weeks later. That wasn't bad. You know, nice, colorful fruits, right?

However, Week 16 had her compared to an avocado and Week 19 was a "large heirloom tomato." Hmm. Now we were starting to not like the comparisons so much. There was a spaghetti squash a few weeks later and then this: "she is the size of an average rutabaga". WHAT??? I don't even know what a "rutabaga" is, let alone an "average" rutabaga. I thought that was a smaller type of Winnebago or something. It kept getting worse, though.

Week 27: the head of a cauliflower. A week later she was a Chinese cabbage. A Chinese cabbage? Can we at least get an American cabbage?? Yet strangely enough, by this point we started looking forward to the comparisons strictly for the laugh. It was a Catch-22: trying not to picture a cabbage inside Leah but also wanting to see if the next week could top the previous. 

So every Wednesday, there we have been, logging into Leah's email account to read over the weekly message and prepare ourselves for the veggie that would be in our imaginations for the next few days. Week 32 didn't let us down: a "large jicama". Okay, seriously. What is a jicama? I honestly have no idea.  Was there really nothing comparable to a jicama they could've used? Two weeks later she was an average cantaloupe. Now that I can picture.

Another curveball came at Week 37 when we discovered our girl was now comparable to a "stalk of swiss chard." I'm not making this up. What is a swiss chard? And does it really come on stalks? And, of course, two days ago, we received the exciting news that our baby has graduated up to another level: she is now a leek. I thought that's what might happen during feeding, I didn't know it was actually a fruit or veggie. By the way, I think BabyCenter gets some sort of commission from the Hy-Vee produce department.

So now with only one or two more emails coming, I have to admit that we're going to miss them. However, I am a little scared of the birth: I'm half-expecting Leah to shoot out a head of lettuce or Swedish watermelon.