The 6 Emotional Stages of Having A Food Baby

'Tis the season for immaculate conception. Not of human/God spawn or anything, but the other kind of immaculately conceived pregnancy: the Food Baby You know what I'm talking about. We're all friends here. Don't pretend you haven't had and loved a Food Baby. No one is above a Food Baby, especially during the holidays. And don't pretend like you haven't tried to make it look like your Food Baby was a real baby on the subway to try and get a seat either, we all know you're holding your lower back dramatically and making that pregnant lady sound because you think THIS IS YOUR CHANCE.

One Thanksgiving, I had been impregnated with a Food Baby so large that my belly bloated from just below my boobs to just above my hips. When I showed my friend she cry-laughed for about thirty minutes straight, because my normally jiggly belly was immovable, like someone had poured concrete in it. I'm a small person too, so every Food Baby is noticeable, and weird.

I'm not going to presume that a food-based pregnancy is anything like you know, an actual pregnancy, but one does develop a certain amount of maternal intimacy with a Food Baby. You stroke it, poke it, feel how hard and real it is. The joy of feeling something alien inside you is subsumed only by the feelings of pain that come along with it. Like real babies, Food Babies have to come out some day. And boy do they KICK while they're in there. Here are the 6 emotional stages you'll go through when you're having a Food Baby.

1. PAIN

About 20 minutes after you stop eating, it's going to hurt. If you're anything like me, you probably kept eating in order to prolong the onset of pain, which is only going to serve to ultimately make things more painful in the end anyway.

2. MIRTH

You'll become so delirious with pain, eventually your incessant rolling around on the floor moaning will become hilarious to you and everyone around you. You'll ham it up for the LOLs (pun intended). But it's not until you pull your shirt up to reveal the bloated state of your belly that you'll get the real laughs.

3. ATTACHMENT

Because of all the pain you've had to go through for your Food Baby, and because of all the joy it's bought you, you will begin to grow attached to the lump of digesting food that's slowly turning into poop inside you.

4. FEAR

You know what's coming soon: The birth. As you look down at your growling, throbbing belly, you'll wonder how you're ever going to get anything that big out of a hole that small (and one that isn't even elastic).

5. REGRET

When it's time for dessert, you'll lick the icing off your cake listlessly, regretting all the food you ate that's prohibiting you from eating any more. By now, you're also so scared of what's to come in the game of porcelain thrones that you'll wish you never started this food pregnancy in the first place.

6. PAIN

Finally, you'll come full circle back to pain. This kind of pain isn't because of the stretching, gurgling Food Baby inside you though—it's because that Food Baby is now shredding through your insides, and coming up for air. Godspeed.

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