The last couple of weeks have been full of pregnancy milestones. Obviously, there was the sonogram. Then there was the passage of the 20 week marker, halfway through the pregnancy. But perhaps the most dramatic change in terms of how our lives work has been the arrival of the Pregnant Appetite. It is a force to be reckoned with.

I had read about how pregnant women develop pretty hearty appetites. But for me, the entire first trimester was just about trying to keep food down, and the early second trimester, after the nausea subsided, was mostly about remembering that I like to eat. I ate, but I didn't feel any extraordinary hunger.

And then, about 10 days ago, that changed. Pre-pregnancy, I have had the bad habit of failing to pack a lunch when I go to work, which sometimes resulted in me just skipping lunch entirely. Since that's not acceptable when you're pregnant, I've gotten into the good habit of taking a bag full of fruit and healthy snacks with me to work, along with milk and cereal and something for lunch. Usually, I don't finish it all. But one day last week, after going to the grocery store, I packed a particularly enormous bag of food for a day. I even showed it to Dan, I felt so silly for putting so much food in it. I figured it would take me three days to go through all that food.

Except that I ate it all. In one day. Every single last bit of it. And I was hungry when I got home. I thought this was a fluke, but then the next day, it happened again. Now I am pretty much packing the Jumbo Bag o' Food every morning, and having absolutely no trouble plowing through it as the day goes on. I have never been hungry like this in my life. It's actually kind of frightening, and it's starting to make me think that pregnant women should have some kind of safety labeling. Something along the lines of "WARNING: This woman is pregnant. If she asks you for food, give it to here immediately and then back away slowly."

I started thinking about the labeling concept last week when I almost threw a butter knife at a waiter who was failing to bring me my soup in a timely fashion. Dan and I went out to eat one day last weekend, and I was pretty hungry because through a long series of events, I hadn't eaten in about 12 hours, which is fine for a normal person, but not fine for people whose bodies are being run by alien forces with a constant need for sustenance. As soon as we sat down, I asked the waiter if he could bring me a bowl of soup, because I knew I was never going to survive the wait until we could get entrees. And he said yes. This turned out to be an outright lie.

Unfortunately, from where I was sitting, I could see orders of food being put up in the window to be served. My soup was up about four minutes after I ordered it. But our waiter didn't see it. He was taking orders at other tables, getting drinks, and just generally behaving in a totally diligent manner except for the fact that I STILL DIDN'T HAVE ANY SOUP. For the next 20 minutes, I looked at the bowl of soup, then at our waiter, then back to the soup, trying to will the waiter to go get my soup before I made a total scene. Dan's efforts to distract me and tell me that my muttered threats were probably a teensy bit irrational were in vain. I was completely fixated. Obsessed. About to come unglued.

In the end, the waiter did completely forget my soup. The only time he even paused at our table after taking our orders was to bring us our entrees. And still not my soup. At that point I was so relieved to see food that I just pointed out to him in what I think was a decently civil tone that he had forgotten about my soup and should just cancel that part of my order. Then I turned my attention to the woodfired pizza I had ordered. It's not a small pizza, and I ate the whole thing and told Dan he couldn't have any of it. Then I went home and had a banana and a milk shake, and only then did I feel satisfied.

So if you find yourself sitting with me at dinner any time in the next few months, you might want to guard your plate, because I am no longer in control of myself. The baby is holding me hostage, and she might make me steal your food.