When I was in college my roommate would often insist that her clothing smelled funny after going to the dining commons, but I could never smell anything. It seemed so odd to me but she swore up and down, after sniffing her cardigan repeatedly, that it smelled funny after eating. Later on I lived with another young lady who had a similar issue. She would say that something smelled funny in our kitchen and start wafting smells from every container in our refrigerator searching for the perpetrator. Often she would find something, and with four of us living in a house it didn’t surprise me that someone would forget about their leftovers until time took its course to turn it rotten. A few years later the evidence had finally mounted against me and I had to accept the fact that my sense of smell is deplorable. I literally just can’t smell things. At least I couldn’t until I was pregnant.

The world is a terrible smelly place people!! I made the assumption that because I couldn’t smell anything in my normal everyday life that I was going to skip out on the horrors of smells making you nauseous during pregnancy. No such luck. This was one of the first major changes that happened to me and I thought I was losing my mind. Suddenly I was able to smell my own B.O. and for the first time I understood that boob sweat smells different than armpit sweat. Then of course my boobs got bigger which lead to increased under-boob sweat. Bleck! Someone had told me years ago that women’s boob sweat smells bad, I never believed them but boy was I wrong! Not only is your sense of smell increased but you are told to pay attention to your own vivid bodily smells because they could be an indicator of a whole myriad of health issues! Armpits smell weird? Might need to get that checked out. Farts smell different? You need to figure out why. Vaginal discharge smells off? DEFINITELY need to have that looked at. Part of being pregnant is doing your absolute best to take care of your health because it has a direct impact on the life forming inside you. So if I was told I need to take a whiff of my own body, I’ll deal with the temporary disgust to make sure my baby is ok.

Speaking of body odors, my wonderful husband’s natural scent no longer was good… or even tolerable for that matter. How do you politely say “You literally smell so bad I might puke on you, please go clean yourself”? What’s even worse is that I was sensitive enough that the effect of taking a shower sometimes wore off after an hour and he smelled SO bad again. I’m a touchy person, meaning that I like contact. I love holding hands, hugs, cuddling, resting my head on his shoulder etc. so this became quite a challenge for me. Don’t get me wrong, other people smell bad too but I don’t live with them. My husband is an understanding man so after I explained to him my situation clearly he didn’t get offended when I asked him to take a shower. He also figured out that if he had been working in the heat or had just gone for a run that he should basically go straight into the shower. Many women don’t find their husbands’ smell attractive when they are pregnant so this isn’t an unusual issue to have. You’re not alone! The smell didn’t bother me 24/7 so I got to spend a lot of time happily curled up next to my hubby but when the smell did get to me, it was intense.

Foods, of course, became richer in their scent too which turned out to be a double edged sword. Foods that smelled good, smelled great! Mouthwatering, I need to have it right NOW, kind of great. I didn’t have many cravings during pregnancy but I often wanted to inhale whatever was producing a yummy smell. Not great when your pregnancy hormones make self control a struggle but you need to eat a healthful and balanced diet. On the flip side of that, foods that were unappetizing to smell made me react so strongly I needed to leave the room. The smell that was the worst was roast. My husband tried making us a nice roast in our slow cooker one day and it made me nauseous. I went as far away from our kitchen as I could and closed the doors. It still wasn’t enough. I ended up leaving the house in search of fresh air. When I returned our home still wreaked of pot roast and until a couple days after all the leftovers were eaten I hated the smell of our refrigerator. The thing is, I normally love pot roasts and find the smell welcoming and nostalgic. My husband was trying to do something nice for me! It back fired obviously and as a general rule we found that the longer something needed to cook, the worse it smelled to me. Needless to say ,our slow cooker got a vacation.

Oh yes, the final disgusting aspect of my new found smell abilities is that our apartment is right next to the community dumpster where several other families deposit their trash. Literally never bothered me before being pregnant because I couldn’t smell it. Now I hated going to the car, walking to get the mail, or stepping out onto our balcony. Basically my life as a pregnant lady was an obnoxiously smelly one. But I am thrilled to report that after having my sweet little baby, my smell has mostly gotten back to normal. I still smell somethings that I didn’t before but there is no more knock-you-off-your-feet pungency around every corner! My return to a less scented world is probably a good thing because, ya know, baby poop…

Let me hear your smelly stories and how you coped with them!