the pineapple project

Why pineapple? It all started when some hokey story we heard early on said an American doctor recommended IVF patients eat pineapple and an egg McMuffin the morning of the procedure. Since we were taking any tips, medical, folkloric or otherwise into consideration we dutifully trudged over to the A&P, bought a pineapple, cut it up and put pieces into a little Tupperware we took with us to McDonalds for a “hold the meat please” breakfast! Now don’t think it didn’t hurt our self-image to eat at Mickie D’s. We were prepared to face the imagined wrath, which turned out to come mostly from our inner voices, of eating at such a multinational, cow-killing conglomerate. But a baby! It’s like we got the pregnancy stupids early! The pineapple was nice though.

Then, years later in the journey after mostly giving up on egg McMuffins and pineapple I did an obscene amount of internet research on the benefits of pineapple core to sustain implantation. It must be ripe; the lady in question must only eat a sixth or so of it each day, and only from ovulation on for 5 days. It sounded good so we tried it. And lastly, what a fruit, all showy and armored, tart and sweet like a hot military chick. Thus the blog title was born. Our project had been code named “gardening” for a long time as well, for obvious reasons, so it had to be something that grows. You know, I remember seeing a pineapple growing in England as some kind of British agricultural curiosity. It really looks like the pineapples are just popping right out of the ground! I guess we were hoping for the same thing, a fantastic and improbable-feeling miracle of nature.

E