Suffering with Pica

Ever heard of those weird pregnant women with CRAZY cravings? I'm not talking about the pickles and ice cream combo, I mean the women who crave dirt and laundry detergent.

That's me.

Well, not the dirt part. But walk me down the cleaner or laundry isle in the grocery store and you will have to drag me out of there! During both my pregnancy with Lilly and my current pregnancy I have craved non-nutritional/non-food substances. This is a condition called Pica. My cravings with my first pregnancy were fewer and spread out over more time. I craved toothpaste, any lemon scented cleaner and ice. Nothing too out of hand, and quite common for people with an iron deficiency (which would be most pregnant women). I thought I was in the clear when halfway through this pregnancy I had no such cravings. And then it hit me... seven months pregnant and Pica came back with a vengeance! Not only do I crave toothpaste, lemon scented cleaners and pebble ice, but also David's sport body wash, Clorox disinfecting wipes, dish soap, dish-washer detergent, fabric softener dryer sheets, lavender baby powder, the gritty texture and smell of my exfoliant, and gasoline. As for the title of this post, I really wouldn't consider myself as "suffering" through these cravings because let's be honest.. it's really, REALLY satisfying every time I get a whiff of one of those things! The only part that makes "suffering" applicable is wishing I could bathe in cleaner, brush my teeth with my exfoliant and drink gasoline... even though, in reality, I know it would all actually be discusting. Because I know how harmful they'd all be to ingest, I fill my cravings other ways. I guess you could say that I'm now obsessed with cleaning, brushing my teeth and showering (even more so than I am when I'm not pregnant! For those who know me well, this would be hard to believe). I take AT LEAST two showers a day; I'm guilty of carrying a dryer sheet around with me and every time I pass my kitchen sink I open one of my cleaners to smell it.

Onto the more statistical parts of Pica - less than 25% of women suffer from it during pregnancy. It was reassuring to me to read what other women have experienced craving- things like soil, clay, laundry starch, ice, ashes, plaster, paint chips, matches, permanent marker and coffee grounds.

I remember showering at home for the first time after having Lilly. I was so disappointed that my toothpaste didn't taste very good to me anymore. It's pretty amazing how quickly our hormones change us. Hopefully I'll still find the time and motivation to shower and clean after this little one is born! I hear two kids is going to be pretty tough!

Meh... BRING IT ON! :)