I have pica. 

For anyone who doesn’t know what this is (and doesn’t feel like googling it), pica is the eating of non-food objects caused by iron-deficiency anemia.  All pregnant women get anemia eventually, mainly because the liquid part of the blood increases at a much faster rate than the number of red blood cells in the blood. 

There are a few different non-food things that are typically eaten in pica: 

1. ice, which I’ve been eating a lot of, chomping away a few times a day. 2. laundry starch, which I have no desire to eat

3. dirt or clay, which I also haven’t sampled and am not tempted by in the least (the extreme handwashing and paranoia about contaminated food doesn’t really jive with eating a fistful of dirt from the garden) 

No one knows why these are the things anemic people with pica want to eat. It’s not like there’s a bunch of iron in dirt or laundry starch.  Guess I better keep taking my prenatal vitamins.