For the Love of God, Eat the Goddamn Pizza

Dear Cletus,

I just finished eating a handful nitrate-soaked deli meatrolls, so if you come out with three arms, that's why. Why would deli meatrolls give you three arms, you ask? Also, what is a meatroll?

A meatroll is the name I've given to one of my favorite snacks. Despite the fact that its name sounds sleazy, it's just delicious. Pick your deli meat (pick your favorite - ham, turkey, salame), squirt some yellow mustard down the middle, roll it up, eat. This is one of the best things ever. And this isn't a pregnancy craving - I invented meatrolls when I was 8. Back then, I was using Oscar-Mayer bologna. I've classed it up as I've gotten older though, so today I ate Oscar-Mayer smoked turkey.

Why could my believed meatrolls give you three arms? Well, according to the nurse practitioner we saw last week, any deli meats that are pre-packaged have nitrates, and apparently that could be bad for you. I am supposed to avoid nitrates by only eating deli meat that has been cut for me by the butcher.

I actually did buy some custom-cut turkey, on the way home from that appointment. But I couldn't in good conscious start eating it when there was an unfinished package of Oscar-Mayer, looking sadly out from the crisper drawer of the fridge. So, there you go.

This whole what-to-eat/what-not-to-eat during pregnancy is frustrating. My nurse practitioner darkly warns against nitrates in deli meat, but then goes strangely soft and PC on me by saying I should be "thoughtful" about drinking alcohol, which left me confused. Do we really live in a society that is so out-of-whack that first-time mothers are told never to let nitrates infest their food and bodies, but then are advised to practice "mindful thinking" and "thoughtfulness" about their drinking habits? What a strange combination of vigilance and fear of offending.

(just so you know, Cletus, I may think the nitrate fear is bogus, but my days of alcohol-induced benders are over for the next few months. But once you're out of my body, I'm not going to promise anything).

I find myself calling my friend Jessi a lot to ask her what I can eat. Thus far, she has always given me the exact same response: Use common sense. Can I eat fish four nights a week? "Use common sense. Would you really want to anyways?" How much water should I be drinking? "Use common sense. Drink enough so that you're never really thirsty." Jessi's perspective is that women have been having babies for way longer than nurse practitioners and Google have been freaking us out about what we can and can't eat. There are some exceptions to this rule, but for the most part, if it were really that bad the human race would have died out a long time ago because everyone ate too much nitrate-filled fish.

It's easy for Jessi to say, though, Cletus. She just had her second kid and pregnancy was old-hat to her by the second time around. I don't remember if she was this easy-going with her first one, but I can't help getting freaked out and over-thinking things once in a while. And sometimes, it's in the most unfortunate of situations. Like Friday night.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 came out on DVD on Friday. I announced that morning that we would be spending that night watching both parts 1 and 2 in celebration, and eating pizza. Your dad picked up a pizza from Papa Murphy's and by the time I was home from work, it was in the oven and the house smelled delectable. We turned on the movie, pulled out the pizza - and then your dad suddenlly pointed out the feta cheese that was part of the pizza toppings. "You can't eat this," he flatly told me. "I just realized."

Listen up Cletus: it's one thing for me to longingly look at nitratey hotdogs at the supermarket and have your dad pull me away and tell me I can't eat them. But it's another thing entirely for him to bring home a pizza, cook it, and then place it in front of his pregnant, ravenous wife, and tell her she can't eat it.

Your dad, being a smart man and realizing that swift action must be taken or he might be killed Kalima-style, quickly suggested I call Jessi before any damaging bites of pizza were taken. The phone call was made, and I was told once again to use common sense and eat the pizza as long as it was cooked, followed up by a text from Jessi's husband that said: "For the love of God, eat the goddamn pizza."

So I did, and it was great. No side effects, by the way. Apparently you like feta cheese. And papaya, which I ate every day last week (although I just found out today that that can be a no-no too, apparently. The list goes on and on).

Nine weeks in, and you're already causing inconveniences, Cletus. But I'm sure you'll be worth it.

Love,

Your soon-to-be Mom.

P.S. I know I said I thought you might be a boy. But today in the grocery store we stood in line behind a kid with two broken arms. He told us that he broke them by jumping off the roof of his house on a dare. Please be a girl, Cletus. Girls don't do that kind of crap.