BANNED FOODS FOR PREGNANT WOMEN

You know, it’s not the alcohol I’m missing.  Which is odd when you consider the love affair I was having with gin and tonics.  Great, glorious, stiff gins, a dash of tonic and plenty of fresh lime.  Delish. 

I think your body helps you out by making the taste of it quite repulsive (at least to my taste buds) and the same thing has happened with my other vice…coffee.  Don’t even want to smell it these days, yet less than four months ago, I’d happily consume three, even four cups in a single day.  Mother nature is very clever indeed. 

What she didn’t do, however, is cure my love for soft cheeses, turkey melts, (I don’t know what my chef husband does to make it taste so good, but somehow sourdough bread, avocado, tomato, swiss cheese, mayonnaise – another baby no-no – and mustard are combined to produce the most scrumptious lunch or late night snack) medium rare steak and sushi.  I wonder if Japanese women give up sushi?  We know the Europeans don’t give up wine.  Or cigarettes for that matter, and their kids seem to be doing alright. 

It’s very hard to keep it all straight in your head.  I was taking a multi-vitamin thinking I was doing the right thing (since I was allergic to the iodine in the special baby vitamins) but I’ve since discovered vitamin A can damage your baby.  Then I had some salami and realised later it’s probably in the same category as sliced turkey.  I’ve also been tempted by my late night shopping habit (when all the specials go into place) to pick up a bargain with the roasted chickens.  I rationalise that the peanut knows a bargain when it sees one too, which prevents it from catching whatever it is you can catch from a roasted chicken sitting on the shelf from god knows when until I pick it up at 11pm that night.  Oysters I had only recently acquired a taste for so I’m coping without those, but trying to navigate the minefield of pregnancy-authorised fish is another thing entirely.  Nothing deep sea, which means no swordfish and most likely a dozen others I accidentally ate, and tuna only once a week.  Do you think that includes tinned tuna, because I lived on that for 7 years in New York and it is very dear to both my heart and my stomach.

So far the peanut seems to be coping with its mother’s tardy eating habits okay, but I guess we won’t know for sure until it pops out.  Or tries to learn to read.  Blimey, the parenting mistakes I can make are absolutely endless.  Whatever made me arrogant enough to think I could pull this off?