So I have been avoiding talking about this for a while...for nearly 2 months now I suppose. It's nothing crazy or tragic or too life altering...well I guess it has altered my life a bit...well a lot. It's more of a nuisance and an annoyance and a frustration than anything else. Well anyone who has been pregnant knows the joy of the glucose screening test. And by joy I actually mean pure hell. The test I took with Olivia wasn't nearly as bad cause I only had to do the one hour test and wasn't required to do any fasting beforehand. Not the case this time, I'm sure you can see where this is going. My doctor this time around tests everyone over 30 with a 2 hour fasting test, thankfully it wasn't the three hour test! So basically I couldn't eat for 8 hours beforehand then report to the lab to have my blood drawn....drink the sugary nasty concoction which is twice the amount of the 1 hour test and therefore twice as sugary and disgusting and you have to have it all down in 2 minutes. Then you get to sit around for an hour then they draw your blood again and you get to sit around for another hour until the draw your blood the third time.
Mind you I hate having my blood drawn and was already stressed out from my ultrasound the week before where the tech told me my baby was kinda big and asked had I had my glucose test yet. Now I don't pay much credence to these ultrasound size estimations or technician opinions. According to them Olivia was going to be lucky to be born at barely 5 pounds when she was a completely normal 7 and a half pounds. But all the same I felt worried about some giant baby ripping me apart during birth or worse needing a c-section. Anyways back to the test...I seriously felt like I was going to die the first hour. I started sweating like crazy and for the second time in my life, the first being seeing Mitchell after his heart surgery, felt like I was going to faint. The blood people kept asking me if I wanted to lie down but I just kept taking frequent trips to the bathroom to splash cold water on my face and neck. It was terrible!!! The second hour went better but I still felt pretty crappy and by the time it was over I just wanted to go home and lie down and not get up for the rest of the day...which is basically what I did. Then the doctor called a few days later with the news I did not want to hear. "Your fasting number was normal and your last number was normal but the second number was a bit borderline high, so the doctor is referring you to a diabetes dietitian and counselor". FAIL!!!!! I asked "well does that mean I have gestational diabetes or just that it was kinda high"...She didn't really give me a definitive answer only that "it was better to be safe than sorry" and to just wait to hear from the diabetes people.
A week or so went by and I still had not heard anything and in the meantime felt so stressed out about what I should and should not be eating and whether or not I was doing some sort of irreversible damage to my baby. I mean I am neurotic and I am a worrier and everything to me is the end of the world. I couldn't take it!!!! I was so sad and depressed all week...I didn't really know what to eat so I just didn't eat most of the time which certainly didn't help feeling awful and depressed. Thankfully a girl I knew from church growing up had expressed on Facebook a few months ago that she had it so I emailed her and she was able to give me ideas on what to eat and what to do and that I wasn't going to hurt my baby and basically to calm down, breathe and I would be fine. Which I was extremely grateful to hear from her and she made me feel a lot more supported about the whole thing. Even so I felt ashamed, alone, like a failure, like maybe had I not eaten so much ice cream or drank soda maybe this wouldn't be happening to me. Most of all it just felt like why? WHY NOW? WHY ME? As if the last 6 months had not been trying enough. Mitch's health problems, his surgery, losing his job after his surgery, my grandmother dying, the fact that we were broke, the fact that my pregnancy with Olivia was less than ideal and I just wanted to enjoy being pregnant this time...it just seemed like one more thing to push me over the edge of the already shaky grip I had on any mental well being. Maybe this sounds dramatic and like it wouldn't be a big deal to you...but it was a big deal to me and still depresses me at least once a day, if not most of the day.
Anyways since it had been a week and I had still not heard from the diabetes place I called the doctor and they gave me the number to call. However once I did make contact with them I was told that I would be scheduled for a class where I would learn all about the whole thing and what not but the classes are so full that I couldn't even get in for another 3 weeks. THREE WEEKS!!!!! It had already been like 2 weeks of unguided confusing hell what am I supposed to do in the meantime? The nurse who scheduled my class was like "Oh your numbers aren't bad...just borderline so you know eat healthy and don't go crazy"....oh thanks because I really know what you mean by "don't go crazy" and also do you know who you are talking to? I am already way past crazy about this...I mean I felt completely insane!!
So left to my own devices I barely ate much for the three weeks...trying to follow the carb counts of what I should be eating on some gestational diabetes website I found online and actually ended up losing 5 pounds in those three weeks and seeing how I had only gained about 15 pounds so far at 7 months pregnant it did seem a bit alarming but I had a doctor appointment in there somewhere and they assured me that I was fine and the baby was growing?!!!! I still have been the same weight for like the last 2 months!? My belly is getting bigger so how I am not gaining weight doesn't really make sense to me. I think a lot of people, myself included, think that only overweight people develop gestational diabetes. I mean I was no Kate Moss by any means but I wasn't overweight before becoming pregnant and I didn't gain a bunch of weight while pregnant so again the whole thing baffled me. I am however really not all that active or into exercise...so I don't know. Mitchell had been pretty supportive for the most part, helping me pick out meals with small carb counts and he is on a sodium restricted diet so I guess on some level can sympathize. However he is also Mitchell and there has been a lot of unwanted teasing about the whole thing..."I told you not to eat so much ice cream, maybe it was all that soda you drank when you stopped having coffee, well you know you don't have the best eating habits, blah, blah, blah".
My mom on the other hand...well she never thinks there is ever anything wrong with anyone so any talking with her was pretty frustrating. She would just tell me that I was being dramatic and that she bet when I went to the class they would tell me I was fine. All this did was make me more mad. Yes I know I am probably being a bit crazy and obsessive about the whole thing but they wouldn't be making me go to the dumb class if there was nothing to worry about, if it was nothing. You literally have to be bleeding out of the skull with your brains falling out for my mom to admit that maybe there was a problem, and that's still a big maybe, lol. Which probably explains why I always had perfect attendance in school, there was no getting away with faking anything with her growing up. I mean I don't feel singled out by this cause she is this way with everything and everyone..."Oh it's fine, you're fine, life goes on, stop being so dramatic"...you get the idea.
So last week was the big class. The three and a half hour class. Where they explain what gestational diabetes is, why pregnant women develop it, how it can be controlled with diet, how it goes away after birth of the placenta, how stress can raise your blood sugar, about how it is mostly about hormones blocking the production of insulin in some "lucky women", and last but not least how to check your blood sugar 4 times a day which is required. Ughhhhhh I had to prick myself 3 times before I got enough blood, I was so nervous...I hate blood, the sight of blood and now I have to do this 4 times a day! The class was helpful and the nurse and dietitian were very informative and reassuring that if you follow all the guidelines everything will be fine and the baby will be a normal size and healthy, that there was nothing we did to cause it, it just happens sometimes. I did find the other mothers in the class a bit annoying. All of them were like "ehhh I wasn't shocked when I had it, I feel okay about it, I can manage it and it's not a big deal".They all for the record were also normal weights if not slender. But I wanted to scream "I was shocked, I was pissed, I'm still pissed off about it, it sounds like a huge pain in the ass even though I guess it's what I have to do now. It's been a week and I still flinch everytime I await the spring action "lancet" to pierce my poor sore fingers. This is some pretty intense stuff. I have to record all my numbers once when I wake up after not eating all night and an hour after the first bite every every main meal. Then I have to email my doctor my numbers weekly and I also have 2 more appointments with these diabetes people before the baby is born. So far my numbers have been pretty normal. I have had a few numbers that were a few points higher than what my "goal numbers" are, but nothing outrageous. However when I have had an elevated number it makes me really upset...I cry. I feel like I am doing what they told me to do and feeling miserable in the meantime and still apparently can't get it right. It's very frustrating.
The hardest part of this whole thing is having to plan ahead what I am going to eat and I have to make sure to eat every 2-3 hours and not to mention they want you to eat all your meals and snacks at the same time everyday (yeah right that's happening). I feel like a slave to the clock. Having to remember the exact time of my first bite of food and test my blood exactly one hour later. Having to remember what time I ate and what I ate so I can make sure to eat exactly 2-3 hours later and not sooner than that. It's pretty depressing, I feel hungry all the time, I don't feel like I can enjoy anything I am eating or anything at all for that matter because it is always in the back of my mind. When can I eat, what can I eat, what do I feel like eating, do we even have anything I can eat, I don't feel like eating right now but I have to eat, I have to wake up to eat sometimes because I can't go longer than 8 hours at night without eating...however I have to not eat for 8 hours to get my "fasting" blood sugar first thing in the morning. I feel like I am eating just to survive at this point...that's about it.
I know there is a lot of people who can't have babies and would gladly take my position for the chance to have a baby...and I appreciate that and I am grateful...but I would really like "catch a break" so to speak. I mean I would really have liked to have everything go the way it's supposed to for once in my life. I am usually the type who always has to learn things the hard way and most of those times it's from my own stupidity and actions that cause those trying consequences to come crashing down around me. But I really don't feel like anything I did caused the stress that is my life the past 6 months...it just would have been nice after all the heart surgery stuff, after all the having to take care of everyone during recovery stuff to be able to at least somewhat enjoy the end of my pregnancy...to at least be able to have a bowl of ice cream or a truck load of pasta or an entire pizza.
So it's touch and go. Sometimes I feel okay about the whole thing and other times when I'm hungry or waiting around to test my blood sugar I just feel really lonely and depressed. I still feel pretty embarrassed about the whole thing, still don't like to talk about it, still feel like people are going to judge me and think I'm fat and disgusting about the whole thing. Just feel like I am existing in this pregnancy instead of enjoying it or living it. I guess the thing I think about the most is my baby. Hoping I am doing right by him and feeling really guilty for this happening in the first place. I love you "baby needs a name", please be healthy and a normal size so you don't rip me open!
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