Eat, Prick, Bleed, Repeat...

Woke up this morning, got up, peed, came back to bed and instead of my usual "5 more minutes" of sleep before I get ready for work, I checked my blood glucose level.  I was weirdly excited to see if I was within normal range for fasting.  Normal range, according to my Dr, would be the following: Fasting (first thing in the morning) would be 65-95; 2 Hours after meals would be 65-120.  This morning mine was 65! Right at the beginning of normal... yay!  So, my schedule will consist of persistent pricking of my finger and checking my levels... like I said, anything for my sweet little BB! But to give you an idea of what my gestational diabetes schedule looks like, here is a rough schedule of what my weekday looks like:

• 5:15 - Check blood glucose level
• 7:15 - Eat breakfast
• 9:15 - Check blood glucose level
• 10:30 - Eat mid-morning snack
• 1:30 - Eat lunch
• 3:30 - Check blood glucose level
• 4:00 - Eat mid-afternoon snack
• 6:30 - Eat dinner
• 8:30 - Check blood glucose level/Call Diabetes call-center to report that day's level
• 9:30 - Eat evening snack / Bed time
  (REPEAT)

So, my day revolves around eating and checking my blood... OH! And not to mention, if any of my levels are off, I must compensate by either eating more or less of a certain food item by measuring how much of something I can or cannot eat.  FUN.

I'll be posting a nifty little video of what my morning routine consists of shortly :-)

Here's my FIRST morning reading:








PS: Congrats to Mariah & Nick! Their story is very similar to mine & my husband's... with tragedy, comes closeness in a marriage.

What's in the box?

Yesterday, I get home and a brown cardboard box is waiting for me at my front door. Now, usually a big, brown, cardboard box with my name on it would excite me, however, the contents of this box beared nothing but strictness, pain & a reminder that pregnancy will put your body through so much... however, the rewards of pregnancy are comprable to nothing! Alas! My Diabetes Maintenance Kit! Multiple, daily finger sticks, a strict 1800 calorie meal plans and absolutely NO CANDY BARS OR DONUTS? What's my life come to!?!?! This will definitely test my endurance, but I'm up for a challenge... last really hard challenge I had in my life was... deciding my motif colors for my wedding - shallow, I know! Now, today, instead of a cardboard box waiting for me at the door, it will be a Registered Nurse/Dietician to educate me on gestational diabetes and how to make sure I stay on top of my health and eating habits for me, but moreso my precious BB! So, my journey with gestational diabetes officially begins. Pray for my strength to endure this!







UPDATE: The nurse just left and I now feel likecan empowered patient. It's not as bad as I thought in regards to the strictness of the diet... Just count carbs! It's like an altered version of the Atkin's Diet, but for prego's! The finger sticks ate something I have to get used to though. Anything for BB! anyway, just thought I'd give y'all an update! More later! Gnight!

Intro...

So, I'm new here.  Never really blogged, but I guess there was not much reason for me to.  My life prior to pregnancy revolved mostly around me - nothing blog worthy... eh, sue me!  I don't plan on my making every little thing grammatically correct or proper like your Comp 1 class in college.... I want more of a conversation feel to this.  So, here we go...

I'm a 29 year woman, married a little over a year to what I equate to the best husband alive.  2 months after we were married I found out I was pregnant and 2 months after that I had a miscarriage. Low progesterone they say.  3 months after that and after seeing a reproductive endocrinologist, I got that oh so faint positive on a home pregnancy test.  The secret excitement I had with that was extinguished so quickly the next day to find out it was a chemical pregnancy.  I was devastated.  2 miscarraiges in less than a year?!? What was wrong with me.  I had been a somewhat healthy person (aside from smoking), I was not overweight, I had been to the "girly-bits" doctor routinely since I was 18... everything was supposed to be normal.  I got the sympathy nods from people and the annoying comment, "It's God's plan..." Don't get me wrong, I am a God-fearing & God-loving devout Catholic... God has reasons for everything & I'm a firm believer, but losing a baby and then having someone who has NEVER gone through a miscarraige tell you "It's God's plan..." or "It's not the right time..." or anything that is equivalent to that naiveness made me want to take a sledgehammer to their  mandible. Angry much? Yes, I was!  I couldn't understand why I was going through something like that.

Skip down 3 months of grieving, ANGER, isolation and all that other bad stuff.  I finally came to a point where I was going to leave it up to God, like I should have in the beginning.  I mean, I never planned to be pregnant the first time around, but I never wanted anything more after losing our first baby.  So, I met with my Reproductive Endocrinologist ONE last time and had already decided in my head that if whatever this Dr's plan of action was I would do it, but if it didn't work, I'd be done "trying." Long story short, by the grace of God, my husband and I "babydanced" on my birthday weekend and became pregnant with the little ninja dude that's growing inside of me as we speak.

Our baby, let's call him (yes, it's a BOY): BB or bb, whatevs, is gestationally 26 weeks & 3 days and is due mid to late January 2011.  He's very active, just like his Dad who LIVES at the gym.  You would think that since I'm so far into this pregnancy that everything came off without a hitch.... WRONG! Let's add bleeding, placenta previa, total of 5 weeks of bedrest and recently GESTATIONAL DIABETES to the list.  Miraculously, everytime there was something wrong with me, Momma, BB was completely fine, swimming around just showing everyone, "Hey! I'm good!"  And he is good... as I type this he forcefully kicks my arm and wriggles around reminding me it's almost lunch time.

Recap:
-29 yr old femal
-married
-miscarriage due to low progesterone
-consulted with Reproductive endocrinologist (if you need one, & you're in the Houston area.... message me, mine's amazing)
-became pregnant on "last try"
-currently carrying a 26w3d Ninja due in January 2011
-complications....or what I like to call "setbacks": 16 weeks, bleeding & diagnosed with complete placenta previa. Bedrest for 3 weeks.  25 weeks, bleeding due to low-lying placenta. Bedrest for 2 weeks.  26 weeks, diagnosed with gestational diabetes.... hopefully all the "setbacks" stop here!