i was just talking to ju-chan about this on the phone, but i’m apparently not done venting about it yet.

i took my three hour glucose tolerance test on 6/12. my fasting glucose that day was 85. After drinking the glucose drink, at one hour my sugar was 197 (was supposed to be under 180), at two hours 156 (limit 155, so i was a whole point over), and 112 at three hours (limit 140). so two and a half weeks ago, despite eating a lot of fruit and sugary stuff like icees and chocolate, and my usual ibs-friendly high-carb diet, i was barely gestationally diabetic. i was diagnosed with gestational diabetes on 6/18, about a week later, due to having two out of four values over the limit. (even if one was barely so.) after the doctor scared the hell out of sohei, i was pretty much limited to salads until i could see the nutritionist. by the time i saw the nutritionist on 6/26, i’d lost two pounds. when you’re pregnant, losing weight is not a good thing, even if you were fat to begin with. (this puts my total gain for this pregnancy at 13 pounds, in case you were interested.) i completely felt like shit. i got my new meal plan, however, and it looked a hell of a lot better than the insanely restrictive diet i’d been on for the past week, so i had some hope. i also got my glucose meter and learned how to use it, etc.

i’ve been following my meal plan and testing my glucose levels since 6/27. i have not had one fasting glucose level under the limit of 95. when i was eating whatever the hell i wanted, it was 85. now it’s in the low hundreds every morning. why the fuck would it jump twenty points in two weeks, especially when i’m eating like i’m supposed to now? since i was “barely diabetic” i was told that i probably wouldn’t need insulin, but it’s sure not looking that way. and about half of the readings i take two hours post meals are too high. i never go over my carb limit, and actually stay around the middle to low end, but to no avail.

i also still feel like shit all the time. i’m always starving or nauseous. according to my meal plan, i’m supposed to be getting 2300 calories per day, but routinely eat between 1200 and 1400. this is way, way too low for a pregnant woman, but since they want me to limit fat as well, i have no idea what the hell i’m supposed to eat that would even bring me close to 2000 calories per day. i’ve also been consuming way too much aspartame. before my diagnosis, i refused to touch anything with artificial sweetener in it. no gum, no diet sodas, etc. i never use it anyway, because aspartame (and sucralose, to a lesser extent) give me awful headaches. but once i was pregnant, i especially didn’t want it, because it seemed like a stupid risk to take as far as the baby was concerned. now i’m kind of stuck using it. though i think i’m going to stop. instead of the light yogurt they want me to eat, i’ll get plain instead and just put my own fruit in it. no more sugar free snacks, either. i just hope i haven’t done any harm to little bear in the meantime.

none of this feels right. pregnant women shouldn’t go hungry. and i understand there’s a certain amount of feeling crappy that comes with pregnancy, but this does not feel normal. i can’t imagine that my feeling this awful can be good for the baby. when i was eating intuitively, he was growing like a weed, and i was putting on weight at a healthy rate. i didn’t have headaches or as many stomach aches. i didn’t feel weak or depressed or apathetic. now i barely have the energy to do my chores. my mood has been horrible. i’ve been losing weight, when i’m at the point in my pregnancy where gaining half a pound a week is to be expected. i have no idea what’s going on with little bear or his growth, but his movement patterns have been downright bizarre. he used to be active in the morning and before bedtime, but now he barely moves all day, and then suddenly can’t sit still around 1 am. between his weird patterns and being hungry, i don’t sleep well anymore. since this whole stupid thing started, i don’t fall asleep until after 2:00 almost every night, usually later.

i’m frustrated because something about this feels wrong. ever since i stopped eating intuitively, i’ve felt bloody awful. i was amazed throughout my pregnancy at how good i felt, but that’s all over. i worry because this feels so wrong, i don’t think it’s good for little bear. but i’m told that i was apparently sick, and i won’t get better unless i do all this stupid stuff. funny, but i felt pretty good before i started following everyone’s instructions. now i can barely function. little bear was doing just fine, too, but i don’t know how he is now. all i know is that i’d better keep following this insane meal plan and feeling like shit, or i’m putting the baby at risk and i’m an awful person.

it’s hard not to be upset and confused. my intuition has been right all this time, from knowing that i was pregnant to quitting that dangerous antibiotic to everything else. i felt really good almost the whole time, and despite being at risk for growth restriction, little bear was actually growing into a pretty big bear. (his growth wasn’t affected by my diabetes or lack thereof, btw. his weight was due to his frame, not fat. babies don’t usually start to put on much fat until the 3rd trimester, and he weighed 3 lbs. even before then.) i don’t feel good or healthy anymore. and i feel distressed because i’m being forced to go against the intuition that has served me pretty well thus far. and i’m pissed off that i’m more severly diabetic now that i’ve started eating “healthy” than i was before. (yogurt with artificial flavoring and aspartame is way better for you than fruit, don’t you know.) so much so that i’m going to have to start injecting myself with yet more artificial crap every night. (because putting more weird shit in my body and exposing my baby to that is just awesome.)

i’m supposed to have another ultrasound in a couple weeks. if little bear isn’t growing at the same rate, or there’s some new problem, i’m throwing in the goddamn towel. because something about this is just fucking wrong. starving is wrong. feeling this sick is wrong. eating crappy artificial shit instead of fruit and bread and juice is wrong. every time i test my blood sugar, the meter is telling me that something’s a lot less right now than things were two and a half weeks ago when my sugars weren’t completely out of whack. i hope the nutritionist can explain why my reading jumped 20 points in such a short amount of time after following all the damn rules, because it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, and i’m about to go back to listening to my own body again.

sohei found out this morning that the tenant leaves tomorrow! while i’m nervous about what the house is going to look like after being rented out the past couple of years, i can’t wait to go back. i’m assuming that some cleaning and painting is going to have to be done. i bet the carpet’s awful, too, but i doubt i can talk sohei into replacing flooring when we might not even be there next year. we’re going to be over in pinellas on thursday anyway for a couple of appointments, so we’re going to check out the house then. we won’t be able to move our stuff until the weekend of the 11th, so that gives me some time to maybe get some cleaning and painting done.

i’ve been watching little bear in the afternoons. i can’t wait to watch it with my little bear. it’s still another couple of months until he’s due to be here… while it’s neat feeling him and seeing him move around, i think it’ll be nicer to actually be able to hold him. hugging my stomach just seems weird, anyway. also, my body’s so messed up, it’ll probably be better for him outside of it. i worry about what my high blood sugar might be doing to him. (my morning fasting sugars are always too high, and my post-meal numbers are too high about half the time. i’m working on it, but honestly don’t know what to do about the fasting number. it’s looking like insulin for me.)

lately, i’ve been thinking about all the books i want to get for him. i think i’m going to start reading to him pretty much right away. i’m going to buy all the little bear books, of course. and i already have winnie the pooh collection. i want him to have at least one richard scarry book, and where the wild things are. (yeah, i guess that is a lot of maurice sendak.) and lots of dr. seuss, obviously. and then there are all the books i loved when i was a kid, that i used to get at the library, like space case. oh, and that one where they went to a farm on a field trip and the giant snake got loose and wreaked havoc.

and though we don’t really know when we’ll actually be back in our house (we’re hoping mid-july at this point), little bear has just about everything he needs. no-chan was kind enough to buy his crib, as well as a ton of adorable clothes (most with bears on them), a bathtub, and a little chair thingy i can put him in when i can’t carry him around. i want the matching playard really bad, but i’m waiting to see if i get it as a gift. i think sohei’s mum might be getting it. she already got the bedding i wanted. everyone’s been really generous, and sohei and i will have to buy hardly anything at all. we need a car seat and a stroller, but we’re not sure what to get. should we get a travel system? a separate convertible seat and stroller? part of the problem for buying anything for him so far is that we have no idea how big he’s going to get. he’s measured pretty big so far, and the diabetes is going to make him fat as well. he could very easily weigh over 9-10 pounds. and i don’t want a bunch of stuff he’ll outgrow in a couple months. i’m also going to get him a bookshelf to hold all those great books i’m getting him. (with a door and drawer insert thrown in for good measure, maybe.) i think, if there’s time, i’d like to paint his room. we’re still going with sage green. i just want to get in there and freaking nest already!

sigh. apparently my smilies have stopped working.

[edit] well, i now have two plugins doing what one used to do, but at least they’re working. i tried to fix it so i could deactivate the first, but it just fucks stuff up, and i’m too lazy to mess with it right now.

i just saw little bear hiccuping. poor little guy. i know it doesn’t cause him any discomfort (according to what i’ve read, anyway), but it sure felt weird to me. i can’t seem to get used to watching my stomach jump around…

I’m so tired of going to bed hungry. This is why I quit dieting… Between the hunger and little bear being a spaz and the restless leg thing, I don’t get much sleep anymore. Lately, I don’t get to sleep until between 3-4, and get up with sohei around 7-8. And can’t get back to sleep… I think I’d be a lot less cranky about this stuff if I didn’t feel sick or hungry all the time. Thanks to my stomach issues, carbs are about all I can count on to not make me feel like shit. And now they’re pretty limited.

Then there’s the kidney thing. It’s my right kidney that’s always hurt my back, but I keep getting these pains in my flank now, too. I think pregnancy’s exacerbating whatever the problem is. I’m starting to think maybe I shouldn’t wait a whole year to figure out what’s wrong. I have some time to decide, though, because I’m not adding any more doctor appointments to my schedule until I’m back in pinellas. As it is, we have to go over there once a week for everything else. Frankly, I don’t think I can handle getting diagnosed with anything else right now anyway.

it is so good to work on my website again. i really missed goofing around with it. and now that i’ve updated the software, there’s so much more i can do with it. there’s still some cleaning up to do on the sidebars, but i’ve added and tweaked some stuff i wanted to include, and it hasn’t been too hard. (i’ve been importing old entries and fixed the archive list so it isn’t insanely long. the older stuff will have to wait until i have access to my pc again. it’s all on there. at least it had better be.) especially considering i haven’t done much coding in the past couple of years. wordpress is really almost foolproof these days. anyway, i have to go eat a snack now. what with the diabetes and all…

I’m updating via the wordpress app on my iPod…

i updated my blog software, finally. if you see something weird or something doesn’t work, please let me know.

so, to update on stuff, i was diagnosed with gestational diabetes at my last doctor appointment on thursday. the doctor isn’t sure i have pre-eclampsia, because i’m spilling way more protein than the average person, but don’t have any of the other symptoms. she thinks there may be an issue with my kidneys and wants me to see a nephrologist. i’m going to wait until i have permanent insurance before i do that, though, because if there is something really wrong, i don’t want it to be a “pre-existing condition.” (in other “we have no idea what’s wrong” news, there’s nothing new on the cord front. so we still don’t know whether it’s an issue or not. i’m thisclose to just scheduling a damn c-section and having done with it.) i won’t be seeing the nutritionist until friday, so in the meantime, i’m doing the best i can with my diet. gd requires you to be a lot more strict than with type 2, apparently, but i can’t find anything specific, so i’m kind of eating according to type 2 guidelines. i doubt i’ll cause him that much harm in one week, but what a pain in the ass.

and i’m updating about the house situation privately.

i just wrote a really long post on the gestational diabetes diagnosis i got at my doctor appointment on thursday, and the pre-eclampsia thing, but accidentally hit the wrong key on this pos laptop i’m borrowing, and lost the entire thing. i’m sure i’ll try updating again, but i don’t fucking feel like it now.

sohei felt little bear move this morning. he had his arm around me, over my waist/stomach, and said he thought he could feel him kind of fluttering around. i woke up and little bear was indeed doing his morning stretching, or whatever it is he does that isn’t kicking or punching. i’m glad he can finally feel him, because every time he starts kicking, either sohei isn’t around, or he stops moving when sohei puts his hand on my belly. yesterday, little bear had some kind of fit or something, because i felt all this movement, and looked down, and my stomach was jumping all over the place. it was almost cartoonish. then last night, i tried to do a kick count before bed, and it took 25 minutes because he wouldn’t cooperate. but when i was trying to sleep, all of a sudden he couldn’t sit still. i hope this isn’t a sign of things to come.

the doctor visit went okay yesterday. little bear was more cooperative, so we got some pictures of his face, and the tech could see the cord a little better. they don’t really see a problem with the cord, but will keep an eye on it. my relief didn’t last long, because it turns out i may have preeclampsia. there was protein in my urine, so now i have to do a 24 hour collection and yet more blood tests. my blood pressure seems fine right now, so i’m trying not to worry about it. still, could there be one trimester in this pregnancy where i don’t have to worry about something? (to review, 1st trimester i was diagnosed with threatened miscarriage, 2nd trimester was diagnosed with marginal/velamentous cord insertion, and now in my 3rd trimester i may have preeclampsia and am also being tested again for diabetes. w00t.)

little bear seems fine, though. i guess he’s measuring pretty large at 3 pounds, and has a giant head. (not like hydrocephalic huge, but big.) according to the tech, his heart is “beautiful.” he seems to have a round moon face like his mum, but i think he’s got his dad’s nose. (i don’t have a scanner handy, but will upload some of the 4d pics at some point.) i’m really looking forward to seeing how he turns out.

i didn’t write about the murder of dr. tiller, but sohei and i discussed it at length the other day, and i kind of feel the need to post about it.

you would think that being pregnant would make me more anti-choice, but it’s actually made me more pro-choice. for me, it used to be about women’s rights and anger at the fact that there are people out there who ultimately need to have control over all women, everywhere. (if they were really that concerned about “life” they wouldn’t be in favor of the death penalty, would support programs that help pay for services these fetuses need once they’re actually out of the womb, and, oh yeah, not murder people they don’t agree with. so yeah, it’s about control.) but by carrying a fetus around inside me, i’ve come to realize how that choice goes beyond not letting some asshole i don’t know have control over my body, and how it goes beyond women having the option to end a pregnancy that they know from the get-go that they can’t handle. i was relieved to know that if i found out that there was a problem that would harm his (or my) quality of life, i had the option to terminate the pregnancy. knowing i had that choice made things a lot less stressful. and now that i have seen my little bear via ultrasound, and feel him moving around, i have grown to love him. and because i love him, i would rather he never have to experience a life of pain and surgeries and whatever other awful things could happen to him. i’m lucky that he seems okay right now, and will probably be fine (if huge) when he’s born. but i also appreciate that i had the choice to end things if i knew he was going to suffer.

if you think that women who choose to abort in the second or third trimesters are lazy or stupid, you need to read this and understand the decision that these women face. i would be devastated if i lost my little bear at this point. but if i knew that i had to choose between losing him now or a year or so down the road after a lot of pain for everyone, i know what my decision would be. i’m just glad i don’t have to make that choice. unfortunately for the 300 or so women per year who do, their choice just got a lot more limited.

r.i.p. dr. tiller…

i know i don’t update much, but i’ve actually been busier than when i was working full time. there’s all sorts of stuff that needs sorting out, like insurance stuff and property management, etc. and there have been 11 hour days at the office as well. and cooking and cleaning and laundry and myriad doctor appointments… but i’m mostly happy. i’m looking into work options after little bear, and have been considering assessment consulting, freelance editing, or information brokering. there’s a separate building here at the law office, which is large, has air conditioning and a bathroom, and wireless internet. so it’ll make a perfect office for me. genma already said i could have it as long as i don’t mind sharing it with some various storage stuff. i can bring little bear and brumby and it won’t bother anyone because it’s a separate building. and sohei can visit us, which he’s pretty happy about, because he was afraid he wouldn’t get to see the baby much. now all i need to do is work on getting whatever business i choose off the ground. i don’t expect to get rich or anything, but if i made enough to cover the cobra payments every month, that would be great. whichever thing i decide to do, i know it’ll help if i can get an article published and put some kind of portfolio together. maybe i’ll just end up as a jill of all trades, i don’t know. i have a lot of skills, like web design and research and stuff. i’m great at assessment-related things. i just need to figure out what there’s a market for these days, and start working toward that. i’ll be pretty freaking psyched if i can work this out. it would be a shame to have such a sweet office and nothing to do in it.