right on track

Today was the big day.  Well, the second to biggest day.  Nope, no baby yet, but we did get confirmation that we're right on track.

To explain gestational diabetes ... your pancreas isn't producing enough insulin the body can't deal with the sugar as quickly as it normally would.  Just like regular diabetes only with gestational diabetes there is a good chance that your pancreas will kick back into gear and everything will settle back into place after the baby is born.  One of the side effects is that you're sending the excess sugars to the baby and they begin to do what any body normally does and store that sugar in little pockets of baby fat.  Some baby fat is good, but too much is baaad.  Women with gestational diabetes run the risk of having a baby that is just too big to carry and around week 36 they'll undergo another ultrasound to measure the baby's tummy and head to see where she's at.

My numbers have been really good so I wasn't too worried.  Plus, I haven't gained too much weight these last few weeks so I didn't think she was getting too big, but things aren't always what they seem, right?  Some people would rather I have the baby now than her due date, but this baby's got enough going against her.  She has the higher risk of developing diabetes.  Already, she's a risk, as is Emma since Ray's side of the family has a lot of diabetes history, but now she's got a greater risk because I have g.d.  She has a higher risk of childhood obesity and a myriad of other things all because I have diabetes.  So, I'd like to make sure she cooks in there are long as she possibly needs to.  I'd like her to have perfectly healthy lungs and anything else that still needs simmering.

Plus, Ray's work schedule is really delicate right now.  He's on a couple of new accounts and things need to be scheduled.  Things like paternity leave.  My mom is taking two weeks off to help out as well so going to the due date is helpful to all of us.  Except my sister who is very impatient.  Very.

So they measured and checked and even though she was not being very cooperative by keeping her arm over her little face the technician was able to get all the measurements and she's perfectly on track for an October 26th arrival!  Right now she weighs 6 pounds, 11 ounces and they predict she'll be close to 8 pounds at birth.

They'll continue to monitor over the last few weeks, but unless I go into labor early we'll see Ramirez baby #2 on the 26th!  Just a few more weeks to go!  Yikes!

whaaaaaaaaat???

I realized the other day that being a stay at home mom sometimes blows for little reasons.  Like, not going out to lunch with friends/co-workers to a place that isn't kid friendly.  Or maybe having drinks after work at a bar that definitely isn't kid friendly.  But those really aren't important things and granted, if I wanted to I could go meet some friends for drinks one night and now that Emma is in school I could dart over to meet them for lunch at a non-kid establishment.

This time, being pregnant I realized with the utmost clarity yesterday that I will not get maternity leave. 

Whaaaaat?? 

Every day I have something going on, whether it be appointments or getting Emma to school or a play date.  When I was pregnant with Emma I took one or two (I can't quite remember) weeks off before my due date because they paid me to and it was great.  I sat around the house since everything was ready and waiting for Emma to get here and watched TV.  I mostly watched A Baby Story on TLC until I started really getting freaked out.  That show is better watched AFTER baby arrives.

Well, she was 2.5 weeks late so my pre-birth maternity leave lasted almost a month and it was glorious (though uncomfortable).  My work environment was unpredictable and unhappy so to have that time away from all the drama and angst was wonderful.

I'm at the point in this pregnancy where it is incredibly uncomfortable to do most regular things.  Getting up off the sofa is actually painful and when the baby moves around, though I am always relieved she is moving, it hurts every time.  I would like to spend a day laying in bed on my side because honestly, that's the only time I am comfortable.  Until my arm falls asleep.  Then I roll over to my other side (which takes me about 3 minutes to do).

Though I realize how incredibly lucky I am to be able to stay at home with my kids there are times when I wish I could go back to that first pregnancy when everything was all about me.  How selfish does that sound?!?!  But I mean it more in the sense that I just had to worry about me.  What I was eating, what time I got out of bed, picking up dinner instead of making it ... all that stuff. 

So maybe a day goes like this:

• Get up & check my glucose
• Get Emma up and dressed, teeth brushed
• Fight her to get her to eat some breakfast
• Make her lunch
• Eat my breakfast
• Get on our bikes and head to school
• Come home & check glucose again
• Head out to a doctor's appointment
• Run some miscellaneous errands (library, Target, grocery store, etc.)
• Get some lunch
• Get on my bike and pick up the munchkin
• Check my glucose
• Get her home and either finish the lunch she didn't eat or get her a snack
• Get her working on her homework
• Make dinner

Once dinner is made there's a breather.  Then we eat, I try to clean up the kitchen as I cook so I don't have a mess on my hands.  I check my glucose one more time and space out my pills.  Force myself to eat that last snack of the day and take my last pill and go to sleep.

Granted, not every day is like this.  I only have doctor's appointments twice a week and usually Thursdays (today) I have little going on so I can sit here for hours while Emma's at school and do nothing important.  But still, if someone offered maternity leave I don't think I'd turn them down!

things that made me happy this week

This week has been a pretty good week.  I've felt relatively good all week (thanks to the bijillions of medications I'm taking).  And I finally feel like there is a light at the end of the tunnel and that the end of the tunnel isn't as far away as it felt last week!

These are some of the things that contributed to my yay week:

Ok so this wasn't necessarily a yay thing.  All of a sudden a nice little crack showed up on the screen of my iPhone.  When I say 'showed up' I mean to say mysteriously.  I didn't drop the phone or anything and the strangest part was that the crack was on the inside!  You couldn't feel the crack on the outside glass of the screen.  And where it was situated was directly over the phone icon in that corner making it very difficult to make calls (or choose the letter 'v' when playing Hanging with Friends with my sister).

So Ray called Apple and they said that any crack in the screen voided the warranty and it would cost somewhere around $250 to get a replacement phone.  BOOOOO.

We went over to the Apple store to get someone to take a look at it.  The guy looked at it and said it was a single line crack and was probably a manufacturer's defect (though he'd never seen anything like it) and replaced my phone for free!  Whew!

So here's my yay phone picture!

Notice....no crack!

After the discovery of the sugar free awesome Oreos I didn't really think anything would be as wonderful.  I was wrong.  I've been splurging on Skinny Cow products (which are delicious), but they still contain about 10-12 grams of sugar per serving.  We found these at the grocery store and they only have 3 grams.  I tried one out suspiciously, sure they would taste like iced milk or something horrid like that.  I was wrong.  They're rich and creamy and completely wonderful.  Yay chocolate fudge bars that won't spike my sugar!!

For some reason this week I've been especially infatuated with my Hermione book mark.  I love it.

I realllllly good after dinner glucose level!  Yay!

My friend recently joined up with Wildtree food products so being the awesome friend I am I went to the party, tasted some food and purchased said food.  Apparently, grapeseed oil is fabulous for you.  Even better than olive oil.  So I got some to try and used it for the first time the other night.  I used it on my steaks and to saute the spinach, mushrooms & green beans.  It was so good!  If you can find a Wildtree rep in your area you should tackle them and get some of this stuff.  They have a bunch of different infused oils too (like bacon!), but I really liked this Roasted Garlic one and felt like it would be the most versatile.

And last but not least, my favorite yay thing of the week.  Crystal Light's little drink packet thingys.  I started with Iced Tea with Lemon and enjoyed it.  I also got some Green Tea with Lemon and Honey and I liked it (though not as much as the Ice Tea with Lemon).  Then I tried the Orange one and really liked it so I thought I'd try some other fruit ones.  Today I got Strawberry, Fruit Punch, Pomegranate Lemonade & Pomegranate Cherry.  So far I've tried the Fruit Punch and LOVE IT.  I'm not a big drinker of the plain water.  I will drink it and do, but sometimes I just want something with flavor and since I really shouldn't be drinking soda or fruit juice these are the perfect subs for me.

So there you have it!  Stuff that's made this week a little more sunshiney for me!  Is there anything that's brightened your week??

cheater

Have I ever mentioned that I love my OB?  Just in case you want to know of a good OB to go to at Kaiser Santa Clara and she's taking new patients you should get Dr. Catherine Berger.  She's awesome.

When I was preggo with Emma I had a male OB because I wasn't really picky and I needed to choose someone fast.  He was nice enough, but very distant, not easy to talk to and kind of dismissive of any concerns I had during my pregnancy.  He was also really old so I'm wondering if maybe he was just counting down the days until his retirement.

Anyhoo ... the doctor that delivered Emma was great.  Even though my delivery was a nightmare she (besides actually getting Emma) was the bright spot - well her and my anesthesiologist - of that experience.  She wasn't taking new patients officially but since I just had a baby and wouldn't be having another right away she took me on.  Unfortunately, she left Kaiser about a year after Emma was born.  Boooooo!

Finally I found Dr. Berger.  I chose her mostly because she was at Kaiser Santa Clara and I swore after my delivery experience at Santa Theresa I was never going to step foot in L&D there again.  Santa Clara is relatively brand new and that's where I was going to deliver next time.  She's been fantastic through all of my infertility stuff, any concerns I've had and she's super responsive.  I love her!

Well now with the diabetes I see a High Risk Pregnancy NP in addition to Dr. Berger.  She does almost the same things Dr. Berger does except she focuses more on how I'm coping with my diabetes.  She'll also do the ultrasound in October to determine if we have to deliver early.  I see her once every other week.  I see Dr. Berger once a month and then I have stress tests twice a week.

I also love my NP Castellanos.  She's a lot to take in at first, lots of personality, but dangit you know she's listening to you.  She's aggressive with her treatments, she doesn't want to take any chances and she doesn't want to do the 'let's wait and see' tactic because there's only so much time left.

Today she prescribed me with a stronger dose of acid reflux meds that she said will help a whole lot.  I'm ecstatic.  I can't wait to go to bed tonight because there is now a good possibility that I will sleep through the night!  Woo hoo!

Yet, I can't help but feel like I'm cheating on Dr. Berger!  She told me I could take 75mg twice a day.  Granted, I haven't had the chance to let her know that it wasn't working for me so she couldn't offer me an alternative yet and I'm sure she would have prescribed me the same 300mg that NP Castellanos.  Still I feel like a giant cheater! 

I'm sure she'll forgive me though!

i'm going to take this moment to bitch...a lot.

This week I have three doctor appointments.  By Friday I will have poked myself with a tiny, mean little needle 16 times from today.  Unless something is off then I'll have to do it more times.  To add to all the fun-ness that is this pregnancy I have pretty much constant acid reflux.  I didn't even really know what that was until now.  I guess that's fitting considering that I didn't know what heartburn was until I was pregnant with Emma.

When I was pregnant with Emma, near the end I started swelling like a balloon.  It was INSANE!  It lasted for about a week after she was born.  My brother-in-law and I were talking about it this weekend.  He said he just remembered how swollen I got and how he didn't think someone could get that swollen.  I told him I remembered him standing over my legs as they were propped up on the ottoman commenting on how nuts it looked.  I'm starting to get there again a bit.

And the leg cramps.  They started a couple of nights ago and I've had one every night since.  A friend of mine said if I took my calcium pills at night that would help so I've got to try that.  It's also a dehydration thing, but if I drink too much water before bed the acid reflux just loooooves that.

Saturday night I woke up around 3:00 a.m. thanks to my good pal acid reflux, but things just went downhill from there and I was actually throwing up in Ray's little office garbage can.  Why the garbage can, you ask?  Because I was also partaking in a little diarrhea removal.  Yes!  So fun!  I find that sitting in the shower when I feel like crap always helps so that's what I did.  Felt a little better when I got out and got into bed where I began shivering uncontrollably.  I could not get warm!  And I sleep with 7 blankets.

So what I've learned from all this is that I basically can't eat anything.  Not too much salt because it will make me swell.  Not too much sugar because things will go bad for the baby.  No tomatoes, lemon, vinegar, spicy, et al. because of the acid reflux.

But I know that the pay off is greater than all this.  That I signed up for this and wanted it (and still do) so badly.  That even though she's at the stage where she is seriously trying to cause great bodily damage to my internal organs with her little pointy elbows and feet it is all worth it. 

On the bright side, with the three appointments I think I only have to pee in a cup for one.  Yipee!!

and the fun keeps coming

Today I had my first appointment with the High Risk Pregnancy NP.  It was quite informative.  Quite.  Never in the time that we were trying to get pregnant or when I was pregnant with Emma did I think this would be something I would have to worry about.  I always kind of went with the idea that ‘that won’t happen to me’ and to be perfectly honest, in the grand scheme of things all of this is not really that bad.  Everything could always be worse…it’s just frustrating.

My blood sugar levels have been really good all day long, but during the night when your pancreas ups your hormones it’s too busy making crazy preggo hormones that it’s completely ignoring the fact that I need insulin.  I’m supposed to have a snack right before I go to bed to help keep my blood levels down then when I wake up in the morning I have to test my blood and those numbers should be relatively low.  Unfortunately, mine have not been consistent.  I haven’t been in the danger zone, but I have been close and then I’ll have a couple of days where everything’s fine and then it will spike up again.

And there is nothing I can do about it.  It isn’t something that can be fixed by changing my diet.  They’re all very quick to assure me that it’s nothing that I’m doing, it’s just my pancreas.  (In case you’re wondering, my pancreas and I?  We’re not friends right now)  So because I’m only got about 9 weeks left it’s time to take action before it gets too late.

Which means medication.  For the duration of my pregnancy I’ll be taking a very small dosage of a medicine that will stimulate my frenemy Pancreas to release more insulin.  Hopefully, this works.  If I don’t see any improvement they’ll up my dosage.  If there still isn’t any improvement I’ll have to start giving myself insulin injections every night.  BOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!  Once I had to give myself one of my fertility injections because I forgot to bring it with me to the office.  It was NO FUN.  I thought I would take it to my mom (she’s an RN) and she’d do it for me, but she said no way.

But I’m optimistic that this medication will be fine.  The other complication is if this medication makes my pancreas release too much insulin.  Then they’ll just pull me off and stick me (literally) with insulin.  So we’re rooting for that not happening.

With all this fun stuff comes bi-weekly appointments for stress tests where they monitor the baby to see how she’s coping in there and at least one, but most likely two more ultrasounds to measure her belly.  If her belly gets too big at 36 weeks they’ll have to pull her out of there.  So we may have a September baby instead of October.

Like I said, I’m optimistic.  My blood sugar levels have been excellent after every meal and I’ve felt really good.  With Emma in school now I’ve been either walking or riding my bike to pick her up so my NP was very excited about all that exercise.  Hopefully, things will be just fine.

But for right now, me and my pancreas are gonna fight.