Work Stress and Week 22

I've had a very, very stressful week at work. I know you are all thinking right away - Stress isn't good for the baby. Believe me if I could have avoided the stress I would have. I'm now facing a hard 30 days at work under scrutiny for things that got escalated for someone perceiving I have a hard time handling anger at work. I was angry for good reason and that good reason seems to be looked over by my employer.

So I'm managing as best as I can, on top of still figuring out when to eat, when to test my blood, and how to incorporate meals I miss.

The good news is that I got to have the second ultrasound and the echo-cardiogram. It was 2 hours long. I was able to see baby boy yawn and stick his tongue out too! The results showed that he is on target for his development and seemed to have long arm and leg bones which suggest he will be tall. I was able to get more pictures from them, and although most of my blood sugar numbers are okay but my morning blood sugar number is still too high for gestational diabetes. So they are putting me on medicine to help. Basically when you sleep the body's blood sugar level drops and the liver, which stores sugar, releases some into your body. Normal healthy people's livers can tell when it has released enough sugar to trigger the insulin to be released by the pancreas. My body's liver is not recognizing when the insulin has been released. Too much sugar in the body. The medicine is suppose to make the liver more sensitive to the insulin release.

and now for the pictures!

Oh Hi baby boy! (He didn't want to sit still so there are a couple blurry shots I didn't post)

Case and point, his hand is over his face (I think he's trying to avoid the paparazzi)

After he yawned the technician replayed that part of the video and took three shots the above is the pre-yawn shot.

Above is the second shot where you can see him opening his mouth.

And finally nice large yawn! It was probably one of the coolest things I have ever seen.

Week 21 - First week of food monitoring

I can tell you this week was certainly hard. I was pretty consumed with when to test my blood sugar, when to eat, what I'm eating now, and what I was going to eat next that would fit into the diet restriction.

For those that aren't too aware of what my restriction is - I can have 30 grams of carbohydrates for breakfast, 15 for the morning snack, 45 for lunch, 15-30 for evening snack, 45 for dinner, and 15-30 for bedtime snack. For examples of how much that is : one slice of bread is 15 grams, as is 8 oz of milk, half an apple, half of a large banana, half a whole wheat English muffin, 1 and 1/4 cups strawberries, 3/4 cup blueberries, and yogurt is the real kicker. Yogurt can go from 4 grams of carbohydrates up to 44 grams. It makes figuring out what I can eat time consuming to start.

I test my blood 4-8 times a day to see what the glucose number is (the carbohydrates turn to glucose in the body and the body breaks them down with use of insulin. My body is not producing enough insulin at the moment probably due to the hormones with the baby.) It can be super time consuming when you first are figuring out what you are eating and what you can't eat.

Meeting with the dietitian this week gave me insight on to examples of meals, how to read labels (consequently making grocery shopping longer) If my blood sugar numbers don't hit a certain range they will prescribe medicine to help my body adjust or eventually insulin injections.

The effects on the baby if you do not control the diabetes is high birth weight which can complicate delivery, higher upper body and belly weight, it can cause problems with heart development, and even how the baby functions when it comes to food when he makes choices. Women with gestational diabetes tend to deliver early as they don't want the peanut to be too big.

I meet with a dietitian and a nurse once a week as well as a doctor in maternal fetal medicine, and they need an ultrasound and an echo-cardiogram of the baby's developing heart.

I'm trying to stay positive with this whole thing. I love my carbs and sugars but the baby is definitely more important and I know for a fact that this will help be healthier with baby in the home too. It's better to deal with it while he has to eat whatever I eat, then when I'm sleep deprived and trying to keep everything together with him at home.

Update on Blood Glucose monitoring

So the afternoon and saturday were a bit of a struggle with figuring out what I can eat and what I have to avoid. Today I made a dinner that you can read about in my other blog. It was delicious I am still finish in half my plate and it only had 40 grams of carbs.

I am finding I'm full when I'm finished with these meals but not over stuffed and my numbers seem to be doing fairly ok. Still working on the morning fasting number being a few points to high. The great news is I bought a kitchen scale so I can measure out how much I am eating and cooking. I love to cook and I think it will help me adjust.

Slightly bad news but mostly good news...

Okay I'm going to start out with the slightly bad news. I got my Glucose Tolerance Test results and they have diagnosed me with Gestational Diabetes. I'll post more on that tomorrow once I go to the specialist to learn about monitoring my blood sugar and adjusting my diet. Hopefully that is all I will have to do. It is not shocking as my dad as Type 2 diabetes and both of my mom's parents did as well. I have been around people who have to monitor that for most of my life.

ON to the GREAT NEWS:

We had our ultrasound today: Here are some of the pictures:

This is the baby's profile view with hand in the back.
Second is a picture of the baby's foot:

Finally a picture of the baby's face
(mostly still skeletal structure but you can see the eyes and the nose placement.):
So I bet you have already guessed by the color change of the website...but we did find out the gender of our baby...and we are having a BOY! Jeremy and I are both super excited to shop for Mr. baby Scherer. We were able to see his little heart beating, see him having hiccups and moving around in my belly, and even see some of his brain as they measured him to see if we are still on track with my due date (we are give or take two days either way). Baby Boy Scherer has both arms and legs and looks to be all the right number of fingers and toes.

Week 19

This week the major event was having to take a Glucose Tolerance Test. For those of you who haven't had to take this test, it's a 2 1/2 hour test. You start by having fasted for at least 8 hours, they take your blood, you drink a glucose drink, wait one hour and they draw blood, wait another hour and draw blood again. I was hungry going in and I had two major concerns. One - I might throw up because I was so hungry (thankfully the only time I have been sick during this journey so far) and two the Glucose drink...the last time I had to drink something for a medical procedure was when I had to have a colonoscopy.

Great news...the drink doesn't taste the same. Mine was Lemon Lime flavored and tasted like watered down soda without the carbonation. I also had a nice place to sit and watch a movie while waiting for my next blood draws. So the test is over and I should know the results some time next week. Next week will be a big week because it's ULTRASOUND WEEK!!!! I'm both nervous and excited to find out if were having a girl or boy.

Other things on my mind...well I still haven't really gained much weight. In fact one of the other ladies getting her glucose test said I didn't really look 5 months along. I am still somewhat okay with that because I know I will be gaining soon. I guess that's everything for now. Big post coming up Thursday if the baby cooperates ;)

Week 18

Christmas and New Years Eve was a busy week at work for all of us so the actual days off were pretty low key. My mom was here and we had wonderful food and played Bananagrams for four hours!

Less than two weeks until the ultrasound. I was able to get most of the Christmas cards out on time and the rest are sitting on the dryer ready to go in the mail tomorrow. The tree didn't really get fully decorated but thank goodness for pre-lit trees.

The baby has received a couple ducky stuffed animals from my mom and a ducky piggy bank from one of my Aunts.

Jeremy and I rang in the New Year just before passing out and enjoyed a few moments alone reflecting it's our last New Years without baby. I'm currently trying to plan a nice trip to Portland for the two of us as a last vacation before baby as well. We plan to explore a bit of Portland, visit Powell's bookstore, and relax together while I can still somewhat move comfortably around.