Sunday, July 16, 2006

The Section of my Brain Used for Witty Titles is Being Used by the Baby

We had a lovely trip up to the Northeast. We got to see all manner of people whom we had been missing, re-visited the Mecca which is Wegman's grocery, and no longer felt like the most liberal people in a 50 mile radius. The only down-side was when we went out for seafood because it was Cape Cod and I couldn't leave without some clam chowder and some sort of lobster experience (I was pretty sure clams would wind up being a mistake). I discovered that I apparently have developed a rather severe lobster aversion. The level of solicitous service you get when your waiter spots you trying desperately not to hurl in the middle of a nice restaurant is rather astounding. Happily, deep breathing averted the crisis and I was quite thankful I had decided against the lobster roll, opting for an appetizer instead.

I beached myself in the tub the other day. We recently remodeled the bathroom and got this luscious tub. It's deep and comfy and has arm rests and is apparently impossible to get out of once your center of gravity wanders up to your ribcage. I began thinking that it was at times like that that I wished we had gone for a nice Malamute or St. Bernard. A 25 pound Beagle is of little use in such a situation other than the possibility of her adding loud howls to your hollering. Unfortunately, Shirley was far too busy napping on the bath mat to offer assistance.

I failed my 1 hour diabetes screen by more than 50 points so, I'm off for my 3 hour at 7:15 on Monday morning. My spectacular failure was quite surprising as I have absolutely no risk factors but there it is. Unfortunately, I found out I failed just before we left for vacation and the main advice the nurse was able to give me was to avoid sweets and carbs. This was rather amazingly unhelpful. The information I was able to find on-line about Gestational Diabetes was pretty heavy on the "see a nutritionist as soon as possible" and very light on actual numbers I could use to make it through the next week. So, I went with the South Beach recs. I later found out that the carb limits other pregnant women had been given and the South Beach diet were rather wildly different which explains why I spent most of last week hungry. While I'm not looking forward to the fasting and multiple blood draws, I am really looking forward to getting a definitive diagnosis and seeing someone who can tell me yea or nay on the whole fruit issue.

I keep telling myself that even if I completely mess up and managed to still eat completely the wrong things over the last week and a half, the main possible side effect will be that I will have a fat baby. The problem is that I briefly worked with a little girl whose mother had very poorly controlled diabetes during pregnancy. The little girl had a compromised immune system, was on oxygen, had circulatory problems, and had severely stunted limb development. While I understand that pre-existing diabetes and gestational diabeties are 2 completely different things in terms of fetal development and I know that my ultrasound looked great, the part of me that worries that my child will be left on a rock until I get out of c-section recovery also is convinced that 1 sugar misstep will result in an abnormality that is All My Fault.

I have since received all manner of advice on what to eat and my favorite is the "make at home egg mcmuffin." After a fair amount of experimentation, I seem to have finally hit upon the microwave setting that allows for "no listeria" but falls just shy of "autoclave." The really sad thing is that this totally made my day.

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