Day By Day

I just realized I last posted almost a month ago! I had no intention of being absent from my blog for nearly a month.

The truth is, just a little over a month ago this pregnancy (and life in general) became really, really difficult. :( For those of you that are involved in my every day "real" life, this will be old news to you. I just wanted to document this time in my life on the blog so I can look back at it some day and know how I was really doing.

Around 26 weeks pregnant, I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes. I know I'm not the first or the last woman to be diagnosed with GD, in fact a friend of mine just recently had her baby and shared about her life with GD too.

I knew it would be difficult to follow a very specific and rigid diet (very low carb), but I was unaware of how my life would be completely flipped upside down and consumed with needles.

Right from the start I had to prick my finger to check my blood sugar 4 times a day. Yeah, no fun. It was then that we discovered that diet was not enough to keep my blood sugar down. Even my fasting blood sugar was high every day.

 

 

I knew and still know that I am doing absolutely EVERYTHING I can to keep my blood sugar under control. I have never been this disciplined with diet in my life, and at the request of my Dr, I increased working out (at this point that mostly consists of walking and swimming) from 3 times a week to 5+ times a week.

Still, all of this was not enough so I was put on insulin injections about 2 weeks ago. I'm not going to lie, I was terrified of giving myself an injection every night, but after a while you get used to it. The injections helped to get my fasting numbers down, but I still consistently run a little high after lunch and dinner.

 

I'm eating even less carbs than I'm allowed at most meals, and the proof is in the fact that over the past month I haven't gained any weight. In fact, I've lost some. This is the lowest weight I've been this far in a pregnancy.

I've had multiple Dr's appointments every week, and I get confusing and contradicting information about how best to treat my GD.

The latest news is that I'm looking at the possibility of having to do mealtime insulin instead of just the once a day at bedtime insulin. :( I have mixed feelings about that. On one hand, I really don't want to have to give myself injections all day long on top of checking my blood sugar 4 times a day, but on the other hand I feel at times that I'm starving myself and my baby in order to keep my blood sugar under control. :(

 

This past month has been HARD. Maybe one of the hardest in my life. I have so much fear that this diabetes won't go away after the baby is born (really, it should), and on top of all that I am very big and uncomfortable and chasing a 2 year old wild boy and a 4 year old active girl.

I feel as if the joy of expecting another little one has been completely overshadowed by the difficulties of this pregnancy. At this point, I am just surviving every day and looking forward to holding this baby and letting all of this be in the past.

The good news is that so far my GD has NOT caused my baby to grow too big or put on extra weight, which is one of the biggest concerns.

Needless to say, this has been confirmation that after this baby is born our family is complete. We already thought we'd be done having children after 3, but this experience has been the nail in the coffin. It's official, my body should NOT do this again!

I'm currently 32 weeks pregnant. I'm just hoping I can hang on for another 5+ weeks. I'm constantly praying for strength to make it. I know with God's help, I will.

Thanks for letting me be honest and vulnerable. I know this is not my most cheery post, but sometimes life is just hard.