bean sprout '09: Week 30

This week is treating me much better than last week. The non-worrier in me wasn't used to all this worrying that the news of having gestational diabetes brought. I spent too much time feeling guilty that I had caused this to myself. I was really convinced that it was because of all the ramen noodles that I've been eating or because I haven't been exercising regularly since it got really really hot. However, yesterday I had my 30 week visit with Dr. B and he assured me that I had it all wrong. He told me that GD wasn't as preventable as I had thought. Since it's hormonal, it was bound to happen if it was going to. One of my biggest fears since finding out about GD was having a 14 pound baby. If you are unaware, GD can lead to macrosomia, or "fat baby." This happens because the sugar in your blood just hangs around since the insulin isn't working correctly to break it into energy, consequently turning into fat. Dr. B explained that the only way this would happen was if I ate Snickers for lunch every day and had no control over my diet at all. During the ultrasound he said that little Griffin is still the little baby that he's supposed to be. So this shows that my diet hasn't been out of control so far. He also told me that my case for GD was rare. During my three hour test, my fasting and one hour sugar levels were low but two and three hour were high. This means that my cells aren't immediately sucking all the sugar in, it's my insulin that's not kicking in and doing its job. I was assured that this would be easily controlled by my diet. Now I am a part of the population that considers sugar the enemy, now and probably the rest of my life.

I was surprised the other night when I woke up from my sleep feeling like my nose was running. Before going to bed that night I did feel a bit stuffy so I wasn't too worried. But it wouldn't stop and it felt like it was running down my face (TMI, right?), I tried to keep wiping it away and go back to my sleeping but something said to get up. I couldn't see much of anything so I told Dave to wake up to turn on the lamp. Dave was sleeping pretty hard and just made some noises at me, so I said a little more emphatically, "Dave, I think I'm bleeding. Turn on the light, please." This apparently got his attention as he rolled over and turned the lamp on then left the bedroom. My hand was covered in blood and I even found blood on Jack, who was sleeping at my head. I was too sleepy to worry much and it stopped pretty soon after finding it, so I decided it was no big deal and just related to my stuffiness from earlier. When I mentioned this to Dr. B he explained that nose bleeds are common in pregnant women and the reasons why. What I didn't realize until right then is how much I startled Dave in the night. Next time I'll know to specify that it's my nose that's bleeding when I wake him up.

I was asked if I was going to do a video with my weekly belly pictures to show the succession of its growth. My plan is to do so, but in the meantime I made this college as a preview.