Nine more weeks and counting. Strangers are starting to ask me when I’m due. So I must be finally past that is-she-fat-or-pregnant? phase. I still don’t feel big, although I think I probably look big. I feel like I’m looking at a funhouse mirror when I look at my reflection.
It’s been an easy hard pregnancy. I feel pretty good, but the potential gestational diabetes and the hernia are hard. Personal stuff has been hard. Work has been hard. And when I look back, I think, “yeah, that was a hard time in my life” and I give myself a pat on the back for being such a trooper. At the same time, I look back and I think “wow, that was easy, so much easier than I’d imagined.” I haven’t turned into a hormonal monster, I feel very active and mobile, I am in love with my husband, we love our house, and I’ve generally really enjoyed being pregnant. But this may be the only time in my life I will be pregnant and I am starting to feel those regrets, like wishing I could have had more time for swimming and yoga, more time for relaxing and reading, more quality time with Tom. But we bought a beautiful house and it’s really coming together, so I have much to be thankful for. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to look for and buy a house after having a kid. So all in all, it’s been a fun, hard working time so far.
I took the 3 hour glucose tolerance test on Monday. Uck, horrible. I had fooled myself into believing that it wasn’t going to be that bad, but it was, it was terrible. I felt awful for the rest of the day. I’m concerned because the tech did a blood sample at the start of the test to make sure I was in a safe range to chug all that glucose, without running the risk of going into a coma or something. My fasting glucose was high, way higher than it’s been when I’ve been testing it at home. I don’t understand what’s up with that. So I don’t have very high hopes that I passed the test. And that is pretty damn depressing. I had a terrible day Monday. Terrible terrible. And my computer wasn’t working well, work was all screwed up and I ended up frustrated, angry and depressed.
Tuesday, since work was slow, they told me to take the rest of the day off. I took Mississippi to the dog park to run some energy out of her, then took myself to the Hoyt Arboretum. I hadn’t been there yet. It’s one of those Portland places that’s been on the list, I just hadn’t gotten to it yet. I did a 3 mile hike. It was hard! I’m so much slower now than I was a couple months ago. It still felt great to be outside in the trees. I feel out of shape and wish I had kept up with a regular exercise schedule for the whole pregnancy. There are only so many hours in a day I suppose, and since many days require a nap, there’s not much I can do. I just try hard, and that’s all I can do.
We got our Green Mountain diapers in the mail yesterday and now I want to have a diaper changing party with Tom. Maybe tonight after dinner. Gonna round up all the baby sized stuffed animals in the house. We still probably only have less than half the diapers we need, but I won’t start freaking out about that until July. Maybe all those recommendations for the number of needed diapers are just way over the top. I feel like being dangerous and finding out the hard way.
The highly restrictive diet continues, and I miss carbs. I live off of veggies, meat, beans, dairy and nuts. I try to keep it interesting, but generally everything is heavy. Sure, lots of veggies are great, but it’s been hard to get enough calories, so they end up being paired with heavier stuff, which takes all the fun out of a nice light veggie dish. I feel hungry all the time. It’s not like a ‘hungry, grumbly stomach, I need to eat’ kind of feeling. It’s more like a ‘I can’t stand to eat another bite but I feel like I’m hungry down to my bones’ kind of feeling. I have trouble deciding what to eat, because I’m not hungry, but I am hungry. I have to make myself eat all the time when I don’t want to. I guess I’m doing ok though weight-wise. I thought I’d lost weight but at the last appointment they told me I’d gained 2 pounds. I really feel like they skipped last month’s weight on my chart somehow, but Tom swears they didn’t. I had a taste of Tom’s chinese onion pancake last night and I wanted to cry. It might have been the best thing I’ve ever tasted. And I can now taste even the slightest amount of sugar in things. I’m highly sensitive to the taste of it now.
I got a glucose monitor for home and my levels so far always seem to be normal. So either the diet is working or the monitor doesn’t work or the lab and my midwives are trying to torture me for the fun of it. We’ll see how the test results are and if things look ok, I will add some carbs very slowly, and track how I react to them with the home glucose monitor.
They are finally interviewing people to take over my job. There’s just one month to go before I’m supposed to be done. There’s so much work to be done between then and now, but this week I’m in waiting mode. Waiting for deliverables. I’ve been cleaning up my code and writing a document for my replacement, so everything is in one place for them. I’m very excited to start the next phase in my life and I wish it could start right now. It’s going to be a very, very long month.
We started our baby class and it’s great. Lots of fun. It’s a small class too, which is nice. The two other families are really nice and I look forward to spending the next few weeks with them.
I know I should take a picture. Maybe I’ll try later today.