I Made It Through...

I made it through the MIL visit. And aside from one piece of chocolate, I didn't eat a thing I shouldn't have. So YAY me!

But the junk she sent home is another thing altogether. She sent chips (my weakness) along with all the carbie stuff like potato salad and beans etc. I did eat some chips, but I'm trying to eat very small portions and balance them with protein.

The good news is the cute doctor called back and said my blood glucose was 98, perfectly normal. (For pregnant women, they say under 95, but hey, that's pretty darned close!) The problem with that is, I have a tendency to start getting lax, once I hear numbers.

I need Harley to get new test strips, so I can keep testing. I'm out, and when I'm not testing, I'm nowhere near as diligent as I should be.

Next week is the baby-doctor appt. If things go as well as they have been, I'll start interviewing home birth midwives soon. Hard to believe it's only three more weeks to the end of the first trimester!

Doctor Doctor

Went to a new doc today.

He's a really nice guy - young, cute (hey, that doesn't hurt!) and actually listens. Bonus!

I showed him the list of supplements I was taking, told him about my concern about my blood glucose levels, showed him the numbers from the past two weeks. He said my fasting was borderline, but not enough to warrant meds or insulin - but that we'd have to watch it, because as we all know, pregnant women become more and more insulin resistant as pregnancy progresses.

But it was good to hear what I already knew from a doc. And it actually alleviated a little of my worry about the possibility of something going wrong in utero. He said my numbers weren't high or erratic enough to cause too much of a problem at this point. Whew.

And after looking over my list of supplements, of which he approved (What? No "You don't need these herbal things - why are you taking so many? You know, research hasn't proven they do anything..." blah blah blah...) he also suggested fish oil - a doc who suggests fish oil instead of jumping to meds! What a find!

They took blood and are running labs, and will call if they turn out abnormal. "No news is good news."

Now I just have to wait for my OB appt a week from Tuesday.

The good news is I'm still managing to keep the sugar and carbs to a minimum most of the day. Had to stop at McDonald's for dinner last night, and got a salad while the kids ate burgers (at least they had apple dippers and milk instead of fries and pop, though :) What I wanted was a Big Mac and fries and a huge regular Coke (imagine the sugar in all of it right?)... but I got a salad. And it was good and it filled me up. It just didn't satisfy that psychological craving, that's all.

I can tell the food addict and I are going to go 'round and 'round this pregnancy. But I'm putting on the gloves and am ready to go as many rounds as I have to. (Of course, I say that now... a month from now? Two? *sigh* I might look like Rocky at the end of round 16...)

We're going to the MIL's this weekend. The same MIL who cooks 800 pounds of carb-loaded food to send home. Right. So my plan is to stick to the protein and salad - and make my own sugar free dessert. The hard part will be all the stuff we bring home, but hopefully the kiddos will eat most of that. And hopefully Harley won't.

Harley went to the same doc, btw, and has renewed his own commitment to "eating healthy." Cutting carbs... and for him, portion control. The doc said to me, "Listen, you have to keep on him - or I'M going to have a heart attack!" :)

But the truth is, while I love Harley and I definitely don't want to lose him... I can't be responsible for what he puts on his plate. I just can't. I'm barely responsible for what I put on mine!

Hello, Blog

Well, hello, blog!

What happened?

I got mad at Harley for not writing here, and in my usual way, just gave up on the whole thing. If he wasn't going to do it, why should I? Can you say codependent, boys and girls? I knew you could!

So what am I doing back there again after 6 months? Well, I got back up to 285... go figure. And we kept trying to get pregnant. And finally, it stuck. I found out about a month ago. I'm due April 8, 2009.

And of course I was thrilled. And renewed my vow to get healthier while I was pregnant. But that's hard to do when you're packing up an entire house for a second move in a year's time. Yeah, we needed a bigger house and a room for the baby, but did I need more stress? That would be a big fat NO, thankyouverymuch...

So about 2 weeks ago, just for chucks and giggles, I checked my blood sugar. Harley's diabetic and has all the testing equipment (not that he ever, ever tests... he doesn't... it just sits there... so I thought, well, someone should use it!) Poked my finger, checked out the results...

183. After eating Taco Bell and having one of those yummy new Fruitista drinks.

EEK! So the next day, I vowed to be "good."

Fasting: 103

1 hour after breakfast (oatmeal made with milk): 130

1 hour after lunch (tuna fish sandwich and a glass of milk): 132

2 hours after dinner (tuna on toast, glass of milk): 114

Hmm. 103 is a high fasting. It should be under 95 (especially for pregnant women.) The other numbers weren't tooooo bad - should be under 140 one hour after you eat and under 120 two hours after you eat.

The next day's numbers were interesting, too:

Fasting: 120 (ouch!)

1 hour after breakfast (oatmeal made with water - we were out of milk): 150 !!!

But look at this:

1 hour after lunch (4 oz. steak): 94

Well then... looks like it's the carbs. Even "good" ones like oatmeal, that aren't tempered with protein. It's official - I'm pre-diabetic.

The question now is... is it enough? Is it enough to get me to stop slowly killing myself with food? Is the thought of a child with congenital anomalies enough to make me stop? Is heroin food more important to me than that... than anything?

Because after I discovered my sugars were elevated, I started doing the research, and it's not good. Women with pre-diabetes and undiagnosed diabetes have a risk of having babies with birth defects - specifically heart and neural tube abnormalities.

So now I'm opting for all the genetic testing - the neural translucency scan, the quad screen, the whole she-bang. Because I didn't catch this, really, until I was about 6 weeks along - and by that time, the heart was already formed and beating. And I know if my sugar was 183 after Taco Bell - imagine what it was after a piece of cake with no protein to balance it?

In the past two weeks, I've gone from 285 to 272. But that's rather irrelevant, considering. I've been checking my sugars, and for the most part, they've been fine, except for my fasting number, which is always borderline-highish. But I've cut out sugar entirely. No more junk food, no more fast food, no more regular soda. No more carbs in the form of white bread, rice, pasta, potatoes.

Two weeks. Only ... 223 days to go. :x

I honestly don't know if I can make it...

Appetite

I boiled eighteen eggs to make deviled eggs.

I cut up eight big, fat cucumbers to make cucumbers and vinegar.

I put out the eggs and cucumbers when my parents came over... and within an hour, they were gone. All of them. Just gone.

We need some laying chickens and an organic garden... soon!

Is it spring yet?

Junk Food as Stress Reliever

It's official.

Junk food reduces stress.

Duh!

Really, did they need a study to prove it?

I've been using it as a fairly effective solution to the stress issue for years. Oreos are the poor man's Prozac. Sugar is cheap and it does for me just what heroin does for a junkie, bay-bee.

Not that I'm not - a junkie. I am. I even nod in the mid-afternoon after a binge like a heroin junkie. Sad but true. How is it that no one else has made this connection is such a big way? We look around and say, "Oh, look, people are getting fatter, I wonder why?"

Hello!

Sugar. They're putting a highly addictive drug into our food. Almost all of our food, actually, especially anything processed. Anyone remember when Coca-Cola actually contained cocaine? It's true... talk about addictive.

My drug of choice is legal, sanctioned, and makes business owners billions a year. It also keeps their customers coming back for more... and more... and more.

Not that I think banning sugar is gonna help. Prohibition didn't work either. People who can use sugar in moderation - wow, I bow down to you folks. I don't know how you do it.

Junk food relieves stress - like this is news? I've self-prescribed it for years, and so has over half the country, if the obesity stats are to be believed. It's still better for you than heroin... right?

Right?

Thursday Thirteen #4: 13 Inspirational Quotes

1. The significance of a man is not in what he attains but in what he longs to attain. - Kahil Gibran

2. If you don't know where you are going,you'll end up someplace else. - Yogi Berra

3. We can always redeem the man who aspires and strives. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

4. In absence of clearly defined goals, we become strangely loyal to performing daily acts of trivia. - Author Unknown

5. There are two things to aim at in life; first to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind has achieved the second. - Logan Pearsall Smith

6. Life can be pulled by goals just as surely as it can be pushed by drives. - Viktor Frankl

7. The only journey is the journey within. - Rainer Maria Rilke

8. Insist on yourself. Never imitate. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

9. Everybody wants to be somebody;nobody wants to grow. - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

10. If we all did the things we are capable of,we would astound ourselves. - Thomas Edison

11. Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake. - Henry David Thoreau

12. The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up. - Paul Valery

13. They can because they think they can. - Virgil

Wordless Wednesday #3