...is pretty much what I won't be eating for the next 11 weeks.
Today was my three hour blood test for gestational diabetes. First of all, I had to fast before and through the test, and a pregnant lady does not like to fast (neither does a non-pregnant lady, but my urgent need for food is much more, well, urgent now). Also, the disgusting sugar drink had twice as much sugar as the other one I had to drink, so this time, I was sort of loopy and tired and sick-feeling about a half hour after the test and for the rest of the day, including now. I had four blood tests, and I just got off the phone with my doctor's office who told me I was borderline on two of the four tests, so basically I guess I'm a borderline gestational diabetic. Poop.
All day long, I've been convincing myself that if I have it, it's not that big of a deal, and my diet needs help anyway, etc etc, but I'm disappointed. I have done research on GD and the top concern with this disease is that the baby will be too big - if I'm intaking too much sugar, then the baby's pancreas can start producing too much insulin too - and get to be a big, fat, giant baby. I read some scary stuff that if you have severe gestational diabetes you can have a stillborn baby, but the nurse assured me that I was nowhere near that point - that that would be uncontrolled, very severe diabetes.
Now I have to go to a special nutrition class through the hospital that will teach me about what I should and shouldn't eat. The nurse told me I can have some bread, some cereal, some fruit, but to stay away from concentrated sugars, like candy, cake, cookies, ice cream (as my friend Heather put it - anything worth eating). The other sugar/carbs I do eat will have to be in smaller portions than I'm used to. If you know me at all, you know it's those kinds of snacks, plus an extreme amount of cereal and breads, that have carried me through this pregnancy. Now I have to learn to be friends with more vegetables and proteins. Happily, I don't have to do the many-times-a-day blood tests that you have to do if you have full-on GD.
Ultimately, I'm sure this will be a good thing for me and my diet, as long as the baby is OK. I'd pretty much eat cardboard for the next 11 weeks if that ensured that she'd be alright.
But it doesn't mean I won't be a wee bit cranky every now and then. But I just have to remember how lucky I am.
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And I'll remember how lucky I am that I no longer work down the hall from said cranky, sugar-craving, carb-addicted pregnant lady who may shoot angry laser beams out of her eyeballs if I got off the elvator with a fresh bag of M&Ms straight form the vending machine in the basement. Boy, am I lucky.
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