Pregnancy progression Photos Thus Far

Gestational Diabetes

I don't know how other women handle the news that they have pre-gestational diabetes or full blown gestational diabetes. I was extremely shocked because other than eating fruit, the occasional dark chocolate, and one teaspoon of sugar in my coffee I am not really in to sweets. Not to the point where it warrants me having GD. What I found most amazing about this prognosis was that all I got was an information sheet on how to eat "properly" according to the American Heart Association's equivalent of what a healthy diet should be. I strongly disagreed with the ridiculous food pyramid which requires an absurd amount of fruit, and carbs, and other nonsense. I have always eaten a very clean diet. My ancestry is Italian and we pride ourselves in eating healthy.
Since the prognosis I took my blood sugar every day. And wrongly might I add. I was under the impression that you test you glucose level 1 hour after you have finished eating, instead the hour begins as soon as you commence eating. So for the past 5 months I had been taking it the wrong way, I guess that is what happens when you try to teach yourself something that a nutritionist or a doctor is supposed to teach you. I just figured that the nurse practitioner was over worked and really had no time to explain how to do it correctly. Nevertheless, in month five of my pregnancy I decided to cut out carbs in the form of bread, pasta, rice, grain, and potatoes and I also limit my fruit intake to 1 and a half pieces accompanied by a fat like cream or ricotta. I figured early on that the carbs actually converted to sugar, I may as well have been eating a bag of lollies. Since then my blood sugars are pretty well under control. Below 100 fasting blood sugar, and way below 140 post meal. The numbers pretty much depend on what I eat. But I figured out what causes the spikes. If I followed that ridiculous food pyramid there was no way that my blood sugar would be this low. My recommendation to anyone that is told they are on their way to developing GD should immediately cut out carbs and sugar (including fruit, only have 1 piece a day) increase their good fats (butter, olive oil, cream, coconut oil) and mix the food up, for example one protein, two veggie. 
One thing I have learned from this pregnancy is that the pregnancy process is highly medacalized here in the United Stats it is considered to be a condition. There is so much intervention during pregnancy that I began to feel impotent, as though I should just surrender my rights as a human being and let the American medical industry make all the decisions for me. Sooner or later women will have no control and we will be told to stay in bed the whole 9 months while being fed intravenously by some pharmaceutical company's new pregnant woman formula, and what they consider is best for the baby. What is more surprising is that when I changed providers from an Obgyn, to a midwife she said that my A1c levels are considered to diabetic not pre-gestational diabetes. So who the fuck is right and who doesn't know shit. Then After that I get told that I could have had diabetes before I was pregnant and didn't even know it which means my baby could have a defect, so now they want me to have a fetal cardiogram to check his heart.  I think I will say no, because I am already half way through so what could they really do to help at this stage? Lesson learned, no one is informed and no one knows anything.

Bleeding during pregnancy

I remember that morning so well, it was around the first week of June on a Sunday. Our new kitten was not adjusting well to the new environment and he had terrible diarrhea. I said to my husband we need to take him to the vet because he is not getting better. So we take him to the vet and get the preliminary bill. A whopping $400! My husband was livid, but we both new that our kitten was sick and needed the care. Still  my husband was so stressed out and I in turn got stressed out. On the way home I start bleeding heavily as soon as we round the corner to our street. I jump out of the car and run to the toilet, and immediately start freaking out as a light pink liquid gushes onto my underwear. I start crying "Did I do this?" "What did I do wrong". My husband grabs me and puts me in the car, we rush to emergency. We immediately get put in a room away from all the other patients. Hours pass by as they poke and prod me, and send me for ultrasounds. I am thinking that I have lost the baby. After 5-6 hours in emergency we are told that it is a placental abruption meaning that the placenta had torn away from the uterus. The nurse who was so kind to us asked "Did you guys have sex?" We had, actually the night before, maybe a little too rambunctiously. She then told us that the same thing happened to her and that it was extremely common. So as it turned out we freaked out for nothing and I wish I had just waited and stayed home, especially since I had no cramping or any other pain especially when you have to pay a $150 copay to visit emergency. But seeing that this was our first experience with pregnancy we naturally thought the worst right away. Lesson to be had, don't panic. 

The Stress of Being Pregnant

When I found out I was pregnant I really had no idea bout the amount of warnings and crazy crap that littered the internet. I had no idea that toxoplasmosis existed or what it was, which was scary because the week I found out I was pregnant I was due to get a new kitten. After stressing out like a crazy person I found out I was immune to the parasite having been exposed at an earlier time before pregnancy. Plus your cat can only get it if it goes outside kills an animal who has it and then shits in the kitty litter box in the house, then shedding the parasite over the next few weeks. My kitten has been an indoor cat ever since and had no weird parasite, which after weeks of stressing turns out didn't matter anyway because I was immune.
I did not know you must avoid pretty much every food because it may harm the baby. Although our pregnancy was planned, I had not planned on being confronted with all of these stressors and worries. Many pregnant women may also go through stress and worries in pregnancy or maybe they won't, I discovered that for me personally pregnancy is bloody stressful. I thought it would like movie magic, that the whole time being pregnant would be perfect bliss. Instead for me, because I am a bit of a hypochondriac I tend to worry about every disease and problem out there. Being pregnant has made me more fearful. Throughout the first trimester I had incredible morning sickness, yet I did not vomit. I only vomited  twice. The first time was because I ate a mixture of scrambled eggs, olives, artichokes and who knows what else. It didn't go down too well. The second time I ate canned tomato soup and shortly thereafter I felt so ill and vomited again. Other than that my morning sickness felt more like a my stomach was doing the rinse cycle of a washing machine. Not fun. Below is my very first transvaginal ultrasound to confirm pregnancy, as you can see there is the egg yolk sack, yay confirmed pregnancy.

This is me at about 5 weeks