On Baby A's birthday, the c-section surgery went as planned. I walked into the OR around 9:30am and was pushed out around 2 hours later. W was instructed to wait outside while the team was getting me prepared for anesthesia. He then got invited to come in and sat next to me while the team worked on getting Baby A out of me 😂. W was a good DJ and Baby A was born while Taylor Swift's Shake It Off was being played. So...did I feel any pain during this life-changing surgery? No, I didn't. I had a spinal block. I never felt any type of pain during the surgery. Getting the anesthesia injected - however - was the most uncomfortable part of the surgery. There was a lot of pressure. I felt my back being pulled or pushed, or something. It just felt very uncomfortable, not painful, but very uncomfortable. It was also hard to try leaning toward the source of that uncomfortableness. Learning to relax while being uncomfortable was a very hard thing to do. But it was necessary. Once it...
The 6th prenatal appointment went well. Nothing special, despite having learned my new diagnosis of gestational diabetes. We checked baby's heartbeat (141!) and checked my blood pressure (very normal). I was told starting this appointment forward that I would be doing an urinalysis to check on protein every time I'm there. Additionally, due to having gestational diabetes, my ob ordered a new routine for me - two NSTs (non-stress test) and a weekly ultrasound scan to check on fluids starting week 28.
On April 19th, I attended the group class on gestational diabetes. The group class was ok. Everything discussed was not really new to me. The only useful part of the class was going over how to use the glucometer.
I began the new routine of pricking fingers on April 20. 4 times a day: fasting, and 2 hours after breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I downloaded an app that automatically collects and sends my glucometer results to my case manager. The app is easy to use and has features like charts to easily show where I'm at with my target numbers. The first testing prick required more than just one prick...I literally poked myself 6 times to get one valid reading. The first 5 times I felt the prick, but not enough blood came out. It was frustrating. I also felt awful because I was like "do I have to poke 4,5,6 times everytime I check my level???" The first valid reading I got was 145 - which was considered a spike as it should've been under 120. However, this was a random poke - it had been almost an hour after I had my snack so it was fine.
After the class, we went to Costco and started looking for what I could eat. We refer to my new diet as "high protein & low carb." I was thrilled to see that Costco croissants had 30g of carbs each - this meant I could eat 1/2 or even a full croissant as my carb, and pair that with any meat and veggies for an easy meal.
Here's my first meal (dinner) after having learned of my new diagnosis: grilled asparagus, roasted zucchini and squash in a lemony seasoning, and grilled salmon with Italian seasoning over a bed of brown rice. It looks healthy (in our opinion), but, apparently not good enough. 1/3 cup of cooked brown rice raised my blood sugar to just barely over 120.
Two days after I began this new routine of poking myself 4x daily, I had my consultation with the dietician. She went over what I ate in the past couple of days and calculated my nutrition intake while looking at my glucose levels that my app has sent over. Thankfully, she thinks I've got a mild condition and everything was looking good. She even suggested that I increase my carb intake from 15g per snack to 30g per snack, and increase my carb intake from 30g per meal to up to 40 or 45g per meal. The goal is to keep me feeling full while not overeating on carbs. I'm glad carbs is the only thing I have to watch out for. Specifically, only carbs on starchy foods so like rice, bread, beans, and noodles. Vegetables with carbs are not really on the watch list, except potatoes and corn. I don't need to really pay attention to sugar and calories. Just calculate the amount of carbs from any grain I eat.
The first few days (and really, weeks) of poking, to me, really was about finding out what food my body could tolerate. I found rice gave me spikes and croissants from Costco were safe. We tried brown rice again that first week but my number 2 hours after that meal was still borderline over the limit (122). Hence, I decided to part ways with rice for a while....I may have a spoon of brown rice occasionally, but it's generally on a no-go list for me.
I was also very happy to learn that my favorite breakfast sandwich ("everything bagel sandwich") from a local coffeeshop was "safe"! It was a little sad that I had to exercise self-control on only taking sips of my Thai tea instead of gulping it down like before. The Thai tea pictured below took me all day to finish - mainly because I knew it was loaded with carbs so I broke it down into "4 sections." I pretty much drank 1/4 cup during breakfast, 1/4 cup during lunch, 1/4 cup for afternoon snack, and the last 1/4 cup during dinner. For the breakfast sandwich, I ate it without the top half of the bagel and my number was well within range. Also found that my numbers stay low whenever I add some avocado (whether as an add-on at the coffeeshop or just slice up some at home). The picture below really is my favorite breakfast these days. 💛
💗 CM
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