How are you feeling?

I've gotten this question a few times lately so I thought I'd give a little pregnancy update. Really, for the most part, "I'm feeling fine" is the response. I definitely have the aches and pains of an 8 month pregnant lady - it's hard to get comfortable in bed or to roll over, it's hard to bend down to pick up toys and my toddler, it's hard to reach the sink to do dishes, I get tired going up and down our stairs, I have contractions all day long that are not painful but can be annoying - but REALLY, overall pretty good. I have my cranky days but for the most part am still feeling positive. I am nearly 35 weeks (I can't believe I will be "full term" in two weeks) and all is going well and healthy with the baby. I'm Due Oct 30th but I think Nov 2nd would be the perfect birthday, lol. I'm just hoping my Mommy can get out here because my biggest worry is what to do with Eli while I'm at the hospital!

As for "complications" I was recently diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes. If you don't know much about it - it's a condition in pregnancy where your body becomes sensitive to glucose (ie. sugar and carbs) and your blood sugar can get too high very easily. It can cause problems for the baby if left uncontrolled. People who have it bad have to take insulin shots etc. It usually goes away after you give birth and does not mean that you are doomed to have diabetes later in life, and it does NOT mean that you were eating badly during your pregnancy and caused it. As for me, mine is pretty mild/borderline but I do have to follow the specific diabetes diet which outlines a specific number of carbs I'm allowed to eat at each meal or snack. It took some getting used to, but for the most part I can still eat the foods I was eating, I just have to make sure the carb part is spread throughout the day (and really just avoid sugar if possible). The biggest change was breakfast - I love having a hot cereal with fruit but I'm only allowed ONE serving of carb for breakfast (ie. one piece of toast OR 1/3 cup oatmeal - no fruit, no milk). I cheat on the milk because I just can't do breakfast without it! Anyway, I could bore you with menu details. I have a little glucose meter and have to prick my finger and test my blood sugar 3-4 times a day. The good news is that after the first few days of funky sugar readings I've pretty much got the diet down and have been testing completely normal. So other than inconvenience, it's not too big of a deal. I'm hoping with another week of normal readings, I can stop the frequent testing and just keep on the diet. It also means I don't have to go on insulin, and I can refuse the recommended weekly Non-Stress Tests on the baby (the less unnecessary monitoring and interference the better in my opinion!). What's funny is that with this baby I have gained a lot less weight (50 pounds with Eli, probably around 35 when all is said and done for this one) and have eaten healthier and exercised more, and yet I didn't get GD with Eli (or wasn't diagnosed anyway - he had low blood sugar at birth so it's possible I ended up with it late in pregnancy).

Aaaand just a warm-fuzzy. I saw the other midwife at the practice today and really liked her too. She did some palpating of the baby and found him to be head down, nicely imbedded in the pelvis. And she predicts an 8.5 pounder - which for me would be SMALL! LOL. I was pretty much expecting a 10+ pounder since second babies are generally bigger and generally GD babies tend to be bigger. I guess we'll see how he turns out!