On the rise

Well, I think my days of picture perfect log books are going out the window. My numbers have been creeping up slightly over the past two weeks or so, but the past two days I feel like I’ve seen more 200’s than I have in the past four months combined. This is very difficult to see, and although I get them down right away, they seem to go right back up. It feels like I’m playing that carnival game where the little mole pops up, then you hit it with the hammer, and another one pops up.

I sent my logs to my diabetes educator today and she’s out of the office, but I’ve raised my basals over the weekend until I can talk to her on Monday. I hate the highs more than anything. I’d much rather be low, which I know is also not good for me, but I feel like it’s better for the baby. Hopefully I can find a happy medium, because this dazed feeling I’ve had yesterday and today is not going to cut it. I hate being high for what it does to me, but it terrifies me to think what effect it’s having on the baby. I know it’s my overall control that matters most, and not the bad day here or there, but it’s just scary to think that what’s going on in my body influences the overall health of my child.

Ok, mini panic attack over. I’ve done what I can to correct it for now, and will keep working on it in the coming weeks. I really enjoyed the calm while it lasted!

It's a...

SURPRISE!!

Luckily, I was able to talk my husband into keeping the baby’s sex a surprise. I know this is hard for him, so I am extremely grateful that he’s going along with my wishes. I don’t know why I feel so strongly that I don’t want to know, but it’s just always something I imagined finding out in the delivery room, and so that’s where we’ll find out.

It is funny how many people feel very strongly that we should be finding out. How will we know what clothes to register for? How will we know what color to paint the nursery (thank you one-bedroom apartment for making that a non-issue)? How will other people be able to buy us the “right” gifts? How will we pick out a name (I’m pretty sure we’ll just pick two instead one). The list of questions goes on and on and yet for some reason, I just don’t want to know.

I completely understand the validity of all these points, and when I have friends or know others who find out the sex of their babies, I genuinely share in their excitement, but it’s just not something I want to get into yet. I want to hear the doctor say whether it’s a boy or girl after the agony of labor. I want my husband to be able to call people from the hospital and say, “It’s a ___!” I want to be able to send birth announcements that announce the gender. I also want to have a gender/due date pool – seriously :)

But mostly, I just want to fully take part in this great surprise with which I’ve been blessed. I know it would be a surprise no matter when we find out, but I want this baby to make its own announcement, rather than an ultrasound tech.

So, as the months wear on and my curiosity grows, I’ll need to come back and read this to remind myself what I want. At my last ultrasound they said I’d have to be careful to tell them at each ultrasound that I don’t want to know since I’ll have so many, especially towards the end. That’s a lot of temptation, but hopefully I’ll make it!

Sweet Child of Ours

With all relatively quiet on the diabetes front of my pregnancy, my mind is happily free to ponder other things. I’ve been so happy lately, finding that this pregnancy has in a strange way made me more relaxed and comfortable in my own body. My co-workers and my close friends think I’m much more calm now that I’m pregnant, and to be honest, I know I am happier and more content in my life.

One of the things that has me so happy lately is how many people are sharing in our joy and excitement about this baby. This is not just my child, and I realize that more and more everyday. I think it’s so sweet when my co-workers call Baby B the “marketing department baby,” and get as excited as I do when I come back from an ultrasound. I love how many of my friends refer to themselves as aunts, and how those in my ACT1 support group always ask how Baby B is doing and tell me that they’re thinking of and praying for us. My mom often tells me that neighbors from my home town ask her all the time how the pregnancy is going, and that teachers and coaches who taught me years ago also stop her to ask how Baby B and I are doing. And of course, the amount of love that my extended family has for this child is sometimes overwhelming.

I do very much believe in the, “it takes a village” approach to raising children, and I am overjoyed that Baby B will have so many villagers welcoming him or her into this world. I feel truly blessed to have so many caring and loving people in my life. Their joy and excitement have made this pregnancy such a fun one so far!

Baby Talk

With only one thing on my mind lately (BABY!), it’s hard to remember that there is life outside of this child. I’m finding it strange sometimes to interact with friends/family/coworkers, because I try to be very conscious of not overdoing it with baby talk, but I often find that others enjoy talking about the baby as much as I do. I’ll try to steer the conversation in a different direction—how is you finace/husband/job/cat—but, inevitably, there have been times when the conversation always seems to come back to the baby. This doesn’t always happen, but sometimes, and it feels like a trap I can’t get out of.

Sometimes when my husband and I come home from being with friends I’ll ask if I talked about the baby too much, and he’ll insist that I barely said anything about it, so who knows (not sure he’s the best judge of character on this one because he LOVES the baby!). But, babies are just plain fun to talk about. I feel very blessed that there are so many people in our life who are genuinely excited for us, and for the baby. It’s funny, because everyone seems to become much nicer when they find out you’re pregnant. I wish I could invent a way to bottle that excited/hopeful/happy feeling that people have when the topic of babies comes up—I think it would be good for the world!