So last week I NEEDED to get out of the house. The hubby was about to come home in an hour, but I couldn't wait for him to watch E. I just had an urge to get out. Cabin fever I guess. Baby E seemed to be in a good mood so I said why not? I had to go to Babies R Us, so this would be the perfect time. Well, I should've realized when E started crying 5 minutes into the drive that this trip was going to be hard. However I was determined to still go! I thought, "Once she gets in the stroller and starts moving around, E will love this outing too!"
Yeah that lasted for about 10 minutes. She didn't mind while I looked at bottles as long as I kept moving the stroller back and forth. She enjoyed being in the shoe section while I tried to figure out what size shoe she was. Then it happened....the silent wide opened mouth..5-4-3-2-1...then the CRYING!! I tried to stroll her back and forth - nope. I tried to use the soothie pacifier - nope. Oh maybe she's hungry! I debated on going home to feed her, since the thought of using the public nursing room kinda grossed out the germaphobe in me. But my need to stay out won over and I decided to give the Babies R Us mommy room a chance. Despite all the stains I saw on all the seats, I sucked it up and tried to breastfeed baby E. She was NOT having it! Then I tried to give her a bottle. But since it was in the cooler, the milk was way too cold for E. Man, she was screaming her lungs out! I was afraid a worker would come in thinking that I was being a bad mommy. E started to calm down a little bit. And I mean a teansy weensy bit. So right then I said, "Okay let's go home now, you win."
Then what do you know, I step out of the mommy room and start strolling E and she calms down. And well you can guess what's next right? I thought she was going to be calm again. So instead of leaving like I said, I decided to go back to check out the bottles again since that's why we had come in the first place. Mistake! Right when I got there she started to cry again. Like seriously wail. Put the soothie in her mouth and she calmed down, but every time it fell out she'd cry. Sooooo I had to keep my finger in the soothie the whole way out to the car. And even putting her in the car she was crying. Needless to say, I felt horrible=(. The whole car ride (which was less than 10 minutes) back home E was crying her lungs out. All I could do was try to sing, play soft music, talk to E, anything to try to calm her.
Got home maybe 10 minutes before hubby did and had E, all red around the eyes from crying, feeding and calm. Guess I better not take E out until she's fast asleep next time. Lesson learned.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Monday, October 1, 2012
i failed 2 of the 4 tests..
While I was pregnant with E, not many people knew that I had Gestational Diabetes. I'm sure it sounds much worse than it really was at the time. For those who don't know, Gestational Diabetes (GD for brevity in this post) is diabetes found only during pregnancy. Since we have so many pregnancy hormones going on, for some of us it makes it harder for the body to produce enough insulin to lower our blood sugar levels. It usually occurs at the end of the 2nd, beginning of the 3rd trimester since that's when our hormones seem to be at their peaks. Which is why our OB wants us to take the glucose test to find out the blood sugar levels and if the body is breaking them down properly.
Why was this so important? Well, if I didn't regulate my blood sugar there were risks that my daughter could have been born huuuuuge. Okay not huge, but bigger than normal. And also with me having high blood sugar levels and passing it on to my baby while pregnant, she starts to produce a lot of insulin. But right at birth, my daughter had a higher chance of having low blood sugar since her body was producing more insulin to balance the high blood sugar. Have I lost you? Let's just say that I handled my GD well, but at the time I was so sad about being told I had it.
You see this isn't a common thing, but for some reason is more prevalent in Asians - which I am. Plus the fact that my dad had type 2 diabetes as well made me a higher risk for having it while pregnant. Since my dad had type 2, I had to do an early blood glucose test in my first trimester. My results were great and no GD at the time. So when it came to my 28th week, I thought for sure I'd have no problem with the 3-hour test. I was wrong. My blood sugar levels were high for 2 of the 4 readings, and for me that meant I had GD=(. I was bummed. I mean REALLY really REALLY bummed. I just didn't get how I could get it. I mean I wasn't overweight, I had a good diet prior to the glucose test, and I worked out. Wasn't I in the clear? Apparently from what the GD nurse told us, you can be the healthiest of people and still get GD. ANYONE can get it, and I just happened to be one of that small percentage. I was totally in denial though. My 2 results that were high were just a little over the GD range. I read forums and read about other pregnant women who's results were way higher than mine. So I got even more sad. But what could I do?
My husband saw it as a wake up call for me. Even if I had just barely passed the glucose test, would I have wanted to put our baby at risk if I wasn't GD? No. Regardless if my results were a little over the norm or a little under....that was enough to let me know to take more care of myself for our baby's sake. I had to take a GD class to learn about diet & nutrition, and most importantly about testing my blood sugars 4 times a day. Yup that's right, pricking my finger in the morning, and after breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Yippee. All this because I was a few points over. What's funny is that the diet the nurse wanted us to go on was pretty much the exact way my husband eats all his meals! Too bad we couldn't have switched places, ha. But the diet wasn't so bad. It was more of just counting my carbs and my sugar intake. It just made meal planning a little more challenging. I'll get to that in my next post. For now, just know..that if you found this blog and you have GD, it's not the end of the world! Think of it as giving your child a healthy beginning=).
Why was this so important? Well, if I didn't regulate my blood sugar there were risks that my daughter could have been born huuuuuge. Okay not huge, but bigger than normal. And also with me having high blood sugar levels and passing it on to my baby while pregnant, she starts to produce a lot of insulin. But right at birth, my daughter had a higher chance of having low blood sugar since her body was producing more insulin to balance the high blood sugar. Have I lost you? Let's just say that I handled my GD well, but at the time I was so sad about being told I had it.
You see this isn't a common thing, but for some reason is more prevalent in Asians - which I am. Plus the fact that my dad had type 2 diabetes as well made me a higher risk for having it while pregnant. Since my dad had type 2, I had to do an early blood glucose test in my first trimester. My results were great and no GD at the time. So when it came to my 28th week, I thought for sure I'd have no problem with the 3-hour test. I was wrong. My blood sugar levels were high for 2 of the 4 readings, and for me that meant I had GD=(. I was bummed. I mean REALLY really REALLY bummed. I just didn't get how I could get it. I mean I wasn't overweight, I had a good diet prior to the glucose test, and I worked out. Wasn't I in the clear? Apparently from what the GD nurse told us, you can be the healthiest of people and still get GD. ANYONE can get it, and I just happened to be one of that small percentage. I was totally in denial though. My 2 results that were high were just a little over the GD range. I read forums and read about other pregnant women who's results were way higher than mine. So I got even more sad. But what could I do?
My husband saw it as a wake up call for me. Even if I had just barely passed the glucose test, would I have wanted to put our baby at risk if I wasn't GD? No. Regardless if my results were a little over the norm or a little under....that was enough to let me know to take more care of myself for our baby's sake. I had to take a GD class to learn about diet & nutrition, and most importantly about testing my blood sugars 4 times a day. Yup that's right, pricking my finger in the morning, and after breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Yippee. All this because I was a few points over. What's funny is that the diet the nurse wanted us to go on was pretty much the exact way my husband eats all his meals! Too bad we couldn't have switched places, ha. But the diet wasn't so bad. It was more of just counting my carbs and my sugar intake. It just made meal planning a little more challenging. I'll get to that in my next post. For now, just know..that if you found this blog and you have GD, it's not the end of the world! Think of it as giving your child a healthy beginning=).
Saturday, September 29, 2012
2 months...
It took 2 months for me to finally have some time to blog. Our baby girl is now 2 months old and is giving mommy and daddy a breather. While daddy watches her, I get my me time. Well not exactly..just a short break before I resume my mommy duties. Don't get me wrong, I love being a mom. It has totally changed my life in such an awesome way. But wow, they weren't kidding when they said your life is not your own anymore. All our time is now consumed with our daughter. For the sake of privacy, I'll just refer to her as "E" from now on.
E has been such a joy in our lives while at the same time such a challenge to figure out sometimes! Am I alone on this one? I don't think I have postpartum, but I guess I did have the baby blues? There was one day where my husband came home from work and I was so irritable. As much as he tried to comfort me and tell me to go out or at least just take a drive, I kept telling him I was fine. Ha, the infamous "I'm fine" response from a woman. At the time though I really thought I was okay, just hormonal of course. But in the end I took his advice and decided to go for a drive by myself. Not a big deal to some, I was literally just going out to pick up dinner. Wow, that was an eye opener for me. That was the first time I had ever been away from baby E. As much as I love spending time with my little one, I realized that I need some me time. Maybe not the "me" time that I'm used too, but just that short 30 minute respite to myself was rejuvenating. I guess I needed that drive, and I'm lucky that my husband kept encouraging me to take advantage of the time when he can watch our baby and give me a break.
So here we are....I'm blogging. I can't promise myself that I'll be here all the time. But, I will certainly try. I'm sure I'm not alone out there when I say that it gets lonely sometimes being a stay at home mom. I know that I am blessed to have this free time to take care of our daughter. But this first time mommy is still learning the ins and outs of motherhood. Slowly trying to get by in this new world introduced to me 2 months ago and just striving to be the best mama I can to our baby E. So to keep me sane, I will blog.
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