Let Them Eat Cake

I feel I've been remiss in not mentioning what an amazing cook Nick is. He's been especially great with this whole gestational diabetes thing, helping me stay on track with my meals and thinking up great dinners. Tonight he made us broiled mahi-mahi with Clementine oranges, butter, garlic, and rosemary, with sides of avocado, rice and broccoli. It was a delicious meal, met my current low-carb guidelines, and made me feel (for a moment) as if I were in Hawaii, not Maine, in February.

I always hoped I'd end up with a man who could cook (and liked to do so), because if mealtimes were entirely up to me, it'd be beans and rice every night for life, with the occasional plate of pasta thrown in for good measure. My poor child would grow up not knowing what properly salted food tasted like, thinking that dinner always came wrapped in a tortilla or smothered in tomato sauce. She would also think that chocolate cake was a legitimate food group, since I do like to bake, and do so pretty well upon occasion. (I also make killer pancakes, which shot my blood sugar up much too high last weekend.) But when it comes to the workaday meals that one needs to, like, survive, and get nutrients from, I'd rather someone who can actually improvise in the kitchen be the one preparing my meals. Thanks Nick! I'll gladly do the dishes.

My Growing Belly

3 months

4 months. I thought I looked big at this stage. Ha hahahahahaahahah ahahahahaha!!!!!!

5 months

6 months
7 months--taken February 20, 2008

Pics

Penney Ugland in a new light; a representative tableau of weekend days.

Tired

I'm soooooo tired. Last week, I fell asleep three times at my desk. Nick saw these on Gizmodo.com and suggested I get myself a pair. I wasn't being lazy--I swear--I am just so overcome with sleepiness that it's a struggle to keep my eyes open most days. When I met with my boss to go over an analysis I need to do to determine whether it's worth sinking a half-billion dollars into renovating the hospital, my eyes kept fluttering closed, like I was at home on the couch watching late-night television. This was while I was sipping deeply from a cup of coffee, as if it were a well run dry.

My OB says it's normal to be this tired at 7 months, so I was feeling encouraged that maybe there was a timeline on this drowsiness that permeates my life lately, but then my brother told me I could expect to feel like this for the rest of my life, once the baby was born. Please say it isn't so.

My dear Aunt Becky came to visit this weekend, and she, Nick, Ting-Tong and I went on a 2 mile walk, which probably should have been invigorating, but instead just made me want to take a nap. I yawned all through dinner at Katahdin later that night. She left Sunday, and on Monday, I slept in until noon.

My blood sugar levels have been, for the most part, in the normal range, so I don't think it has anything to do with the gestational diabetes. I think it has to do with carrying around something the size of Ting-Tong in my womb all day and night. The ultrasound today said the baby was about 4.5 pounds. Hard to believe she will be here in just 9 weeks!

Prognosis: good

I met yesterday with my diabetes educator. I’ve been checking my blood four times a day for the last 14 days, and logging every meal or snack I’ve eaten during that time. Because I’m a nerd (and work as a data analyst), I even graphed my fluctuating blood levels, and created a color-coded chart that showed when my blood levels were high and the corresponding meal that made them so. To my great relief, my counselor said my diet looked very healthy, and said my blood levels were really pretty good, even those times when they went over the 120 limit. She even suggested that some of the unusually high readings (like those times after eating plain yogurt, oatmeal, and herbal tea for breakfast) might have been caused not by high blood sugar levels, but by residue on my fingertips that the glucose monitor picked up on. Overall, she said I was doing great, and didn’t anticipate any problems with the pregnancy, or suggest that I would need to control my sugar levels with insulin injections. Thank goodness!