Graduation and GD

Hello! I'm back for more updates and to post some pics. Two weekends ago we finally got to celebrate my graduation and I finally got proof that I'm done. Here are some pics from the grad party held the evening before commencement and from the commencement ceremonies itself.

there was cake, barbecue and for some reason, lots of babies

what you hopefully could not tell from these photos is that the robe is actually a sauna.

In other not-so celebratory news, the day after these celebrations I took my second, much more fun glucose tolerance test. It was promptly revealed that I do have gestationational diabetes or GD. It shouldn't have been much of a surprise since I

actually had 3 out of 4 common risk factors (>25 yo at first pregnancy, family history of diabetes, pacific islander) in addition to having been previously diagnosed with insulin resistance due to my PCOS. However, I was still pretty upset with this diagnosis since I know that this could affect the baby to some extent (high birth weight, hypoglycemia at birth among other things). I've started feeling more confident about dealing with GD since taking a class (with Paul) with a dietitian and a maternal and fetal medicine nurse. Basically, we're trying to control my blood glucose levels with a combination of diet, exercise and glucose monitoring. The diet is not as strict as I feared it be since I'm still supposed to be taking in 2300 calories per day. The main changes I need to make is in the proportions of the types of food I eat (carbs, protein, veggies, fruits, etc) and also surprisingly enough, when I can eat them. For example, I need to eat less carbs in general especially in the morning but the amount of protein I can have is actual quite a lot. I could also squeeze in dessert once in a while if I cut back on other carbs. Another change is that I ought to be eating 6 meals a day which consists of the 3 main meals and 3 snacks (morning, afternoon and bedtime). This would prevent my blood sugar from spiking too much. Anyway, I could go on and on about this but suffice it to say, I feel pretty confident we could control this with just diet and exercise and hopefully not having to take medications or insulin.

That's my update for now. Before I end though I probably owe you a belly pic. Here's a couple of pics including one with Paul's graduation present for me.

wowza!

my new crafty friend!

27 weeks

Our apologies for not updating. We've been much busier than we anticipated. Will try to be better from now on :)

Since the last entry I've gotten way bigger and our li'l one has gotten much more active. At my last appointment Dr. Goist couldn't hear his heartbeat through the doppler for a while since all we could hear was this glug-glug sound which is apparently him flipping around i

n there. He also responds to sounds now. Once he even moved when Paul started talking to him!

As for preparedness, we've kind of started outfitting the nursery. We went on a big Ikea trip a couple weekends ago and got the crib along with the matching chest of drawers/changing table and shelf. Since it was Ikea, we also ended up with quite a lot of odds and ends like baby mobiles, a bunny sock puppet and doilies.

this crib is much cuter in person. I promise :)

Other than the Ikea items we also had one good garage sale purchase. We got this glider for pretty cheap!

ignore the weird person on the glider

As for other things that were keeping us busy, Heather came up to visit and spend time with us as well as to meet new friends

Work has also been quite a struggle for me as being pregnant has made a lot of the things I normally do quite uncomfortable. Who'd have thought swollen hands would be a pain when doing micromanipulation work?

Anyway, that's it for now. I'm marching in commencement this coming Sunday which should be interesting (big red robe in 90 deg F weather anyone?) and we're also hosting a graduation party this weekend. So you'll hear about that on the next update and hopefully a picture of the nursery!