31 Weeks 1 Day

Another day, another OB appointment... I'll be having them every two weeks now, rather than every four as I had been.  And in addition to those regular appointments, I'll also have to check in at the hospital diabetes center every so often now that I've been diagnosed with gestational diabetes...yay.  For those of you who aren't familiar with GD, what happens is that in some instances hormones from the pregnancy block a mother's pancreas from producing enough insulin, which is the substance that turns the carbs in our food into energy.  When the excess carbs aren't able to be turned into energy, they are stored as fat in both mother and baby.  Untreated GD results in large babies with under-developed lungs and a higher risk of obesity later in life, as well as a slew of other unfortunate side effects.  To combat the GD, you're given a low-carb diet to follow so that you aren't consuming more carbs than your body can process.  I was diagnosed two weeks ago, and so far it hasn't been too difficult to follow.  It's a major inconvenience to test my blood sugar 4x a day, and just plain mean to restrict the junk food intake of a pregnant woman, but on the bright side I've lost 4 lbs since starting the diet, putting me at a total gain of 22 lbs. so far.  Another thing to look forward to, GD disappears the day you deliver the baby in 95% of women.  With the diet alone my numbers have been ok, pretty borderline.  I'll be seen again in another week to discuss whether or not they would like to add medication.  If that's the case, then at that time they'll also schedule me to be induced at 39 weeks, rather than letting me go to full-term.  Not that I wouldn't be interested in having her a bit early, but Pitocin is not in my Top 5 things to add to my labor.

Last Thursday we started our birthing classes at the hospital.  We didn't really learn anything that we didn't already know, but hopefully we'll go more in depth in the next two sessions.  We did, however, really enjoy getting to visit the hospital.  We're going to schedule a private tour for sometime next week, but what we already got to see of the maternity center (an entire private building) is awesome.  It feels like a 5-star hotel, complete with valet parking and brand new everything.  And the best part is, we live less than 15 minutes away.  Josh is already visualizing the panicked drive there :)

Below is me at 31 weeks,  looking a little pointy I think...