Weight Gain, Gestational Diabetes, Fear, & 16 Weeks (Sort Of)

There are a few thing on my mind today, and the thoughts may not flow smoothly.  So this may not be the most cohesive post I've ever pulled together.

I'll address the 16 week part first.  I missed my 16 week update last week.  Baby should be close to 5 inches long now and is supposed to hit a growth spurt in the next few weeks where he/she will double in length.  I wanted to take a "bump" picture, but with no air conditioning and a challenging week in other regards, it just didn't happen.  So that's on the agenda for 17 weeks instead.

I have an appointment Wednesday morning.  I've sort of managed to keep the anxiety away since the NT scan, but it's definitely coming back.

For starters, there is my bump - or lack thereof.  It's non-existant.  Some days I feel like I'm showing some.  But then the next day it's gone completely.  I swear that my stomach looks flatter today than it did 8 weeks ago.  And I'm still very very comfortably wearing pre-pregnancy pants.  My uterus should be about half way between my pubic bone and my belly button AND my muscles are supposed to be much more relaxed this time around since I've done this before.  Yet, my stomach is not growing.  At all.  With my son I didn't really show until well past 20 weeks, but that's common for first pregnancies.  I feel like for the size that my uterus should be and the size that this baby should be, that my pants should at least be tight.  I know that everything could be fine . . . but it makes me worry.

Then there is weigh gain.  I ended first trimester up about 3 pounds.  And now, over 4 weeks later, here I am . . . still only up by about 3 pounds.  I won't lie - I gained way too much weight with my son.  AND I'm starting this pregnancy overweight.  So a very slow and overall low weight gain for this pregnancy is healthy.  But no weight gain at all between 12 and 16 weeks also makes me nervous.

And THEN there is waiting another 4 weeks for an ultrasound.  Sigh.  On Wednesday they will check for a heartbeat, but that will only comfort me mildly.  What if the baby isn't growing appropriately?  We have no way of knowing that until our 20 week ultrasound.  (And then, after that NO more ultrasounds for the entire pregnancy?!?!?!?!?!?!)

Or God forbid . . . what if there is no heartbeat on Wednesday?  I am not prepared for that.  I just ordered some things for this baby last week.  I am ready to start buying things for a nursery.  I am not at all mentally prepared for this being over.  And I'm sort of upset that I feel like I've let my guard down.  :(

So what's this talk about gestational diabetes?  Sigh.  Well I'm being tested for that on Wednesday morning as well.  (And will be tested at least once again later.)  Normally, women are only tested once - sometime between 24 and 28 weeks.  Earlier testing is only recommended in cases with increased risk.  I did not have GD with my son.  I do not have a family history of either diabetes or GD.  And while I am overweight, my BMI is not at the level where my risk for GD would be increased.  So why the early testing?  Because my son was  a few ounces shy of 10 pounds at birth, and I had severe blood sugar issues in my pregnancy with him.  Don't quote me on these exact numbers (it's been a while), but when you take the glucose tolerance test - you drink a super sugary drink, wait 1 hour, then they test your blood sugar.  Anything between 90ish - 130ish is considered normal.  Anything over 130 could indicate diabetes (at which point they do a longer and more intense test involving fasting and blood checks over the course of 3 hours).  Anything under 70ish is considered hypoglycemia and many people start feeling a bit sick (light headed, dizzy, etc) at this point.  At levels below 50, blood sugar is dangerously low and people lose consciousness shortly after dropping below 50.

My OB who I used for my pregnancy with my son had delivered over 5,000 babies in the course of 20 years of practice.  When she gave me the results of my glucose tolerance test with my son she told me I was the lowest result she had EVER seen.  54.  Yep.  One hour after drinking sugar water, I had so little sugar in my body that I was close to losing consciousness.  In some ways this was relieving news - because no one knew why I had been having episodes of coming very close to passing out (they had tested me for anemia and found nothing, and were chalking it up to overall low blood pressure).  So at least we had some answers.  But on the other had, this was pretty scary.  My pancreas, instead of not producing enough insulin like it would in the case of diabetes, was producing enough insulin to eradicate all the sugar in my body.  And while GD is much more dangerous for mom and baby, extreme hypoglycemia has it's own risks and indicated a severe problem with how my pancreas was tolerating pregnancy.

After consulting with an endocrinologist and a nutritionist, the treatment for my problem ended up being a diet identical to a diabetic diet.  If my body was over-reacting to sugar, I needed to not eat it.  So for the last 12 weeks of pregnancy, I managed my hypoglycemia this way.  Some days were better than others.  I always felt terrible right after eating, and many times had to sit down and put my head between my legs, but never passed out.  And as soon as pregnancy was over, it went away.

So now, here we are, and because my son was so large (a side effect of GD) and because we know my pancreas was crazy last time, I'll be tested for GD this week.  I'm also already starting to notice that I feel like complete crap shortly after I eat.  So I'm thinking about getting a home glucose meter regardless of the outcome of Wednesday's test.  They aren't that expensive, and if I'm going to have sugar issues (one way or the other), I'd like to know when it's happening and try to make correlations for myself to which foods make it worse.  I'm already realizing that sugar is making things worse, so it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest to find out that I either have GD or hypoglycemia again.  FUN TIMES!

I think that's all of my rambling for now.  I need to try to stay calm between now and Wednesday.  I'll have a lot more information then . . .