Well, I can’t hope to sit here long enough to give the full update the blog deserves, so I’ll just cover the highlights.
The last couple months of pregnancy were miserable. I couldn’t sit for more than 5 minutes comfortably, and at the end, I would have liked to live in my deep tub, where the bouancy of the water gave some relief from the discomfort and pressure.
Following the advice of the diabetes nutritionist piled on the pounds. I’ve always needed about half the calories of a normal person to maintain my weight, so that should have been no surprise. No one that hasn’t been here for the past 5+ years ever believes me, they think I am making excuses or something I suppose. My OB finally agreed that I should disregard her advice and stop deliberately trying to up my caloric intake with (healthy) fats and oils to counter my low-volume intake brought on by the lap band — but not until I actually topped over 300 pounds, a sight I had hoped to never see again.
I ran over term, and my OB scheduled me to induce labor. They attached monitors to me when I arrived at the hospital and discovered that I was in very early labor (couldn’t even feel the contractions yet), and that the baby was in a lot of distress. I was whisked off for an emergency c-section where they delivered her safely (the cord had been wrapped around her neck). Yes — her! It’s a girl!
She's here! All 6lb 5oz of her!
C-section recovery is going well. I’ve been suprising the docs and nurses with how well I’m bouncing back from the first day after surgery, so I guess I’m fortunate. I know my SiL was on pain pills after her C-Sections for weeks and took a couple of months to even feel normal — so I’ll say I’m *very* fortunate 😉
Baby L has no regular schedule yet, and sadly I can’t just fall back asleep after being awoken from a 2 hour nap like she can, so as you might imagine and is normal, I’m pretty much exhausted all the time so far.
the Kidlet welcomes Baby L to the world
In baby news — I had what I imagine will be the last ultrasound on Thursday (given that I’m due in 6 weeks!), and they STILL couldn’t give me better than 49% / 51% on gender. So while I’m the LAST person that would ever have chosen to keep it a suprise — mystery baby, here we come.
Given the upcoming birth, I took this weekend as a bit of a last hurrah for the kiddo and mommy, and we went out of town. He’s been wanting to go out to the beach for a while, and altho the weather was due to be uncooperative, I figured if I waited any longer, I’d be too worried about the baby coming early. The hubby really needed to stay home; his work major work project for the year (at least) is in full throttle, so it was just the kidlet and me.  We drove down to Newport (it’s not the closest coast town, but the one I know best) and luckily is stayed dry enough on Saturday that he was able to get lots of digging in the sand time.Â
We also went to the aquarium, as we hadn’t been for over a year.  We stayed the night at the Hallmark Inn (I love the chowder bread bowl from the restaurant attached to it!) and then the next day we drove to my mom’s (a little out of the way for the way home, but not too much) for Easter dinner.Â
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Portland’s first Saturday Farmer’s Market opened a couple weeks ago. The weather was due to be beautiful this weekend (well, beautiful if you’re an Oregonian living in perpetual chill and rain for months, and anything over 60 is shorts weather if the sun peeps out), and so we decided to head over to the PSU market and see what there was to see. We hadn’t taken the kidlet to one at all last year, so it was re-new to him, and a good excuse to get out, get some sun, and burn off some energy.
I wasn’t expecting to do much shopping for myself. There isn’t much in season right now in Oregon. The ground’s only been thawed a short time, and the torrential rains aren’t exactly crop-friendly. Even if we’d had a perfect late winter and early spring, you wouldn’t see much this early in April. There were (naturally) daffodils, but even the tulips weren’t popping up as you’d normally see right now.  So, as expected, there were a lot of booths with non-produce — locally produced honeys, meat products, dried flowers, starter plants for hopeful gardeners, things like that.Â
Still, there were a suprising number of booths with veggies. Though little of it is commercially grown, its the (super) short harvest season for the foragers – morels, fiddlehead ferns, stinging nettles and the like. None of which I have ever personally used, and I was tempted. I love trying new things! But I could see the faces of the kidlet and hubbie if I served them a plate of fiddleheads or unfamiliar greens. And morels? 11$+ for a bare handful, when the two of them refused to eat just plain ol regular sauteed crimini mushrooms not two days ago? Naaah, we’ll pass 😉
So we mostly let the kidlet lead the way, wandering around and seeing what caught his attention, occasionally steering him away from the center quad which was still a teeming mass of mud. He wanted to buy a bunch of daffodils (and in true Charlie Brown fashion, picked the most bedraggled bunch in the most bedraggled booth we’d seen all day), and accosted the balloon animal man for a light saber, but otherwise was content to roam around. He even passed by the booth with elaborate and delicious looking cupcakes without a single tug on my sleeve! 😉
Pet Peeve:Â People that put music players on thier blogs/sites.Â
Nothing like opening up a page to have your ears blasted by tunes – probably a genre to which you would never willingly listen.Â
Just say no.
Do you eat jicama? It’s that ugly, bulbous, brown “root vegetable” (it’s actually a legume).   They look a little like a squashed turnip in shape. A few years back, in my “try something new a week” phase, I picked up a jicama and ate it in a simple form — peeled, cut into sticks and dipped into a low calorie dressing along with my celery, cucumber and cherry tomatoes.  (Jicama is high in fiber and water (it’s 90% water) and low in calories. In fact, a cup of jicama contains only 45 calories, so it makes a good choice for someone watching thier calories and trying to stay full on less.)  And I really like it. It’s texture is similar to a raw potato, but the flavor is slightly sweet. Since then, I always include it on my vegetable trays, and from the number of “What’s this thing?” questions that I get, not very many people DO eat jicama. But they usually try it and then agree that its worth eating.
I’ve been looking to expand my culinary uses for jicama. With my low iron count at my last OB visit, I’ve been refreshing myself on eating to promote iron uptake, and was reminded that vitamin C is one of those things that helps the body absorb the iron provided by other foods. Orange juice isn’t a good idea right now with the glucose monitoring, so I’ve been looking to savory foods. A half cup of jicama pieces provides almost as much vitC as 3/4 C. orange juice — and a lot more fiber. (Non-green Bell Peppers and Broccoli are other good savory sources.)
I do like it as a dipper, or by itself in a little salad of matchstick pieces tossed with a little lemon or lime juice and some chile powder. But sometimes I get bored!
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Corn, Jicama and Pineapple Salsa
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1/2 medium jicama, peeled and diced (about 1 C.)
1/2 C. diced fresh pineapple
1/2 C. corn kernels
1 serrano chili or habanero chili, seeded and minced
2 T. chopped fresh cilantro
2 T. fresh lime juice
1 clove garlic, minced
Salt to taste, optional
Freshly ground black pepper to taste, optional
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Combine the jicama, pineapple, corn, serrano chili, cilantro, lime juice and garlic in a mixing bowl, season with salt and pepper if desired and toss. Cover and refrigerate for at least 1 hour to allow the flavors to blend.  Serve as a relish with salmon.
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Beef Tataki
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8 oz. rib-eye steak
2 small jicama, peeled and julienned
2 red onions, julienned
2 cucumber, peeled, seeded, and julienned
4 T. soy sauce
6 T. orange juice
4 T. hot pepper sauce
4 T. rice vinegar
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Sear the rib-eye steak to medium rare. In a small bowl, combine all of the remaining ingredients and mix well. Remove the meat from the pan, and let rest for 5 minutes. Slice the meat very thinly. To serve, plate the sliced steak and top with the salad mixture.
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Chinese Spinach Toss
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3 1/2 C. fresh bean sprouts
1/3 C. rice vinegar, or white wine vinegar
1/3 C. salad oil
1/3 C. honey
2 tsp. soy sauce
1 1/2 tsp. grated fresh ginger root
1 bunch spinach, washed and stems removed
1 C. diced jicama
1 C. crisp Chinese noodles
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Toss bean sprouts lightly with vinegar, oil, honey, soy sauce and fresh ginger. Chill at least 1 hour, tossing occasionally. Just before serving, add spinach and jicama. Toss gently to coat. Top each serving with Chinese noodles. For a main dish, add 12 oz. of cooked chicken, tuna or shrimp, cut into chunks.
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The kidlet lost his first official tooth already! (The one that got knocked out when he slipped and fell into a coffee table doesn’t count! ;))  He is only just barely five, and while that falls in the normal range for first tooths to go, its about a year ahead of the average. Being ahead of the curve isn’t something we’ve seen much of, given his first six months of neglect before he was taken in by DHS.
The top hole is the face smash into a coffee table hole — its the bottom one that is the new and “official” one! ;)Â
It had been loose for a few days. One night he went in his room with the tooth still there. He came out an hour later to report that his tooth was missing. I suppose it just finally slipped out and that he swallowed it because he had no idea where it went and said he didn’t pull it out. We had to write a note to the tooth fairy and explain what happened. He drew her a picture of the tooth so she couldn’t get confused. Of course, confusion might reign as his drawing would lead you to believe that the tooth was bigger than a peson and bright red!
I saw the OB on Thursday; everything is going well aside from the checking blood sugar bits. Honestly, my test results weren’t that bad. In a normal, non-pregnant person a doctor wouldn’t even require the daily testing. In fact, they are probably pretty much where they have always been at that “pre-diabetic” or insulin-resistant level. (And actually, Unlike other types of diabetes, gestational diabetes is not caused by a lack of insulin, but by blocking effects of other hormones (such as estrogen, cortisol and others) on the insulin that is produced, which is what insulin resistance actually is, so in a way, I’ve had “gestational” diabetes for at least the five or six years that we’ve been monitorring it). They set the bar lower (or higher I guess, depending on how you look at it) for pregnant women, to catch more potential diabetics. Also, pregnancy puts a lot of strain on the pancreas, and as it progresses, its quite common for blood sugar issues to get worse. Early monitoring can catch it before it gets to a dangerous level.
I understand that. Although gestational diabetes isn’t correlated with birth defects (unlike regular diabetes, where flucuating glucose levels in the first trimester can cause issues), it often results in overly large babies, which of course makes the birth more difficult and increases the risks of birth injuries. It can also result in the baby being born with low blood sugars requiring IV feedings of glucose immediately after birth, as well as potential respitory problems because too much insulin or too much glucose in a baby’s system may delay lung maturation (particularly a problem in premature babies of gestational diabetics).
Understanding the need doesn’t make it any easier though. I still cringe every time I have to pop the button on my lancer thingamajiggie.
I’m afraid that my food journal and blood test results are going to be unhelpful at the follow up class next Wednesday. I’ve had a cold since Thursday and my eating habits are abnormal.  I get hungry occasionally, but very little sounds good. All I really want is ginger ale – which I would be sipping all day long if I could. I’m certainly not eating 6 meals a day, each at least 2 hours apart without any carbs in between those meals (thanks to the gingerale). I’ve had only one reading in 12 that was really high (and not even high enough to be “quick call the doctor” high), and I’d been nursing my gingerale that entire two hours after the “meal”.Â
The OB did call a referral over to the diabetes education center for one on one nutritional counseling though. I put off calling yesterday because of my cold, but I’ll probably call Monday and see about scheduling it for later in the week.
I got a phone call Tuesday afternoon from a diabetes education center — apparently the results were back to my OB and he called over a refferal to them for me.  So altho I hadn’t received any results, the assumption is that I “failed” and came up with the diabetes.
Wednesday morning I went in for the first part of a 2 part class on gestational diabetes. We were given our specific test results, some general information on food and diabetes (not much new information for me) and all the equipment needed to check our blood sugar four (!) times a day. I have a few concerns about how they want me to eat — the amount of food is impossible for me, just impossible! The amount of carbs they want per meal (6 times a day, pretty much how I eat now, only a bit more regimented) is probably double or triple what I take in a day – discounting the carbs that I had been drinking in juice and sodas. The class was small and I was able to talk a little bit about how my lap-band will affect what she suggested, but I think I may need one on one adivce as well; I didn’t want to monopolize the class with issues that would only affect me. I go back in a week with my blood sugar and food logs; so I will see how it goes.
So four times a day I have to lance a finger, squeeze it and milk it like a cows udder to get a good drop of blood and test with the meter. I don’t see myself getting used to it anytime soon. It doesn’t really hurt – just a quick sting that is rapidly gone. It doesn’t even bleed much — I really have to work it to get enough for testing.  Even rationally recognizing this, I hate it. I have to really focus on not flinching away every time.
Something has been going on with my site. It keeps going down for short to long periods of time, but every time I talk to the hubby about it, things come up fine for him. He FINALLY was at his computer at the same time as I saw the problem so he knows I am not crazy (in this respect anyway! ;)). Since its an inconsistant problem, I’m not sure what (if anything) can be done, but we are aware.
Had the 3 hour glucose tolerance test yesterday. By the time it was over, I’d been fasting for 16 hours and was ravenous! I should find out the results at the next OB appointment (this Thursday), assuming they are available as quickly as the single test I did 2 weeks ago.Â
I’ve done a not such a great job with cutting back on simple sugars and carbs while waiting to find out. I’ve tried to figure out what I’m going to eat if it comes up positive, and I find that while I know a lot about nutrition, I’m already struggling to balance my physical ability to eat (lap band issues) with the caloric needs of pregnancy and my desire to maintain my weight instead of gaining. Getting *extra* calories to make sure I am getting enough for the growing thing inside me has meant drinking calories (like juice) or eating something squishy and soft (like yogurt) — a source of calories that is almost exclusively carbs, and simple and/or refined ones. Something that will process through my altered top tummy quickly.
There are few lean protein sources that I can eat in any quantity (2-3 ounces of any meat is about all I can take at once) and vegetables are just as difficult. Anything really solid or rough takes a ton of time and care to get down. I can’t take any more protein drinks. The last time I whipped one up I literally could not gag it down. Unless its more fruit/yogurt than protein powder in which case it seems like it’s little better than a glass of juice for controlling blood sugar.
Throw in the needs of a diabetic diet (and that’s not my strong suit, but seems like my “ideal” food plan works there ok) on top of what I am already balancing in my daily caloric intake and I feel a bit lost. If the results come back positive, I may ask for a referral to a nutritionist/dietician to get some advice. Sigh. My last encounter with one (aside from the lap band dietician who was advising me on a new way of eating to fit in with my post surgery needs) left me feeling like I could teach HER.
While doing some random browsing (probably looking for recipes ;)), I came across a really neat tip for peeling a kiwi. Personally, if I’m going to eat one I just slice it in half and scoop it out with a spoon.  But that’s no good for a frut salad, plus the kiddo has trouble with that and prefers them peeled and sliced.Â
There is a quick and simple way to peel kiwifruit with a teaspoon. This method works best with fruit that is ripe but not too soft. First, cut off both ends of a kiwi. Then slip a teaspoon just under the skin, matching the spoon’s curve to the curve of the fruit. Now slide the spoon around the kiwi to separate the fruit from the skin, being careful not to dig the spoon into the flesh. Once the spoon has been completely run around the fruit, it will easily slip out of the skin in one smooth piece!
It actually works better if you do that twice, going only about halfway down the kiwi on each side. There are pictures and even a video demonstration (although the kiwi trick comes after some other bits in the video) over on SteamyKitchen.Â
I’ve tried it several times this week as we got a got deal on some kiwi and the kidlet really likes it (possibly his favorite fruit after blueberries) and while mine didn’t come out quite as nicely as hers (I kept breaking the skin and had to move over a little to go again), it worked very well. It was much faster than peeling with a knife and resulted in a lot less flesh lost.