Pregnancy Update: 30 weeks

Happy Friday! I'm closing out another year of blog posts with a pregnancy update!

Baby size:The baby is almost 16" long and weights about 3 pounds, making him/her about the size of a head of cabbage. It's kind of crazy to think that I have a 16" baby in my stomach because my bump doesn't seem all that big! But I guess the baby is scrunched up in there!

28 weeks

29 weeks

30 weeks

Symptoms/RA management: My RA remains pretty active and I got my 9th steroid injection of this pregnancy the week before Christmas. However, since then I have gotten a break from RA flares - possibly because my body is focusing on fighting a bad chest cold that I got over Christmas! Other than feeling tired and having to go to the bathroom often, I don't have any other complaints (no heartburn luckily!).

I also was diagnosed with gestational diabetes (GD) in the last month which has resulted in quite a change in how I eat. I've always been a low-carb eater due to being GF, but now I have to eat way more protein and fat than I was before. The first couple of days were pretty rough but now that I have adjusted it's not too bad. I've learned that I need to eat way fewer carbs than the GD diet prescribes. I will say that I am very glad that Christmas is over because all the sweets pushing I experienced (ice cream, gelato, etc) drove me a little crazy. I'm glad we won't be eating at others' houses much for the rest of the pregnancy as it's easiest for me to follow the diet when I'm on my home turf.

Recent/upcoming appointments: We had our 30 week OB appointment yesterday and I had Phil come with me so that he could be there for the explanation of how my GD diagnosis will change the way my pregnancy will be managed. I'm measuring 2 weeks behind but that's fine as you can measure +/-2 weeks with no concern from the doctor. The best part of every appointment is hearing the heartbeat, which was 150 bpm.

Then in the afternoon I met with the endocrinologist. She decided not to put me on insulin yet because my blood sugars have mostly been in a healthy range. I've had some high reading the last couple of days but she thinks it's due to the stress my body is under from the bad chest cold I have. I'm really hoping to not have to go on insulin as it would really change the way my pregnancy is managed. I would have to see my OB twice a week and would have a lot of extra monitoring which just sounds stressful. Fingers crossed I can continue to manage it with my diet. It's not easy but I keep telling myself it's only for ~10 more weeks.

Sleep: Sleep is tough, especially this past week with the all the coughing I am doing. Plus I get up to go to the bathroom about every 2 hours so I can't say I feel all that 'rested'. Weekend naps are my saving grace.

Cravings and favorite foods:Well GD has really thrown a wrench in my ability to give into any cravings. I was sad to have to give up eating dried mango (which is basically straight sugar) as that was my favorite afternoon snack. Womp womp. Since dairy is a good source of protein/fat, I'm eating lots of cheese, yogurt, and cottage cheese. I don't know how a person could have GD and be lactose intolerant or a vegan...  it would be so hard to find enough sources of protein/fat!

Recent baby prep/decisions/purchases: I went shopping for a glider with my MIL in mid-December and we ordered one. It will arrive in early February. It's sooo comfortable so I can't wait to have it in our house. Besides that, Phil assembled the changing table we purchased around Thanksgiving and we shifted things around in the guest room to make room for it. I'm really happy with the changing table. It was fun to fill the top drawer with cloth diapers!

Ignore all the stuff piled on the guest bed - this room is in a state of transition so not very tidy!

Classes: We were planning to do Bradley birth method classes, but they got cancelled due to low registration so instead we signed up for some lamaze-based classes which start next week. We also did a hospital tour in early-December which made things feel a bit more real!  We also registered for a breast feeding class at the hospital in January. That's all the classes we plan to do so hopefully we feel ready for childbirth by the end of January when the birth classes end!

Mood:  My mood has been so so. The GD diagnosis was pretty hard on me. The pregnancy has been pretty tough as is with all the RA flares I've had so it was tough to get another diagnosis that puts me in the 'high risk pregnancy' category. But after following the diet for a week and mostly having great blood sugars, I am feeling better about the diagnosis. I'm just really ready for the pregnancy to be over with as I think I will much prefer caring for a newborn (which means being sleep-deprived) than dealing with being pregnant with a chronic illness (RA) and managing GD. I will definitely be ordering a chocolate milk shake or something indulgent like that in the hospital after the baby is born!

Year in Review: My 2017 Goals

It's time for another "year in review" post. Today I am taking an account of how well I did on my 2017 goals. In 2017, I set fewer goals since I knew that wedding planning was going to really take up a lot of time in the first half of the year. It turned out setting fewer goals was a really good plan since we found out we were pregnant in July which rocked our world in the best way possible.

Here's how I did with my 2017 goals!

1. Plan a wedding and try not to lose ourselves in the process.  SUCCESS!  I think we I did a really good job at planning our wedding. It was a lot of work but it was so worth it in the end. I wouldn't change a thing about the day. And in general, I kept my cool for the most part - until the RSVP deadline rolled around. Then Lisa Dotzenrage made an appearance. Seriously, some people's inability to return a self-address, stamped envelope just amazes me. But aside from frustrations over that aspect of wedding planning, I think I stayed pretty calm and was referred to as "bridechilla" on our wedding day. I will say that I am glad that I will NEVER plan another wedding again because it is so expensive and so much work. I do not miss it one bit and enjoy being married 1,000 x's more than planning a wedding.

2. Read 52 books, including 6 physical books I already own.  SUCCESS! As of today, I've read 83 books, and I will probably finish one more before the end of the year. I'm really happy with the number of books I read this year. Not doing a read harder challenge was the best thing because it let me read what I "wanted" to read versus what I felt like I "should" be reading. In the past I've challenged myself to read 12 books I own but this year I took it down to 6. I'm glad I did that as I've started to donate more and more of my unread books. There were some books on my shelves that interested me years ago but don't any longer so I've decided to let go of those books and sell them at Half Priced Books or donate them to the library.

3. One shouldless day/month.  10/12 = partial success. I came pretty close to having a shouldless day each month. I missed the months of May and October. But I took vacations both of those months, including a super relaxing 9 day trip to Maui, so I could cheat and consider those vacations as shouldless days. If I didn't set this goal, though, I would have had far fewer relaxing days in 2017 as it's so easy to fill up my calendar. I know that shouldless days will become a thing of the past once Baby S. arrives but I'm glad I've spent the last 2 years focusing on relaxing one day each month! 

Monthly Goals:  The Happiness Project - FAIL

So I meant to set a monthly intention based on the book The Happiness Project  - but I fell off the wagon back in May and never got back on.  Whoopsies. This taught me that monthly goals/intentions just don't work for me. Lesson learned! 

***

Goal setting in 2018 is going to look a whole lot different. Meaning, it's not going to happen. I just feel that having a baby and figuring out how to balance being a mom + working full time + everything else is going to be challenging enough. I'll set a reading goal on Goodreads but I am not going to put pressure on myself to read the 52+ books that I typically read in a year. 

It's kind of weird to go into a new year with no goals but I think this is the year to give myself grace and to allow life to unfold as it will. Maybe I will run a 10 mile race or a half marathon in the fall or read 50+ books. But I just don't want to add any unnecessary pressure because, as a perfectionist, I already put far too much pressure on myself! 

Did you set goals in 2017? If so, how did you do? Will you be setting goals for 2018? If you typically set goals, have you ever taken a year off from setting them?

Year in Review: Best Books of 2017

For those who celebrate, I hope you had a great Christmas holiday! Since we are in the final week of the year (how!!), it's time to post a couple of 'year in review' posts.

One of my favorite parts about this time of year is all the'best of' lists that get released - especially best books lists! It's fun to look through them and see where I agree and disagree. So to kick off my 'year in review' posts, here are the 10 best books I've read (out of the 80+ I've read so far this year!). 

1. When Breath Becomes Air (Best 2017 Read): This is a memoir written by a neurosurgeon who is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. This book is sad and heavy but it's so beautifully written. Warning: do not read the afterward by Paul's wife in public - unless you are comfortable ugly crying in front of others. I think this book should be read by all medical residents as he talks about how much he learned about patient care when he went from being the doctor to being the patient. This was the best non-fiction book I read in 2017.

2. Her Every Fear: This is as page-turner thriller that I had the hardest time putting down. It is very creepy as the story line deals with a stalker, so if that freaks you out don't read this book! This is the second book I've read by this author and both were excellent 5-star reads! I've recommended this to several people and everyone loved it!

3. Homegoing: This is a multi-generational story that starts in the 1700s in Africa with 2 sisters. One is sold into slavery in the US; the other is married to a white British man involved in the slave trade industry. Each chapter follows the next generation of each sister. The book does an excellent job of showing how slavery impacts every generation over the course of nearly 300 years. I recommend reading a hard copy of this book as you'll want to reference the family tree at the front of the book so you can keep the characters straight. This author was in her 20s when she wrote this book. 

4. The Mothers: We meet several characters in this novel. The story is about two friends, Nadia and Aubrey, and a boy they both develop feelings for. There are several narrators but one of the narrators is a chorus of church ladies ("the mothers") who have opinions about everyone and everything and gossip as if their lives depended on it. The writing was so beautiful but it wasn't beautiful for the sake of being beautiful, as is often the case with literary fiction. Instead the writing advanced the story and helped the reader gain a better understanding of the characters and the complexity of the issues they faced. The author of this book is also very young - she wrote it when she was 25.

5. Behold the Dreamers: This was a heart-breaking, fictional account of a family that comes to America from Cameroon hoping to build a life. They could not afford to pay for immigration lawyers and such, so the husband comes as a visitor, extends his stay, seeks asylum and eventually brings his wife and son over. It is fiction but the author is from the same town in Cameroon that the characters in the story are from, and she, too, immigrated to the US. So it has an authentic feel given the author's first hand experiences. 

6. We Were the Lucky Ones:  This was a late addition to my best-of list as I just finished it mid-month. It's a WWII novel about a Jewish family living in Poland at the start of the war. The parents and siblings all experience different tragedies so it is a heavy read, but it was so well-written. It's especially moving since it's based on the story of the author's family. It's a powerful book and it will upset you to read about the capacity man has to be cruel to others. 

7. Expecting Better: This is a unique pregnancy book as it is written by an economist and mother of 2. When she was pregnant with her first child, she became frustrated when her midwife wasn't able to explain the risk behind the things they were telling her not to do, from not drinking any alcohol, to not eating sushi, to not eating sandwich meat. So she looks at many research studies behind many of the decisions a woman needs to make in pregnancy and makes a decision for herself based on what the data says. Will I make all the same decisions as her? No. But it was interesting to read a book that took an evidenced-based approach to pregnancy recommendations.

8. Bear Town: This is such a timely read as it addresses the topic of sexual assault. The story is set in a hockey-obsessed town in Sweden. The hockey players are basically gods in this town (I could so relate to this since I grew up in a small town where high school jocks could do no wrong). But something happens at a team party that shakes this community to its core. I couldn't care less about hockey and I still loved this book so don't let the hockey theme prevent you from reading it. 

9. This Is How It Always Is:  This is a beautifully written book about a couple that is raising a transgendered child. The title of the book alludes to this quote about making decisions as a parent: 

 '...You never know. You only guess. This is how it always is. You have to make these huge decisions on behalf of your kid, this tiny human whose fate and future is entirely in your hands, who trusts you to know what's good and right and then to be able to make it happen. You never have enough information. You don't get to see the future. And if you screw up, if with your incomplete, contradictory information you make the wrong call, well, nothing less than your child's entire future and happiness is at stake. It's heartbreaking. It's maddening. But there's no alternative.'  

10. Little Fires Everywhere:  I was worried that Celeste Ng's sophomore novel would be a disappointment since I loved her debut novel, "Everything I Never Told You." But she hit it out of the park again. This this novel she tackles topics such as families living in different socioeconomic conditions and interracial adoption.  It would be a great book club book! 

What were your best reads of 2017?

Christmas: Yes and No

After yesterday's downer post, I'm switching gears to something a little bit more fun - another 'yes and no' post - this time about the holidays!

Around Christmas time, this is what we say yes and no to!

We say yes to:

- sending out Christmas cards. However, since we send 100 cards (which I will need to increase next year as more of Phil's extended family is sending us cards so we need to reciprocate in the future), I go with the cheapest option because I know it's going to end up in the garbage. I love seeing the other fancy tinyprints cards but I could not stomach the cost associated with the nicer styles of cards given the volume we order! We are just too cheap!  I also say yes to using address labels that I print off my computer instead of hand addressing the cards. My handwriting is dreadful!

- an artificial tree. I love the idea of a real tree, but again, we are cheap frugal people and it's more economical to have an artificial tree. It would be nice to have that fresh tree smell in the house but it's also nice to not have to hassle with going somewhere to buy the tree each year!

- being flexible about how we spend time with our families at Christmas. Some years we are able to see one side on Christmas Eve and the other on Christmas Day, like we did last year, but that won't work this year since all the traveling would just exhaust me. So instead we will spend Christmas Eve/Day with Phil's mom and then we'll spend NYE weekend with my parents. Yes, it's super hard to not be there for my family's Christmas celebration, but it will be nice to have 2 solid days with each side of our family instead of rushing from one celebration to another. I'm grateful that my parents are so understanding. We've probably spent more time around Christmas with Phil's mom than with my family over the last several years because if we aren't with Phil's mom then she is alone (she's a widow). But my parents are very understanding and never make me feel bad for how we split our time.

We say no to:

- exchanging gifts as a couple. Instead we make a special meal together. Usually we bake a GF treat after dinner but that won't be happening this year since sweets are off limits with my GD diagnosis. In general, we say no to gift exchanges as much as we can. I don't exchange gifts with my siblings and my siblings pool the money we would have spent on my parents' gift to sponsor a family. Gifts are dead last in my list of love languages and I just don't feel like we 'need' them in order to celebrate Christmas. Obviously once we have a child, this will change, but I want to keep the gifts from getting out of hand!

- outside decorations. This kind of bums me out as my parents had such beautiful outdoor lights on our house when I was growing up and they continue to put lights up at the cabin. But we don't have a tall enough ladder to put lights on our roofline and Phil has zero interest in putting up lights. In the future I would like to get a festive wreath for our door but that just didn't happen this year.

- giving toys to my Godson. Instead I only give books and money for his college account. I know this does not make me the most fun and exciting aunt, but now that my nephew is old enough (13) to understand what he's seeing when I give him a statement for his savings account each Christmas and birthday, I'm gaining popularity! I just feel like kids get soooo many toys. I also use this same approach for all of my nieces and nephews birthdays. After all, I am the aunt that works in financial services so this isn't too surprising. And my siblings have told me that they really appreciate the fact that I don't add to the toy clutter in their homes!

What do you say yes and no to during the holiday season?  For those who celebrate Christmas, I wish you and yours a very merry Christmas! 

Gestational Diabetes: Dealing with Another Diagnosis

As I mentioned in my TGIF post from last week, I failed my glucose test (a test where they make you drink a super sugary drink and then test your blood sugar after an hour). After-the-fact, I learned that prednisone, which I take to keep my flares bearable, raises your blood sugar so I basically had no chance of passing. I decided to skip the 3 hour test because I would have had to go off prednisone for a week and that is just not possible with how bad my RA has been. Instead, I just had them give me a referral to an endocrinologist. Who knows if I technically have gestational diabetes or whether my sugars are artificially high due to the prednisone use. Either way, high blood sugar isn't good for me or the baby so getting them under control is important.

I met with a registered dietitian at the endocrinologist office on Tuesday morning and learned all about the diet. I have to say it was pretty overwhelming.

One of the pages of the meal planning book which helps you count your carbs

The biggest surprise to me was HOW MANY carbs they want you to eat each day. In my mind, I was thinking I'd be eating less carbs, not more. But perhaps I am the outlier in my carb consumption compared to the average person. With my gluten intolerance and dietary habits, I just don't eat a lot of carbs. Yes, I have fruit which is a carb but besides that, I'm not eating a lot of bread, potatoes, rice, etc. So I'm kind of confused about how this diet is going to help me when it would result in me eating MORE carbs. For instance, at lunch and dinner I am supposed to be eating 3-4 carbs at each meal. I usually eat maybe 1-2 carbs or sometimes no carbs at all, besides the trace amounts that are in vegetables that I put on my salad. I honestly don't even know how I would physically eat as much as they are prescribing as it just seems like soooo much food (you are supposed to eat 3 meals a day and 3 small snacks a day). So I am just going to eat what I can and hope that it all works out. I am sure that eating more protein and fats will help as those help your body break down carbohydrates (you eat a fat and/or protein with every snack and meal which is a big change for me as well).

In addition to following the diet, I also need to test my urine every morning and test my blood sugar 4 times a time: when I wake up before eating anything and an hour after breakfast, lunch and dinner. So far, my blood sugar results haven't been great as about 3/4 of the time it's too high, even though I'm eating exactly what I'm supposed to eat.

All this has left me feeling pretty defeated. I feel like a failure for not being able to get my blood sugars in a healthy range but then I also feel like maybe it's completely out of my control due to the prednisone use. Whatever the cause, there have been a lot of tears since Tuesday morning. I meet with the endocrinologist next Thursday to review my blood sugars and then we will go from there. I am just really worried that I am going to have to go on insulin. I HATE the thought of having to put something else in my body on top of all the drugs I am taking for my RA.  :(  But if that is what it takes to keep my blood sugar under control, then so be it.

So right now I have quite the case of the sads. Phil has reminded me that we are lucky to have a healthy baby that is developing on track (as far as we know) - and for that I am grateful. But having gestational diabetes introduces all these other risks like the respiratory system not developing properly. And even though I know this is completely out of my control, I still feel responsible. I already feel bad about exposing the baby to steroids, which also carry risks, and now there's another batch of risks that are being introduced. Plus moms with gestational diabetes have an increased risk of developing Type 2 diabetes later in life, which would really suck.

With time, I am sure I will get the hang of this. And one upside is that I'll have more ultrasounds to track the baby's growth so we'll get to see Baby S. more than we would have otherwise. But right now I'm just sort of having a down week. Which is ok and to be expected. Hopefully the excitement of Christmas will give me a bit of a pick-me-up. For now I'm giving myself permission to feel a little bit blue and frustrated.

This should go without saying, but I feel like I need to emphasize that we are SO VERY GRATEFUL to be pregnant. But you can be grateful to be pregnant and also dislike being pregnant at the same time.

And that's my real talk for today.

Shouldless Days of '17: December

I had my last shouldless day of the year on Sunday. It's a good thing I had set aside Sunday as a shouldless day because even if I had committed to doing things outside the house, I wouldn't have been able to thanks to another flare that was pretty brutal. Here's how I spent my day, which was probably the laziest of all the shouldless days this year!

I didn't sleep much during the night on Saturday night as the pain from the flare in my wrist was pretty bad. I went through 3 ice packs during the night as ice is the only thing that takes away the throbbing pain. But it's really hard to sleep when you have something freezing cold on your wrist. I moved down to the couch at 7 am and ended up falling asleep until 9:30 which felt good as I really needed the rest!

When I woke up, I had a breakfast of oatmeal with raisins and some hot cocoa with marshmallows. I know that hot cocoa and sugary treats like that will be a thing of the past as of today when I go on the gestational diabetes diet so I figured I had earned one last treat. And yes, I used Phil's mug for my hot cocoa as I had used the "Mrs." mug the day before and this set of mugs is the best for things like hot cocoa!

Phil and I watched Face the Nation and then he headed out to his mom's for the day.

The rest of the day was the definition of laziness. I pretty much spent the whole day on the couch. I spent a good chunk of time reading, "We Were the Lucky One." I finished it by the end of the day. It was a really wonderful book albeit so heartbreaking to hear about the cruelty of WWII, especially the cruelty inflicted upon the Polish people.

At noon, I turned on the Vikings game. Apparently Oscar is a fan as well as she "watched" the game, too. We both fell asleep during the 2nd half. The Vikings dominated the game, which was exciting but didn't make for the most interesting game to watch.

In the late afternoon, I watched one of my favorite Christmas movies, "The Holiday." That movie is so delightful. Oscar was an attentive nurse kitty as she spent most of the afternoon/evening curled up on my lap.

Phil got home around 7:30 and we caught up on our days before I headed to bed at an early hour.

This is such a busy time of year but I am glad that I was able to make time for a shouldless day because whether or not I had scheduled it, it was definitely what my body needed.

Since we are expecting in March, I won't set a goal of having a shouldless day/month. But it's been great having this as a goal the last 2 years! If you haven't made a goal like this for yourself before, I highly encourage it, especially if you are an over-scheduler like me, as it's a great form of self-care!

TGIF!

Oh man I am so happy that it's Friday today. This has felt like the longest week for some reason!

The high of my week was getting together with 2 friends during the week. One was the friend that sang at our wedding. I hadn't seen her since the wedding, which is crazy. She is so excited that I am pregnant as she knows how much I have wanted to be a mom so there was a lot of pregnancy and baby talk! I also got together with another friend the following night for a happy hour. It was great to catch up with her as I hadn't really sat down and talked with her since early October!

The low of my week was my glucose screen yesterday. I failed the test big time and was scheduled to come in for the 3 hour test on Monday. Then my genius sister alerted me to the fact that I failed because I am on prednisone which increases your blood sugars. When I called my OB office to mention this, the nurse told me to go off prednisone for a week - which is just not possible with my frequent flares (I had 2 more this week). So after calls to my rheumatologist and a call to a friend that is an OB, I learned that I never should have taken the glucose screen in the first place and should have just been referred to an endocrinologist. I'm just so fed up with all these doctor appointments and trying to coordinate my care between specialists. I love my OB so I am telling myself that human error is the reason she didn't think to have me skip the glucose screen due to my prednisone use. But seriously - March 7th (baby's due date) can't come soon enough. I'm soooo over having RA while being pregnant and all the complications that have resulted.

Recipes I made were *crickets.*  I did not cook this week as I had a lot of leftover lasagna from the cookie decorating party I hosted on Sunday. But tonight I am going to make this salsa verde chicken bake which sounds really good! I'll serve it with some rice.

The best money I spent was on these probiotics that a friend recommended. Pregnancy really messes with the digestive system so I am hoping that these help in that department (sorry, probably TMI!).

My plans this weekend include making dinner tonight and then playing cards with another couple. Tomorrow I am going to a cloth diaper 101 class, church, and then we'll play games with another couple after dinner. We are clearly all about cards and games with other couples! Sunday is going to be a much-needed shouldless day!! If my flare in my hand clears up, I am planning to finish a blanket I've been working on for quite awhile while watching some Christmas movies!

What was the high of your week? What was the best money you spent this week?