Gestational Diabetes?

It has been an insane week in the Blanchard house. The arrival of Hurricane Sandy was overshadowed by Jonas coming down with a case of the stomach flu that, despite our best efforts, got passed around to all three of us. Between the flu, the storm, work and doctor's appointments, I haven't been on-line very much. The worst seems to be behind us now.

I'm taking a another day off work to let my stomach finish settling and to try to get some much-missed sleep. I was awakened throughout the night with a nightmare about somebody kidnapping BGB, so I thought I'd update my blog instead of going back to the restless search for her in dreamland.

At our appointment with our local OB this week, we found out that we failed out Glucose Tolerance Test. It's a test for gestational diabetes, something that's fairly common with us "Advanced Maternal Age" mothers. We had to go back to the lab yesterday to do an extended test to confirm the results of the first one. (Taking a 9 year old with ADHD to a test that takes two hours is a blog entry unto itself.)

There are a bunch of risks with gestational diabetes, including post-pregnancy type two diabetes for me, juvenile diabetes for BGB, and a high birth weight for BGB, which can cause it's own complications. (No signs of that yet. So far BGB is at exactly the 50th percentile in terms of her growth.)  Regardless of yesterday's test results, there is diabetes in my family so it's something that we're mindful of.

This isn't the end of the world news. I may have to start taking insulin, but for the time being, it simply means that I need to cut out refined sugars, add more whole foods, and get  more exercise. All things I should be doing anyway. I've been doing pretty well in terms of my diet. Lots of fresh fruits, veggies and whole grains, not very many sweets, and even the poutine chapter of this pregnancy is behind us.

Exercise is a different story. I've been so slack. I'm wiped by the end of the work day and exercising seems counter-intuitive. We need to kick up our walking and get back to going on family hikes at least weekly. Even if this doesn't turn out to be gestational diabetes, it is an important part of the healthy lifestyle we want for our family. Now that that stomach flu seems to be on it's way out of the house, getting outside and getting the heart rate up is going to be priority number one.

Cheers!