My new reality

Today is the first of my new routine of what I hope will be 7 weeks of resting until E3 is born.

I went to see the dietician this morning. We had a detailed chat about what I can eat to try and manage my gestational diabetes. The most crucial thing is to count carbs. I need to have 12 serves a day and they need to be spread over 6 meals.

She walked me though exactly what a 'serve' constitutes. I don't actually need to make many changes to my diet to get this right, and hopefully I can achieve the glucose targets without the help of insulin.

It was interesting to see where I had been overdoing it with the carbs though. My soup for lunch every day was fine but the toasted turkish bread I was having with it was deadly - 4 serves of carbs alone!

Also, what I thought was a really healthy breakfast of museli, cranberry juice and yogurt was actually constituting about 6 serves of carbs in one go.

Of course, none of these amounts would be a problem for a normal person, but they were wreaking havoc in my pregnant, insulin-compromised body.

Anyway, its not going to be too hard to set things right. It's incredibly regimented though. No more than 2.5-3 hours between meals and a blood glucose measure exactly 1 hour after every meal. I really do feel for people with Type 2 diabetes now that I know what they go through.

Tonight my Dad arrives to take care of me for a week. I realised when I was in hospital that it was much easier to stay still and lie down when someone else is doing everything for you. I just can't sit still very easily and can find a million little excuses to get up off the couch every 10 mins. So having someone do my running around will help. I hope it doesn't drive him crazy.

Dad is not the most domesticated person around - Mum does everything at home, but he can follow instructions well. I told him I will be giving him instructions on everything he needs to do and he seems fine with that. We will see.

I also realised that Lovely Hhusband and I weren't really coping with keeping our household functioning with me on bed rest. He is working ery long hours still, and has also been travelling interstate, so getting the washing done, buying food for me to eat, preparing my meals and just keeping things ticking over was just too much for him to cope with.

That's when I decided to call in the family to help. I did it on the encouragement of a friend, who knows how hard it can be to ask for help when you have been indepedent from your parents for so long.

I knew my mother wouldn't be able to help because she is still working almost full time, and needs the money that brings. But Dad is doing less and less work these days and he said he would be happy to help. Coincidentally, two of my sisters have holidays coming up and both have said they can come for a week to help out. And my youngest sister who is at university said she can also come for 5 days or so.

They all have to fly up from Melbourne, so its quite an inconvenience for them and I am very grateful they want to help. It really represents a huge change for me to be asking them for help. It also means I might be less hesitant to call on them when E3 comes along.

It won't be easy having a small baby for the first time with no family around at all, and limited friends to call on either. So if I start to struggle, I'll ask the family if they can come and help again.

E3 has now turned head down ready to be born but not sure just how far down the pelvis he is yet. My bump hasn't 'dropped' yet and is still sitting up high. He is making lots of good movements today and it was good to see he is still growing, but not turning into a big fat butterball baby as a result of the diabetes.