I Dream of French Fries
When I was 28 weeks pregnant with Bug, my doctors told me that I would have to take a 3 hour glucose tolerance test to determine whether I had gestational diabetes. If you do have GD and it goes untreated, your chances of having a larger baby who may have her own issues with blood sugar increase. Before the test, I had to carbo load for the 3 days beforehand then go in first thing in the morning for blood tests. They take a vial of blood to test your fasting glucose level. Then they hand you Glucola. Mmmm yummy. Or not. "Lime or orange" they ask. Does it really matter? No. It's 100 gram glucose solution. It's like drinking 2 really unpleasant lemon lime sodas for breakfast as breakfast with no chaser. Delish. Then you wait. For an hour, when you get the fun and frivolity of another blood draw. Repeat. And repeat. And then, if you are me, you go directly to Taco Bell before running back to work.
This would be bad enough for a regular person, but just imagine how fun it is when you are 6 months pregnant, when the smell of fries or bacon or even apple cinnamon oatmeal can drive you to madness and it's 11:30 am and all you have ingested is Glucola and water. Heck, by that time ever day, I would have eaten at least twice. And it's god awful boring since you can't really do anything during those 1 hour periods but sit and read. Since exercise burns glucose, you can't even take a walk.
So the day after I take the test, the phone rang at work. "Jen, we are sorry to tell you that you have gestational diabetes." "What does that mean," I ask. "Well, you have to change your diet completely, cutting out all of the fun things you actually want to eat and you have to exercise every day and you have to see a nutritionist" she says. Or something like that. Great, that's just what a pregnant lady wants to hear. Funny, though, they didn't really tell me precisely how I was supposed to eat. That happened when I met with a nutritionist the following week.
Until then, I thought it meant that I would just have to cut out sweets. Ok, I could do that for 12 weeks in order to make sure Bug was going to be healthy. Not a problem. I'll just switch from pink and white circus animal cookies and ice cream to Pringles. No worries. But no. There's so much more. It meant counting every carb that went in my mouth. It meant eating 6 times a day every day. It meant being particular about the time of day I got to eat certain food. No dairy or fruit at breakfast. No cereal. Must have protein and carbs for each meal. Must test my blood 4 times a day. Essentially, it led to one heck of a rut. A typical day would be an English muffin with peanut butter (the healthy, no sugar kind) and water for breakfast. Peanut butter without a glass of milk is not so fun. Yogurt, string cheese, and half of a piece of fruit 2-3 hours later. For purposes, of GD, cheese is protein, not dairy. And beans are carbs. Lunch involved protein, carbs (30 grams), and vegetable. Depending on what is out there, 30 grams of carbs could be a single slice of bread or a dozen crackers. Then in the afternoon, another snack. Then dinner where I got 45 grams of carbs (try 2/3 cup brown rice) with my protein and veggies. And finally, another snack. It was exhausting. It was also like being on the South Beach Diet. If I was a good girl and my glucose level after a meal was nice low number, I could have a treat -- 1 piece of Dove dark chocolate (about the size of a nickel = 5 grams of carbs).
But I did it. But that doesn't mean that I didn't dream of French fries. A lot. I mean, they had already taken away cocktails, sushi, and stinky cheese just because I was pregnant and now the fries and the shake that should accompany my cheeseburger. It was tragic.
Sometime during my pregnancy, we learned that there was a new Barney's near our house. Woohoo. So we went. Often. And there I was removing half the bun from my burger, replacing the milkshake with water, and having some fries. Like four. Then I would write it all down so the nutritionist could see precisely what I ate. What a pain. I made a spreadsheet and just block copied the entries the repeated themselves. Suffice it to say, I had so much yogurt during that time that I may never eat it again.
I counted the days until my due date of April 7. I made lists of all the things I would eat after I had Bug because generally GD goes away after you have the baby. Mmmm fries. And ice cream. And Oreo cookies. And cocktails. And pizza. And extra dark chocolate truffles from the Godiva store. I told myself the first week would be a freebie and then I would resume my new, healthy eating habits. Ha.
About two weeks before my due date, I went for my weekly checkup and the doctor said I had made no progress toward labor and to come back in a week. Ok. The following night, G, my brother, and I went to Barney's because I decided I was entitled to at least a fry or two. Our waitress, after noticing my ginormous belly, tells me that she works as a doula in Marin and starts giving me advice on things I should do and tea I should drink for the next few weeks to make labor easier. Gee, thanks, I think. In any event, I order my dinner, decide I'll remove even more of my burger bun than usual and counted out ten piping hot fries. Ten is a big deal when you usually only get four. So yummy.
Seven hours later, I was in labor. My brother is totally convinced that the fries were what did it. Perhaps Bug realized just how much her mama needed fries and decided that she would help me out. Or perhaps there is magic in the fries. I don't care. I think they might only work for me and I will leave my brother to his delusions. The good news about Bug arriving when she did (other than moving up my chances for snacks by eleven days since the doctors would not have let me go late) was that my brother was in town and able to meet her the day she was born. She might not have cared all that much, but I know he did.
Bug is now five months old and I'm still waiting for those healthy habits to kick in. But they can wait until after tomorrow since I'll be going to the Godiva store, thank you very much.
This would be bad enough for a regular person, but just imagine how fun it is when you are 6 months pregnant, when the smell of fries or bacon or even apple cinnamon oatmeal can drive you to madness and it's 11:30 am and all you have ingested is Glucola and water. Heck, by that time ever day, I would have eaten at least twice. And it's god awful boring since you can't really do anything during those 1 hour periods but sit and read. Since exercise burns glucose, you can't even take a walk.
So the day after I take the test, the phone rang at work. "Jen, we are sorry to tell you that you have gestational diabetes." "What does that mean," I ask. "Well, you have to change your diet completely, cutting out all of the fun things you actually want to eat and you have to exercise every day and you have to see a nutritionist" she says. Or something like that. Great, that's just what a pregnant lady wants to hear. Funny, though, they didn't really tell me precisely how I was supposed to eat. That happened when I met with a nutritionist the following week.
Until then, I thought it meant that I would just have to cut out sweets. Ok, I could do that for 12 weeks in order to make sure Bug was going to be healthy. Not a problem. I'll just switch from pink and white circus animal cookies and ice cream to Pringles. No worries. But no. There's so much more. It meant counting every carb that went in my mouth. It meant eating 6 times a day every day. It meant being particular about the time of day I got to eat certain food. No dairy or fruit at breakfast. No cereal. Must have protein and carbs for each meal. Must test my blood 4 times a day. Essentially, it led to one heck of a rut. A typical day would be an English muffin with peanut butter (the healthy, no sugar kind) and water for breakfast. Peanut butter without a glass of milk is not so fun. Yogurt, string cheese, and half of a piece of fruit 2-3 hours later. For purposes, of GD, cheese is protein, not dairy. And beans are carbs. Lunch involved protein, carbs (30 grams), and vegetable. Depending on what is out there, 30 grams of carbs could be a single slice of bread or a dozen crackers. Then in the afternoon, another snack. Then dinner where I got 45 grams of carbs (try 2/3 cup brown rice) with my protein and veggies. And finally, another snack. It was exhausting. It was also like being on the South Beach Diet. If I was a good girl and my glucose level after a meal was nice low number, I could have a treat -- 1 piece of Dove dark chocolate (about the size of a nickel = 5 grams of carbs).
But I did it. But that doesn't mean that I didn't dream of French fries. A lot. I mean, they had already taken away cocktails, sushi, and stinky cheese just because I was pregnant and now the fries and the shake that should accompany my cheeseburger. It was tragic.
Sometime during my pregnancy, we learned that there was a new Barney's near our house. Woohoo. So we went. Often. And there I was removing half the bun from my burger, replacing the milkshake with water, and having some fries. Like four. Then I would write it all down so the nutritionist could see precisely what I ate. What a pain. I made a spreadsheet and just block copied the entries the repeated themselves. Suffice it to say, I had so much yogurt during that time that I may never eat it again.
I counted the days until my due date of April 7. I made lists of all the things I would eat after I had Bug because generally GD goes away after you have the baby. Mmmm fries. And ice cream. And Oreo cookies. And cocktails. And pizza. And extra dark chocolate truffles from the Godiva store. I told myself the first week would be a freebie and then I would resume my new, healthy eating habits. Ha.
About two weeks before my due date, I went for my weekly checkup and the doctor said I had made no progress toward labor and to come back in a week. Ok. The following night, G, my brother, and I went to Barney's because I decided I was entitled to at least a fry or two. Our waitress, after noticing my ginormous belly, tells me that she works as a doula in Marin and starts giving me advice on things I should do and tea I should drink for the next few weeks to make labor easier. Gee, thanks, I think. In any event, I order my dinner, decide I'll remove even more of my burger bun than usual and counted out ten piping hot fries. Ten is a big deal when you usually only get four. So yummy.
Seven hours later, I was in labor. My brother is totally convinced that the fries were what did it. Perhaps Bug realized just how much her mama needed fries and decided that she would help me out. Or perhaps there is magic in the fries. I don't care. I think they might only work for me and I will leave my brother to his delusions. The good news about Bug arriving when she did (other than moving up my chances for snacks by eleven days since the doctors would not have let me go late) was that my brother was in town and able to meet her the day she was born. She might not have cared all that much, but I know he did.
Bug is now five months old and I'm still waiting for those healthy habits to kick in. But they can wait until after tomorrow since I'll be going to the Godiva store, thank you very much.
posted by JenL at
8:10 AM
1 Comments:
Hurray for Magic French Fries and BOO for diets that restrict the consumption of things that make you want to rub your belly. As you know, I'm quite bitter about restrictions right now. ;)
By
Auntie Sassy, at 11:22 AM
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