December 03, 2004
32 week ultrasound and checkup
It's a girl! Oh wait, we already knew that. Well, today it was confirmed. She's now positioned head-down and is in the typical 'fetal position.' This afforded us a great view between her legs, leaving no doubt as to her gender.
Olivia (yay, I feel more comfortable calling her that now) was measured via ultrasound this afternoon. Her skull diameter measured about 32 wks while her abdomen measured at 35 weeks. She's right at 5lbs and is in the 65% for weight. We have a slightly chubby little girl, but not anything to worry about.
The technician would occasionally stop moving the doppler and jiggle my belly with it while poking me with her other finger. She spent most of the ultrasound trying to get Olivia to wake up so she could watch for "practice breathing" movements. The baby stubbornly resisted waking until near the end of the visit when the senior technician came in and did the wrap-up. Even then Olivia moved minimally, but enough for us to witness a few practice breaths.
Though Olivia's growing well, my weight was down a pound from last week. This is the first loss we've recorded since I was post-op and morning sick. Hopefully, it won't be a trend. (Just last night I switched to drinking whole milk for the extra calories.) The rest of my appointment was fine, and very brief.
Misty assured me that I look right on track for my January 22 due date, no signs of complications. The weekly checkups will be watching for any signs that the baby is getting too big and whether we'd need to induce early because of it. On one hand, I'd be happy to deliver early, because I'm impatient to see her. On the other hand, I know it's best for her to go to term.
"Term" is technically 38-40 weeks. I hit 33 weeks tomorrow, so that means "full term" is just 5 weeks away!
Update: I forgot to add that we did NOT receive any ultrasound pictures this visit. :( We never even got to see the baby's face. It seemed like it would be hard to get a good view of her face because of her position, but maybe it's just not part of the clinic's policy with these types of ultrasounds. We didn't ask.
Gestational Diabetes Update 4
I met with my endocrinologist's nurse yesterday. We went over my insulin logs and discussed my eating habits. Overall, she's pleased with the way / what I've been eating, but I was still having some hypoglycemia issues between breakfast and my morning snack. So, she went to talk to one of the dieticians and they decided that I needed to schedule my meals so that I have TWO snacks between breakfast and lunch, no more than two hours apart. So I'll get up in the morning, check blood glucose, inject insulin, then eat breakfast. One hour after that, I have to check blood glucose again. One hour after that, I have to eat a snack. Two hours after that I have to eat another snack. Then two hours after that, I have lunch.
The extra snack is probably going to require some big insulin adjustments, and we were finally getting to the point where my glucose was consistently testing in range after meals. The only issue was my morning fasting glucose still stays 5-10 points out of range.
I think I'm getting better at guaging carb servings. Last night we had dinner at Outback Steakhouse with some friends and I helped myself to some cheese fries. I also had ribs and steamed vegetables (skipping the zucchini), and my post-meal glucose was right at 120, so yay.