Amy Krause

When I was pregnant with my daughter (who turns three this May), I gained 35 lbs. I ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wished. I undoubtedly gained more weight than I needed on my 5’1″ frame, and at the end of those 40 weeks, I was huffing and puffing just getting out of bed or off the couch.

I told myself I wouldn’t repeat that with this pregnancy. I said I would keep running, lifting weights. I’d pull out that dusty prenatal yoga DVD and work on stretching. I was determined to be that pregnant woman who knocks out three mile runs up until delivery. I was starry-eyed and optimistic. But of course, I was. The morning sickness hadn’t set in yet.

The last day I ran was the Twin Cities Marathon in October. I was 11 weeks along. I severely underestimated my body’s capacity to complete 26.2 miles, not realizing that ligaments had already started to stretch in preparation for the main event at the end of gestation. I made it 17 miles before having to call it quits; I had never NOT finished a marathon, and I’d been doing this for seven years. It was humiliating, but I accepted that it was due to the pregnancy. I nursed my aches and pains and cursed my all-day nausea and lethargy. I shelved my running shoes and gave up on running pregnant.

The next three months included a lot of bad food, overeating, and sleeping. But I was pregnant. It was tough work growing another human being. I gave myself a free pass on diet, telling myself that this was my last pregnancy, so why not let it all go to hell? I didn’t see any real consequences, other than possibly having a few more pounds to lose post-delivery. I’d lost the first baby weight in about 13 weeks by doing absolutely nothing but breastfeeding. Why couldn’t I do it again? Pregnancy was no time to beat myself up over diet or exercise.

When I got my gestational diabetes diagnosis at 28 weeks, I had gained 26 pounds. With 12 weeks left to go, I started to panic that I would exceed my previous 35 pound weight gain. I bitched about the diet (and cried a lot of tears over it), but in the end, it’s been the best thing that could have happened to me during this pregnancy.

I’ve been eating better for the last four weeks. I’m almost back to the 26 pound weight gain mark, and the weight, if I’m gaining at all, has been slow and steady. Before when I was mindlessly shoving food in my face and not counting calories, I had no idea if the weight I was gaining was from the baby putting on fat or from being bloated from the previous evening’s pizza gorgefest. I’m not exactly counting calories now, but I’m watching carb intake, and I know that I’m not inhaling extra calories I don’t need. I’m fairly confident these days that the weight I put on the rest of this journey will be necessary weight, and I’m okay with that.

I won’t claim a complete transformation into an energy-filled super-pregnant woman, but I do feel better these days. I’m making more of an effort to get out and walk (the only exercise left that my doctor will allow), and it helps tremendously with my blood sugar levels. I can still tell I’m in wretchedly poor cardio shape in comparison to where I was this summer during marathon training, but I feel much more confident I can get back on that wagon post-delivery and not wait an entire year like I did with my first pregnancy.

I tend to diet in cycles, and the GD diagnosis has allowed me to re-examine my eating habits and recognize old bad habits I’d reverted to over the past year. Some days are easier than others, and it can be frustrating when it seems I’m all over the charts no matter what I eat. I’m 32 weeks as of yesterday. Eight more (maximum) to go on this journey. I’m anxious for the end to be here, but I feel a lot more confident that I can actually stick it out. And I’m crying a lot less, which is also a good thing.

For the past few weeks, in addition to my glucose meter, this hasn’t left my side.

It’s a small Moleskine Classic Pocket Squared Notebook and accompanying Moleskine pen. I turn in a more complicated spreadsheet to my doctor every two weeks detailing my diet and blood glucose readings but take the initial readings/notes in this little notebook. It’s easy to throw in my bag or pocket. I love how the pen clips to the book and lays flat. They’re the perfect pair.

When I was a kid and well into adulthood, I kept a written journal. My diaries in school lived in shabby, cheap ruled spiral notebooks. In college I favored plain black sketchbooks. In 1999 I started to blog. I stopped keeping written journals. I got married (unwisely) in 2001, and my personal journal became a source of contention. After the divorce I went back to digital blogging until last year when I burned out on anything longer than 140 characters.

And then there’s today. Keeping a written record of everything I eat and how high/low my blood sugar is has in a strange way, reignited my desire to keep a written log, to put words to paper with pen. It’s funny how life works that way.

Truth is, deep down I’m a paper and pen geek. In addition to my beloved Moleskine notebooks, I’ll be test driving a few other lovelies I’ve discovered via Tumblr and Pinterest and recording my observations here. Fountain pens? Notebooks? Yeah, it’s going to get all crazy up in here.

Last Wednesday I met with an RN at the hospital who is a licensed diabetes counselor. She gave me the run-down on what I needed to eat and how I was to keep track of blood glucose levels. Since I’d been spending every waking hour since my doctor’s diagnosis googling everything I could find on the subject, nothing she told me was really news. It was probably better that way; I felt more prepared going in, and I think she appreciated that I wasn’t a complete moron.

I check my blood glucose levels four times a day: when I wake up and an hour post-meals. She gave me a diet plan that consisted of 2,000 calories if I eat all of the recommended snacks. There’s just no way I can do this, but as long as I don’t skip meals and eat the last snack of the day before I go to bed, that’s okay.

I also have to monitor for ketones in my urine every other morning. Evidently, burning fat stores while pregnant isn’t recommended. I’m having the hardest time with this part. I don’t know if I’m not eating enough calories during the day or if my body’s insulin regulatory system is really this fucked up. I thought I’d be excited about the “snack before bedtime” thing, but most nights I’m struggling to make it happen. My waking numbers have been decent, but I’m borderline for the ketones.

It’s a constant battle, trying to figure out not only when to eat, but what to eat.

I often think about Scott’s mother and am amazed she could do this every day of her life for thirty years.

While I have a little peace knowing that it was caught early and that I have a good chance of having a perfectly healthy baby, I’m still worried about labor and delivery. I’m worried there will be complications with the placenta position. I’m worried that I’m not going to be able to control this without insulin (I’ll find that out in about a week when I go in for a meeting with my doctor). I’m worried she’ll be upset that I’m not testing six times a day; my insurance will only cover four test strips per day, and I’d go broke making up for the difference on my own.

I’m mostly worried that this is going to be my life forever, that I will look back and say, yep. The second pregnancy – that’s when I became a diabetic.

Are there any positives so far?

The finger sticking isn’t so bad. I am a little dubious of the accuracy of my new meter compared to the one initially issued (had to switch because strips weren’t covered for the first), but I’m mostly looking for consistency. I’m starting to see patterns – which foods I can eat, which send my levels soaring, and I’m not bloated or overly tired like I was when I was mindlessly eating all the sugar and carbs I wanted. I tried on a dress I’m wearing to my sister’s wedding next month, and it fits better than it did a month ago. A pair of knee-high black boots I own fit better around my ginormous calves, too. I know I’ll still put on a few pounds before the end, but I’m pretty certain they will only be necessary pounds for the baby, not extra I ate half a cake on my own pounds.

This not being my first rodeo, I know how tough it can be to take off that baby weight. As motivation, we’ve signed up for this:

And in July, I’ve got another wedding to attend (Scott’s daughter). Which means I’ll need to squeeze myself into something respectable. So I’m planning on this:

Parisienne dress by modaspia

I’m taking a bit of a risk ordering something without trying it on post-partum, but I’m in love with this dress. Ursula from modaspia has been absolutely awesome, going above and beyond what I would expect someone to do for a customer. I may just hang this dress in my room so that I can see it every day as inspiration.

Living like a diabetic is exhausting.

I am constantly checking labels or googling “carbohydrate content in [fill in the blank]” every time I want to put something in my mouth. It’s more work than Weight Watchers was, that’s for certain. And right now, since I haven’t started testing my glucose levels yet, every time I eat something, I’m wondering (and kind of freaking out), what did that just do to the baby? It’s not a fun way to live, if you want the truth.

I have a somewhat embarrassing stash of empty Moleskine journals of varying sizes and types. For the past five days, this little one has travelled with me everywhere as I attempt to log all (or 99%) of the things I eat, doing my best to keep track of carbs and sugar, or at least be in the ballpark.

The first day was a pain. I hadn’t kept a food journal in quite some time, and getting back into the habit was annoying. I didn’t want to write down everything I ate. It made me think twice about putting the cookie or piece of chocolate in my mouth, and I was resentful. It did, however, make me realize how much mindless snacking I do throughout the day, between simply eating food that’s lying around not put away or finishing off the last few bites from Sophie’s plate. Those calories had added up over the past year, and I became acutely aware of how much sugar I was consuming on a daily basis. It was an embarrassing amount.

I made it through Friday and though I didn’t want to admit it, I felt pretty great. I didn’t feel bloated or overtired. I had made a valiant effort to not let more than a few hours go by between meals. My normal routine was either to forget to or get too busy to eat for long stretches of time or continually graze all day. No wonder there were times when I’d get downright shaky at times, not to mention none of my pants fitting.

Saturday was a little rougher. We were scheduled to bring in baked goods for church the following day, and to tell you the truth, I was seriously craving a cookie. Any cookie. I made a few batches: oatmeal raisin and chocolate chip. I ended up eating one of each variety during the day (at different times and with long periods of time in between). It was satisfying, but I felt a little guilty writing it down in my journal. I also made note that over the course of eating cleaner for the past few days, I had lost a pound. Was it from cutting back on sugar and carbs? Could it make that much of a difference in about 36 hours? I secretly high-fived myself but also felt a wave of embarrassment over the realization that my diet had been that piss-poor for so long.

My first real hurdle/meltdown came yesterday morning at 7:00 AM. I was rudely awakened from sleep by a leg cramp in my calf that was so painful that I was screaming at the top of my lungs. It lasted for about 40 seconds and wouldn’t subside. It got to the point that I fell out of bed onto the floor from the pain, which was when it finally went away (I must have bent my leg in the right way). It left me in tears, both from the pain and from the frustration over this entire situation. Was I low on potassium? Was I dehydrated? Was it from this diabetes bullshit? I recalled Scott’s mother having horrible leg cramps from her Type 2 Diabetes, and I cried for myself.

***

It’s now Tuesday. I’m continuing to stick with my hodge podge diabetic eating plan until I see the dietician on Thursday. I’m nervous about the appointment. Before it was over the idea of poking my finger and taking insulin. After spending way too much time on the Internet (I need to stop googling health conditions because it freaks me out), I’m more concerned about whether this glucose tolerance test isn’t just a bunch of bullshit. Regardless, I know the cleaner eating will benefit me, so I’ll follow the diet she sets before me and see just how out of whack my glucose levels are.

The hardest part of all this is the planning. It takes an incredible amount of pre-planning to eat this way. I know I’d gotten lax throughout pregnancy. I wasn’t packing lunches. I was eating food on the go, a lot of it of the fast food variety, and I was feeling so shitty by afternoon that it was affecting my work. I don’t feel that way anymore, but it still takes a lot of mental energy, calculating which foods are legal and which will send me in to a sweaty fit.

The food isn’t complex, but I need to start preparing the night before. Today’s lunch took me about 15 minutes to put together.

And then there were snacks and alternative snacks so I wouldn’t be tempted to run up to the grocery store for something. We were 30 minutes late for work/daycare. I need to either wake up earlier (ugh) or get my act together better.

As of this morning I’m down 2 lbs. I know it’s fairly normal to lose a little weight after overhauling your diet, so I’m not concerned. I’d also put on more weight than I’d planned on or needed to (about 24 lbs), so if I could hold steady and keep the weight gain to a minimum for the rest of this pregnancy, I’d be thrilled (provided the baby is measuring correctly).

Am I thrilled about this gestational diabetes thing? Of course not. And it’s not that I think I could be a healthier person as a lifetime diabetic. I watched Scott’s mother die of cancer last year, her condition complicated due to her diabetes, so I don’t believe you’re better off with the disease. However, I am living a little more healthy with these restrictions, which might not be such a bad deal in the long run, provided I can keep it under control.

I don’t want to be one of the few women who hang on to this disease post partum. But for now? I’m taking it one day at a time and doing okay.

Last week I failed the three-hour glucose tolerance test and was diagnosed with gestational diabetes.

I’ll just say there have been a few meltdowns, a lot of tears, and a bunch of what the fuck, universe?

When I was pregnant with my first, I passed the three-hour. I had what I would consider a normal pregnancy. This one was moving along fine, with the exception of a placenta that didn’t get the memo to move the fuck away from my cervix (it’s been classified as “low-lying”). And aside from gaining a little more weight than I’d hoped to at this point and being so incredibly exhausted that I’ve spent most of my free time lying on the couch (that is, when I’m not chasing around an overly-active toddler), I thought things were going fine. The doctor had even told me at my last appointment, “You’re having a very normal pregnancy.”

After getting the bad news call from the nurse, I proceeded to freak out for 24 hours until Scott could calm me down. We decided it would be a good idea to talk to the doctor for a more detailed description of what was going on.

So we did. And as it stands right now, I have a meeting with a dietician later next week to learn how to eat like a diabetic and poke my finger four times a day, which I have no idea how I’ll even do since the sight of needles makes me almost pass out. I’m really looking forward to meeting this woman, who was a little less than friendly on the phone when she called me yesterday. She told me she needed to “educate me,” and said it with a tone that really said,

Hey, loser, who I’m assuming is a fat slob who doesn’t take care of herself and ate her way into diabetes. It’s my job to bring morons like you in here so that I can show you how to put down the box of donuts.

Never mind it’s because my placenta is sending out these insulin-blocking hormones (don’t ask me the name), throwing off my blood sugar levels and potentially causing problems for the baby if I can’t keep them under control.

Yes, I’m really looking forward to meeting this woman.

Scott’s mother had Type 2 Diabetes for 30 years before she died from cancer complications last year. I’m no expert on the disease, but I’m familiar with some of the regimen. Aside from that, I have a general idea of how I’m supposed to eat (low carb, avoid sugar if possible, eat a balanced diet), and having been on diets off and on throughout my adult life, I do know how to eat.

But even though I was prepared for the possibility that I could be diagnosed with GD (due to my age, ethnicity, etc.), I wasn’t expecting it. Not really. I’ve run eight fucking marathons. I’m a moderately active individual who might not make all of the right food choices all of the time, but I try to practice moderation. And this type of thing never happens to YOU, right? I didn’t think it would happen to me.

What really pisses me off the most about my phone call with the dietician is the perceived insensitivity she exhibited during our phone call. Because I’d think someone who deals on a daily basis with people going through this would understand what it feels like to get that diagnosis. Being told that you’re diabetic is like being draped with a cloak of failure, regardless of whether it’s of any fault of your own.

So for the past two days, even though I’ve wanted to do nothing than wallow in misery and stuff cookies in my face, I’ve tried to ease myself into this new eating plan I’ll need to follow for the next three months. I’ve started to read labels again. I’m writing down what I’m eating and at what time I’m eating it. I won’t be testing glucose levels until I meet with the dietician, so I’ve got a few days before I need to start doing that. It feels like being on Weight Watchers again, except that I can’t just scarf down a brownie mid-day and feel mildly okay about it, because I’m so worried about spiking blood sugar levels.

And after two days of cutting out sugar, white food, and cutting back on carbs, I stepped on the scale and was down a pound, which is kind of embarrassing and encouraging at the same time.

I know I’m capable of following the doctor’s orders for the rest of this pregnancy. I’m just not happy about it. But more importantly, I’m hopeful the diabetes ends with the pregnancy. I just don’t want to live like this for the rest of my life. Getting this diagnosis has reinforced the importance of getting active and healthy, especially after delivery. It was my plan all along, but now it’s a mandate.

I’ve owned quite a few camera bags over the years. I’ve tried over-the-shoulder sling-type bags, simple holster-style SLR bags, reporter bags, and leather close-fitting cases. They all had their positive features, but mostly, when it came to the negatives, they screamed “PAY ATTENTION TO THE EXPENSIVE EQUIPMENT THEREIN!” As I started to carry more expensive equipment, I started to worry about this more. I wanted a camera bag that would protect my gear but not scream “STEAL ME.”

Lately, I’ve been experimenting with using bags I already own as gear bags. I’ve taken foam liners from other camera bags I own and tried to fit them inside the bags. (I have a Lowepro street reporter bag that’s been around for awhile and is constantly disassembled.) The problem was, they never seemed to fit quite right. Most of the time, I only want to carry my D90 body with a lens or two and maybe a speedlight. Over the years I’ve significantly reduced my lens collection, paring down to what I feel are my essentials. The beauty of the DSLR might be interchangeable lenses, but for me? I can’t afford to keep gear I don’t use. My current photography needs necessitate only a few pieces of equipment to get the shots I want.

I found out about Ona Camera bags while doing a search on Google for waxed canvas (a current obsession of mine). While I loved their messenger bag, the price was a bit steep for someone who rarely needs to carry a laptop AND camera gear at the same time. But their Roma camera insert? Now we’re talking.

Not only is it made of a gorgeous waterproofed waxed canvas, but it’s the perfect size (10.5″L X 7″H X 4″D) for the current bags I carry (small to medium messenger-type bags). Magnet closures keep it shut. Extra pockets on the exterior are perfect for stashing memory cards, wallets, phones. The leather handles make it easy to move from one bag to another. It’s also really lightweight, so I don’t feel like I’m adding a ton of extra weight to my current bag setup.

The only beef I have with the bag is the padding. It’s not the greatest I’ve had in a camera bag, but then again, I’ve owned some pretty heavy duty camera bags, so maybe the comparison isn’t fair. At $59 it’s a little on the spendy side for an insert, but since it can also stand alone as its own bag (unlike a lot of the cheaper foam/neoprene insert cases I researched), I feel it’s worth the extra dough.

I know I probably travel with a lot less gear than other shooters, but this case suits me perfectly for daily photowalks or traveling. Over the past years I’ve often left my DSLR gear at home, not wanting to lug it on vacation. Now I can take a few pieces, carry them in my all-purpose bag (I’m a mom, which requires me to carry a sundry of miscellaneous child-related items at all times) and shoot with my good gear.

Here’s a bad iPhone shot of the Roma in my favorite everyday bag, the Letter Bag by the awesome folks at Moop in Pittsburgh.

You can buy the Roma direct from Ona Bags or from a variety of retailers online. Check it out on Photojojo for even more photos of the Roma in action.

When I started blogging back in 1999, most of my friends didn’t know what a blog was. Now everyone is online, whether it’s on Facebook or Twitter or barfing up about what they had for lunch or what their kid crapped in the toilet that looked like what they had for lunch.

I am totally guilty of this, too. I don’t judge. It’s just that it’s gotten old for me, and most days I don’t have much I want to say that can’t be done in 140 characters or less.

The Internet seems like such a small world now. I hate it.

So much has changed for me since that first blog post, mostly for better. I type this sitting uncomfortably, about to launch into the third trimester of my second pregnancy. My two and a half year old daughter is napping soundly in the next room. I was sure that starting a blog post — an actual blog post — would wake her up (as do a number of other activities that are better enjoyed sans-child).

I’m teaching at a local liberal arts college. Teaching. I never thought it would happen, but here I am. I’m terrible at it (in my estimation) but trying to become better as I continue to attempt to grow professionally (but mostly just trying to keep the bills paid as an underemployed member of society).

Even though I’m tired of blogging, I can’t give up having a personal space. I’m hoping to grow out of it one of these days.