Diet
Nothing much to report from today’s extremely routine doctor’s visit: my blood pressure’s gone up, but not alarmingly so; my weight gain is on the light side but perfectly OK; baby’s heartbeat still sounds good; and no new blood tests required, thank god. However, stay tuned to this bat-channel, as I have a complete ultrasound scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, which may yield big news.
In the meantime, I’ve discovered that I really, really, really have to watch what I eat. In the first trimester, it was all about eating whatever and whenever the nausea would let me, and stuff like bread and pasta seemed easiest to handle. Bread and pasta, however, are no longer my friends, because I’m experiencing a lot of blood sugar instability, and simple carbohydrates do tend to exacerbate the fluctuations.
When I was a kid, low blood sugar was a real problem for me: if I skipped lunch, you could expect to find me on the floor weeping helplessly within a couple of hours. And this is not just when I was four, but when I was ten. Even well into high school, although I would no longer be completely disabled by irregular eating, it would make me terribly distractable and kind of crazy-mean—even moreso than is usual for teenagers.
Some time in my mid-twenties, I got a lot better at recognizing when low blood sugar was making me insane, and compensating for it with my rational mind until I was able to eat. If I go too long without eating I can still expect to start feeling sad, irritable, exhausted, and unable to concentrate, but in the past five or six years it’s been coming on gradually enough that I’ve always had plenty of time to do something about it.
But now, suddenly, it’s like I’ve regressed ten or fifteen years. The warning period is much shorter, and the effects much stronger. I’ll know I need food, but I’ll be short-tempered and dissatisfied with any of the available options, and so scatterbrained that it’s very hard to imagine and execute a plan that will end with me eating something. The temptation to just lie down on the bed and feel sorry for myself becomes nigh-overwhelming.
The solution, obviously, is to eat early and often, and to eat the right kinds of foods, so that I don’t get into that state. Small, frequent meals make doubly good sense because I’ve been experiencing indigestion after most normal-sized meals: my expanding uterus is displacing my digestive system, and things aren’t working nearly as smoothly on that front as they used to.
I think all this will be easier to manage now that I’m home during the day, in easy reach of the refrigerator. My plan is to make daily trips to the grocery store, each time buying fixings for that night’s dinner and the next day’s breakfast and lunch. It’s a pleasant walk, and a nice way to ensure that I get out of the house every day. Today I bought a premade quiche for dinner along with some salad fixings; yogurt and an apple for tomorrow’s breakfast; potatoes and green beans for lunch; and some baby carrots and hummus for snacking on. Go me with my healthy self.
