My Gestational Diabetes Class and Day 1 of Finger Pricks

My GD class wasn't that bad actually. It was roughly 3 hours of learning how to eat. It was weird at how formal they made everything, but in a nutshell, the class was straight forward. First I met with a nutritionist who went over my profile and an initial assessment quiz to see how much I understood. She looked at how I normally eat and basically set a plan for me. Since I'm on bedrest - my plan doesn't include any exercise. I never thought I'd say this - but I really do miss being able to exercise. There was a sense of freedom and strength in that. 

Anyway, I left the class armed with my new One Touch Mini glucose testing meters and a booklet to help me log my glucose levels. Before I go into that, we did do a test finger stick in the class. My score was 141. I felt bad, but then again I'd been popping grapes during the whole class. So strangely I was ravenous by the time we left that place, so I decided to stop for Vietnamese food on the way home. They have this noodle bowl dish - absolutely divine. It's a combination of rice noodles, papaya, cucumber, carrots, grilled meat, lettuce, and peanuts with a sweet hot thai chili sauce. Yumm! Needless to say... my glucose reading after that meal was off - 130 when it was supposed to be 120. Dangit! One more thing to remove from my diet! 

I had a lot of anxiety about the needle sticks. It's because of those commercials for those diabetes supplies in the mail for people on medicare. The old people in the commercials are all complaining about painful finger sticks. I was given a lancet that uses this lance called Delica. All I know is that it barely hurts at all! That was a huge relief because I was cringing at having sore fingertips. The ones that the doctor uses hurt like all hell. It feels like being stabbed in your finger!

So today was my first day of full measurements. My fasting was a bit high - 104. That threw me for a loop. My fasting has never been a problem before. I scored great with my breakfast measurement at 94. Believe it or not, they told us we could eat Chick-fil-a on our meal plans. So I tried.... and that was a fail. My lunch reading was 130. BUMMER! For dinner I had some steamed shrimp , mashed potatoes and salad. I got a wonderful reading of 104 for that - woohoo! Oh if I haven't mentioned it - anything under 120 for a meal is considered good! It hit me that this feels a bit like gambling. I play the hand I'm told to play - then we roll the dice and see what my blood sugar is. I hate the fact that I have to eat 6 times a day. It's more often and it's more food than I normally eat. I have only 6 more weeks of this or so. Then I can go back to my normal carb avoidance ways and exercising again - if I have any energy left. I'll know in a week or two if my doctor is going to put me on Glyburide. I'm hoping i can control it with just diet, but I have to admit, I feel a sense of comfort from knowing I could take a pill that would keep the levels all in check. All in all - today wasn't a bad GD day.