Week Nineteen Update and A Nomination

UPDATE: I've just been nominated for "Best Female Blogger" in the Diabetes OC's Second Annual Diabetes OC Blog Awards. THANK YOU! It's an honor to be nominated among such top contenders.

Voting for the top spot takes place throughout December, so hop on over to get your votes in. (Lyrehca in '06: Covering T1 Diabetes, Infertility and Pregnancy. Honestly, people, can it get much more Female than that?)

And now back to the regularly scheduled program:

Week Nineteen Update

We had a big ultrasound today.

It took about 45 minutes and we were able to see a lot of Baby L's parts: legs, arms, feet, kidneys, bladder, skull, brain.

And while the kid had its back to us and clearly liked showing off its spine, we had three people (the tech, the resident, and finally the attending) come in to try to get a good look at the kid's heart.

But the kid wouldn't flip around and give us a good look.

The attending, who signed off on all the paperwork, said he could see the heart looked OK, but just couldn't get specific measurements. I'm scheduled for a cardiac fetal ultrasound in three weeks (which is standard for all diabetic patients) so I'm not all that worried. Nobody else seemed to be, either.

In other news, also saw Kind Endo today and High Risk Ob. I have officially passed a weight milestone that I'd hoped to never see in my lifetime, but neither doctor seems to think I'm gaining an excess amount of weight. And if you saw me in person, you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you what I weighed this morning. Both docs seemed to think I was doing well, although it's clear that insulin resistance is starting to kick in for me. Endo adjusted a few overnight basal rates and some meal-to-insulin ratios, so we'll see how that goes.

Was exhausted at the end of the workday (and workweek) today, and while I know raising a newborn is no walk in the park, I'm almost looking forward to cutting out my daily commute and the long hours tethered to my desk at work to be able to focus on a priority (my kid) that I have far more invested in than anything I do at my job.

(And this is coming from someone who has always put career first. A woman I worked with a few years ago who'd had one child and gave notice on the anniversary of her year of working at my company once told me that she just didn't care all that much about the mission of the office where we both worked. At the time, I told her I had a lot invested in my career and the thrill I got telling people what I did and where I worked. But now, with a kid on the way, I am starting to relate to what she was saying. I haven't officially decided what to do about returning to work or not after a maternity leave, but I've freelanced in the past before and am seriously considering doing it again. Leaving my commute and office politics behind sounds really great to me right now.)

I've also sent out emails to people I know who work in my field and work from home with kids to ask how they handled it and have gotten some great feedback. Anyone else want to weigh in about working from home with an infant and if/how you made it happen. What kind of childcare did you have? Were you able to put in a solid amount of time each day, or did you end up getting distracted by things to do around the house? Were you able to make a good chunk of money working from home? (I realize I'm being somewhat vague about my specific situation. Suffice it to say I work in journalism, have for many years, and have good contacts in the field.)

And in unrelated news, I'm thrilled that Erica from This Body Provides A Comfortable Home is back online. She was another woman writing about her type 1 pregnancy a good year before I was, and I always wondered where she was while her blog was quiet for a few months. Go welcome her back.