Week 32: 32 Things

1. I never seem to have time to post anymore. Today's 32 weeks of being pregnant. Hard to believe.

2. Went to New York City last weekend for a last hurrah as a woman with baby in utero, because who knows when I'll get back there again?

3. Stayed with my single girl pal and saw a bunch of friends; interestingly, most of them are still single or are dating and are in far different places in their lives than I am.

4. Met with one friend who is type 1, married, expecting, and due just a few days after me. She's not a close friend, but I wanted to chat and find out how the pregnancy has been going.

5. Interestingly, we obsess over different things: I haven't drunk diet Coke or eaten bacon for months, while she has both but gets up every hour, she says, to test her blood sugar in the middle of the night.

6. We were both the same blood sugar when we met for an early brunch on Sunday (she was 108, I was 110). She worried that her high-protein meal the night before was still affecting her sugar, while I pointed out that I'd drunk two glasses of skim milk an hour before I met her, and felt like my reading was nothing to worry about. (Pre-meals, the pregnancy magic numbers are supposed to be 60-99 before a meal).

7. I also had lunch with Violet of Pumplandia; it was great to meet a blogger IRL (in real life), plus, she schlepped across the city to meet me closer to the neighborhood I was staying in.

8. I walked so much more than I ever do at home, and my bloods reflected that.

9. Cankles require me to wear only one of two pairs of shoes (either sneakers or these patent leather black loafers I've owned for years), so when I walked a lot, I noticed my back and feet got more tired than they ever have pre-pregnancy.

10. While I will always love NYC, staying in my friend's tiny apartment and walking around everywhere made me appreciate the (relatively) spacious house I live in, the car I drive and park in the driveway (as opposed to the time I spent searching for a space on the streets of Manhattan, or the money I spent on parking in garages).

11. Also met with an editor friend who gives me a lot of freelance work. As a mom of three herself (and we're the same age), she told me not to take on any freelance work for at least the first 12 weeks, but promised me she'd always have work to give me when I wanted it. Very reassuring.

12. Unrelated to the NYC trip, I've spoken to two groups of journalism students at two nearby colleges (in Boston) within the last week. The teacher for the first group, a class on magazine writing, told me I really connected with the students, how engaged they were during the presentation, and that perhaps teaching was in my future. Interesting. I always like doing talks about careers in journalism, and wonder if I'll get to do them any more once I am a mom.

13. Back at work, I'm heading into the last stretch of deadlines for the last magazine issue before I go on pregnancy leave. When I allow myself to think about this , I wonder if I should feel more sad about leaving my job for at least 12 weeks, and likely permanently. (The hours, commute, and lack of high pay tilt the scale toward a permanent leave). On one hand, I completely see I'm about to enter a new chapter in my life. On the other hand, there are times when I really think I'm ready to leave this office behind without regrets. Back on the first hand, though, I worry about whether I'll ever find a magazine staff job ever again, as it was what I dreamed about doing when I was in college. On the other hand, knowing that I don't live in the city where the magazines I really like are actually based, is it time to give up the idea of being a magazine editor in favor of full time freelancing and new motherhood? And will I ever make enough money to feel really secure about what I do as a freelancer with a child?

14. On this tangent, when will I ever have time to finish my own book projects, since no one is paying me to write them until after they're written and sold to a publisher by an agent?

15. Clearly, I think more about my career than I do about being a new mother.

16. People asked me if the Mister and I are excited to be new parents. I think we're taking things day by day and while I think about how the months ahead will be filled with new experiences and challenges, and that when I'm up at 4 in the morning, it will likely be with the baby as my companion rather than the laptop, I'm not necessarily excited. Intrigued by what's to come, yes, but aware that I have no idea what it will be like.

17. To that extent, my mother has told me more than once that I have no idea how tired I'm going to be and that the Mister and I have no idea what's about to hit us.

18. I responded that we have a sense that it will be hard, and that there's a reason we didn't have children when we were in our 20s, (one of which is that we didn't know each other then, but I digress...) but that we're about to move forward and to stop thinking like it'll be all negative.

19. I'm now going to the hospital weekly for one visit or another. I have weekly ultrasounds at the ATU (antepartum testing unit) and Endo or High Risk OB visits every two weeks. By March's end, they become weekly.

20. Blood sugars are what they are. Not super tight every minute of the day, but not crazy, either.

21. I get another fetal measurement this Friday, but the measurement three weeks ago showed the kid was within normal ranges and not gaining extra weight because of anything diabetic-related.

22. Someone asked in my comments last post if my insulin requirements had increased. Oh yes. I now take about three times as much insulin a day as I did pre-pregnancy. My skinny sister in law asked if I could stop this by eating less, and I pointed out that her non-diabetic body did the same thing as mine, but since she didn't inject or pump insulin, she had no idea what her insulin needs are. It's quite normal to have insulin needs increase in the latter half of pregnancy.

23. As a result, I've taken to refilling just the reservoir of insulin in my pump, rather than change the infusion set, every time the pump runs low on insulin. I used to change both the set and fill the pump at the same time.

24. Just signed up for a new baby-new mom group that starts in May. A mom friend of mine urged me to sign up, as getting out of the house the first few weeks are crucial. It felt weird to sign up for it yesterday, but I wanted to get in before the class filled up. It starts May 9, when the kid should be five weeks old.

25. Our baby furniture, which we ordered weeks ago and were told would take 12 weeks to arrive, came in after four weeks. I told the store that we're superstitious Jews, and that as soon as the baby arrives and is healthy, my husband will come in, pay off the balance, and have the furniture delivered. In the meantime, just keep it in storage.

26. I've commented about this elsewhere, but typically, us Jews don't do anything to openly prepare for having a baby. It's seen as tempting fate. That means no baby showers, no preparing a nursery, no buying baby clothes on sale, until the kid is actually here and healthy. I've only been to one baby shower that I can remember, and quite tragically, that baby turned out to be stillborn.

27. As a result, while we've been told to register and have actually done so, I've been pretty quiet about the details. And while other relatives have passed on a few baby items, they're either stashed in my car trunk or in the basement of our house.

28. We're hiring a painter this week to paint the baby's room, but I just want to close the door and not do anything else until after the baby arrives.

29. I haven't ordered crib bedding yet. Or curtains. Or any of that stuff. I finally called yesterday and learned that the day care we're going to go with has two openings for the time we want, and that we need to enroll this week if we want a spot. I've also been slow in lining up a baby nurse, which everyone tells me is crucial to do.

30. I apologize it's taken me so long to get to this point (and I already emailed her my thanks), but Serenity sent me a very cute gift yesterday as the winner of her "Name my IVF cycle title" on her blog. (I suggested "Now with More Uterus," which is very appropriate for her particular medical issue.) She ordered a onesie and cap from this store, a place I've always liked (and I again wonder if I'm tempting fate by even writing about it here. The Jewish guilt/schtick runs deep.)

31. I've suffered from an annoying cold over the past week and a half, ranging from copious sneezing and nasal goop to raspy coughing, to my current dry sore throat and larynigitis half the time. I'm often bored when people write how sick they are with a cold, but I'm totally done with being sick. Really just want this thing to move on already.

32. Hopefully I'll find time to post before another two weeks fly by.