28 Weeks! (&GD)

We made it to the next milestone! Last night Matt and I celebrated 28 weeks complete with party hats, bubbles, some sweet treats and we made a little paper chain that's now hung on the wall with a paper link to tear off each day until 38 weeks. The chain is colorful and cheery and looks nice against our blank living room wall, in that 2nd grade sort of way :-).

Speaking of sweet treats, as if bed rest wasn't enough of a medical pain in the arse, let's add to that my recent diagnosis of Gestational Diabetes! Yes ladies and gentlemen, the results are in and it's official. I will get a call from a dietitian soon to schedule an appointment to talk about meal plans and learn how to use my soon to be purchased glucometer. Ohhh boy! So - anyone dying to send a care package my way should probably include nothing but grilled chicken breasts and plain milk (blagh). The good news is that I've got plenty of time on my hands to track my diet and stick myself for blood, so why not go on a little "oh so that's how that food affects my blood sugar" educational exercise. Let's hope I can escape without having to use insulin.

Why does Kristen have gestational diabetes you might ask? I have the same question. There's no way to pinpoint the exact reason, but the answer, once again, could be because I'm carrying twins. Of course it could also be linked to my obesity issue or my smoking habit.

Here's a blurb from some non-authoritative website:
Multiple Pregnancies often have an increased occurrence of problems like gd and pre-eclampsia. The effect of twice the hormones may overload the insulin sensitivity of moms who might otherwise not develop gd in singleton pregnancies. Moms with twins or more should be monitored earlier and possibly more frequently. Some studies have found that dizygotic (fraternal) twin pregnancies were more likely to have gd than monozygotic (identical) twin pregnancies, probably due to the number of placentas (producing twice the hormones to interfere with insulin usage).

Given that, I have also read that it's possible to have identical twins with two placentas if the egg splits early enough - so the jury is still out on that question! (I do have two placentas)

Anyway back to the pleasant stuff. (oh one more unpleasant thing first - I now wake up every 30 min at night to change positions because my hips/back get sore, it's a real pain in the side - but I'm hoping that some yoga stretches will reduce this!). So - we made it to 28 weeks! That's two weeks more than the direction I was heading when we checked into the hospital. This week the buns are blinking their eyes and putting on more baby fat!