Late periods, PCOS and weight loss.

You guys are the best. Thank you. I would never wish our journeys on anyone but the community of support you guys provide? Everyone should be so lucky. I hope I do the same for you.

The thoughts on my last post were precipitated by my first period this month. The hope began flickering- a period meant hope of future periods- of ovulation. I grew more hopeful about three weeks ago when I had the telltale signs of ovulation right on time. I am not ready to try again, but I took this as a sign that I'd be one of those people whose bodies became normal after having a child.

No period.

I'm now quite late- I've been bloated, crampy, PMS-y but- no period. It might come. I hope it will. But now its late. It's late. And it means that my friend PCOS is still here ready to party.

I'm not on Metformin, the one that helped regulate me because my OB said to hold off while I am nursing- so I'm trying to figure out what to do. The weight- despite my greatest efforts- is not budging. I can't fit into most of my clothes pre-pregnancy and the weight issue is beginning to take over my thoughts. This isn't me. I feel like I'm wearing a warm winter coat over my real body. But thanks to PCOS losing the weight is infinitely harder.

There are many reasons to lose weight. Feeling confident, fitting into clothes again, preventing diabetes, but most of all its getting rid of PCOS. My doctor says if I can lose the weight, the PCOS will go away.

Now that he's on solids I'm trying to be stricter with my diet. I want to fix this. As much as PCOS is a culprit hurting my metabolism, and making me fight harder than other people to see a drop in the scale- the truth? The truth is I do eat thing that are bad for me and I have to give myself longer than a month of not seeing the scale budge before I give up.

So here's hoping. Hoping that by May. My son's birthday- I can be at a normal BMI again like I was once-upon-a-time- I'd like to think that I don't want to try again until I'm there- but then I wonder if I'll ever get there so I am hesitant to make such a bold assertion.

PS: I don't post much here because I am posting more at my regular non-anonymous site if you want the link just send me an e-mail- I've gotten over my paranoia on that :)

This and that**updated

• It's been a while since I've posted. I post slightly more at my other site, and since I can't find the hours in the day to send out the e-mail I will most certainly take down the link by the end of the weekend but if you want to follow me over I'd be most honored. I love comments, but please no references to this blog :) This is my private one where I can write about things I don't want everyone (i.e. family, friends) reading.
• Little guy is not sleeping anymore. We went from 5 hours stretches, to 6, to 7!! And then down to waking every 2-3 hours nightly like clockwork. I am feeling like a zombie due to sleep deprivation, as though I've been transported back into the early days of having a baby. Not just that, he used to lay in the crib without a fuss and coo and chat to himself and fall asleep, now its a 45 minute production of tears and screams to get him in bed. I thought it got easier, not harder?!
• I'm worried my milk supply is the cause. Last night we gave him a bottle of formula for its purported ability to keep a sleeping baby sleeping longer and I pumped out of curiosity to see how much milk I was making. 3 ounces total. 3 lousy ounces to feed a 14+ pound baby. I've heard that baby extracts more than the pump so I might have more but I'm wondering if milk supply is the reason.
• Although this theory was a tiny bit eroded last night since he woke up 2 hours after the bottle screaming. This time I gave him tylenol, he instantly quieted down and fell asleep. So maybe this is all teething related? The white buds are under his gums waiting to come out. He's got a lot of teeth- I guess I'll be sleep deprived for a while if this is the case.
• But my doctor thinks its my diet. I joined weight watchers. I was doing GREAT on it. Losing 2 pounds a week for a total of 7 pounds to date. I NEVER lose weight like that (thank you PCOS) but his sleep deprivation coincided with this. I talked to a LLL volunteer who also agreed it might be my diet. I've been advised not to lose weight at all, but I feel like I'm wearing a fat suit and I want to get out of it! And WW does give you points if your'e nursing. I'm able to eat VERY well on the diet. I mean, two eggs with toast for breakfast, pasta for dinner! I'm not exactly starving. I don't get it.
• Do you have any advice on baby sleep regression? I can't imagine letting him cry it out. I tried it for four minutes last night and I was a hysterical sobbing mess. Just can't do it. Any advice on weight loss? Milk supply issues? Battling the inability to sleep once the baby is asleep because your'e lying in wait for him to awake next?? I've ordered fenugreek, I eat fennel seeds every day as is, and I'm now adding oatmeal. Sigh.
• But let me be clear, the fat suit, the insomnia, the hysterical shrieks of my bebe- wouldn't have it any other way. I am happy. So happy he's here. I don't take THAT for granted.

Updated to add, the past two days I ate whatever I wanted, like a nut, and today when I pumped I got out 6.5 ounces. Yep- food is definitely a factor. Sigh. I really want to lose this weight but not at the cost of giving up nursing which I worked SOOOO hard to stick to and which I actually now love doing. It's weird to bemoan that I MUST eat to my heart's content but I really feel motivated to shed the weight. weird.

Kate, I was told that if you start solids at 4 months it can issues but everyone I know who has started at four are just fine. Did you do any reading on this?

Losing the baby weight

The first six weeks post-bebe I allowed myself to eat whatever I wanted. I ate pizza, icecream, cupcakes and cookies. It was beautiful. More beautiful was the fact that I was eating like I was prepping for a sumo wrestling competition and yet was gaining nary a pound. Nada. Zip. Imagine when I actually start eating right and working out? I thought. I'll be a skinny minnie in no time!

Wrong.

Once the six weeks was up and I got the go ahead to exercise I began working out one hour daily on my Wii Fit. I started cutting out all sweets and stopped eating after dinner. I figured the weight would drop like its hot but that didn't happen. Just like before, my weight did not go up, nor did it go down. For ten days I did this and I got increasingly fed up until I just went and ate a bunch of fries. The next day I dropped a pound.

I haven't had to think about weight loss for years while I struggled to get and stay pregnant. Now its time again and the old frustrations rear their ugly heads. I thought nursing would help the pounds fall but I've since learned this is untrue. I read scientific journals stating that there is no conclusive evidence that breastfeeding causes weight loss. My OB said for some it does, and for some BFing can actually make you hang on to weight as your body ensures you have enough fat to continue breastfeed. Body- I HAVE ENOUGH FAT you need not worry!

I have PCOS. Before I got on Metformin I could never lose weight. On Met by following a reasonable diet and exercersing my weight began regulating. But my doc wont prescribe it while I nurse.

I started weight watchers last Wednesday. In the past it was the only thing that worked for me. This week I lost 2 pounds, but I'm not going to be convinced until I see continual droppage since I fluctuate with those two pounds anyways. My hope is that weight watchers will help me realize if I'm eating more than I think I am, and if I am doing everything and sticking to the WW guidelines and still not losing weight at least I'll have some proof to show my OB and perhaps convince her to give me my Met again.

I am refusing to buy new clothes for this new looking me. I need to get back to where I was. And how sad since where I was is not where I ultimately want to be. In the meantime I wear stretchy skirts galore and hope that sooner or later this weight will come off!

GD: A better day

Thank you so much for holding my hand during my mini-meltdown yesterday. I guess yesterday there was just one too many straws on this camel's back but I'm better now. I had my 30 week check up (Wow! 30 weeks!) and met with the final OB in the practice. He was super nice. I wish it was a given that doctors had good bedside manner and I didn't have to be this thrilled to get what should be the care I'm entitled to but it is what it is. He told me my one-hour was too high to warrant a re-test and he was worried I could pass the three-hour and be a false-negative. Because of my insulin-resistance issues I'm already at high risk and the one hour confirmed something is wonky. He said if my numbers continue to be this low then they'll reduce the times I prick myself and relax some of my eating restrictions.

Today was a much better day GD-wise. I reduced my portions considerably. I had a veggie sandwich for lunch but I ate half of it for lunch with vitamin water and then had the other half as my snack two hours later with a grapefruit. This made it much more manageable and I've made a promise to myself to trust my instincts. If I am too full I'm not going to push it. I've been trying to do research on the eating sugar issue but am turning up nothing, maybe somebody reading has an answer? The dietitian said I could absolutely not have sugar ever and to take Splenda instead. But- the GD booklet I have just lists one tablespoon of sugar as 1 carb and doesn't say don't touch sugar. I had 1/4 teaspoon of sugar in my tea with breakfast and my reading was 83. The vitamin water I drank had 2 servings of carbs which was sugar but my reading after lunch was 80. Sugar is not skyrocketing my numbers so why can't I just have it and incorporate it in my carb counting? Is there something I missed? I called the dietitian to ask but she never returned my calls.

Thank you for advice on pricking myself too. Today was much better. I made sure to wash my hands in warm water, I then massaged around the area I would prick to get blood circulating and after pricking I squeezed a little. This helped get enough blood out and I didn't have to spend twenty minutes stabbing all my fingers.

Jack and I were eating dinner and I told him- I can't believe it: We have nine more weekends without him at most! Then he will change our lives forever! But Jack pointed out, our lives have already changed. Our conversations revolve around him. Anytime he squirms or moves my hands move over my belly. I have the equivalent of a medical clinic's worth of medicine supplies for him. I have altered what I eat for him. I altered how I sleep for him. In some ways, in a real way, he's already here and my life has already changed because of him. Remembering who this is for helps make it all worthwhile. (Though- I still reserve the right for an occasional mini-meltdown!)

Gestational Diabetes- I'm getting doubtful

It might be too early for me to be this suspicious but I'm getting a weird feeling I might not have GD. I only got the one-hour test but failed it so bad (211, normal is below 130) that my OB told me I didn't need the three-hour to diagnose me. Many of you expressed doubt at this and urged me to ask for the three hour, but the insurance issues kept me from pushing the issue. I figured I likely had it given my PCOS history and the strong diabetes history in my extended family.

But since yesterday I've been checking my numbers- and they're not close to out of range. Yesterday before the class I had an egg, toast, half a glass of low-cal OJ, and a cup of tea with half a teaspoon of sugar. When they tested my levels I was at 69. The dietician gave me a cracker worried I was going close to getting low blood sugar.

I've been told not to even have a teaspoon of sugar in my tea or a splash of OJ in my water. This struck me as strange since 1 tsp of sugar exchanges to 1 serving of carb so what's the difference? Anyways- this morning I tested while fasting and my reading was 70 (should be below 95). My after breakfast reading (in which I ate toast, egg, water and tea with a teaspoon of sugar) resulted in a reading of 65 (should be below 120). 65 is borderline low sugar for which I'm supposed to drink a glass of OJ to treat myself.

Huh? I know its only three readings but I'm getting suspicious that I have GD at all. Sure I should probably not be eating a bucket of icecream anyways but I don't want to treat myself for something I don't have. I have a checkup tomorrow at the OB anyways so I called and asked if they could do the 3-hour test. It will be just in the nick of time for my old insurance to cover it. I don't know if this is wise but I'm just feeling weird that my levels are so low- so not even borderline despite even the no-no sugar in my tea?

Yes, GD not my fault!

I just got back from the nutrition class and you were right! GD isn't my fault! While I can eat well to manage it, when I took that sugary drink regardless of how well I was managing GD my numbers would've spiked. I also found out I was eating way less than I needed to and honestly, when I saw how much I can eat, its not much different from what I was eating before the diagnosis. The only difference between how I ate and how I will eat is making sure to have a protein with my carb snack and trying to eat at the same times each day.

The dietician asked me about my miscarriages wondering if they'd been found to be linked to PCOS and she told me she had one miscarriage. It was such a bad miscarriage it scarred her uterus permanently and she was never able to have children. We talked about infertility for a little bit and I felt amazed she chooses to work in this field. We got to the section of coping with giving up foods, and she looked at me and said I'm sure you're okay with that? I quickly nodded but I wondered how does she feel when women come in crying that they can't eat cake anymore and how horrible pregnancy is? Judging from my birthclub on Bab.yCent.er people take the not eating sweet things quite hard. Almost ludicrously so. Don't get me wrong- I stopped and stared at the icecream sandwiches at Krogers yesterday like a child staring longingly at the puppy he always wanted, but I'm not really feeling sad about it. I know I can have it in May. I guess its all perspective and how you feel about something is relative to what you've gone through. Still, kudos to her to surround herself with pregnant women crying about cookies.

Off topic for wordpress powered bloggers: Wordpress bloggers and wordpress-powered bloggers I am still reading your blogs and I'm still trying to leave comments but it seems that my comments are going straight to your spam box? I'm not sure why and not sure if its limited to only me. If you don't regularly check your spam comment box please check it regularly since it seems genuine comments can fall to the wayside in there. Very strange!

Anemia, Gestational Diabetes, and the blame game

I went to refill my prenatal prescription and found out my doctor called in an order of iron supplements for me. Huh? After a phone call to the OB I learned I'm also anemic. I guess with all the hooplah about having GD they forgot to tell me that minor detail. I've been told anemia makes you feel really tired and that makes me feel better because lately I feel like a three toed sloth forced to live like the humans. Still- I wish they had mentioned it. I just happened to have been a few days late filling my prenatal and the prescription was called in today. Had I not gone in, I'd not have known until perhaps much later.

Thank you SO much for your advice about GD and calling my doctor's office. Some people mentioned pushing for the three-hour. I would do that except that my insurance ends Friday and I'm afraid of going in for the test and getting positive results during my insurance lapse when I can't do anything about it. I'm signed up for a half day nutrition session tomorrow and hopefully the nurse can order my testing strips before the end of the week so insurance will pay for that too.

One positive of having been married almost 8 years before having a child is you have worked through a lot of your ish before the baby arrives. We used to argue and get dramatic quite frequently in the first few years of marriage but in the past two years I can count on one hand the number of serious arguments we've had. For this reason I was a bit dumbfounded by the argument we almost had last night. I was sitting in bed when I realized I had not eaten something before bedtime. I usually have a glass of milk with nuts per the GD diet. As I got up he said you're just so chill about this whole diagnosis. I looked at him confused. You knew you were going to have GD based on your history and you chose to eat pizza and other bad things for you. If you had been healthier you could have prevented this.

In the first year of marriage I would have started yelling at him but instead, I just took a deep breath and went downstairs to get my snack and cool down. I understand he's frustrated. He gets to be on the outside while I bake the baby and he's very health conscious and its true- I did eat more unhealthy than I ever had while pregnant. This isn't to say I was sitting there eating pints of ice cream but I was eating what I wanted when I wanted. I ate things that have been on my no-no list for years like Pizza Hut. Considering I have a history of diabetes and GD in my family and I had PCOS I should have been more vigilant. But at the same time I don't know if all the vigilance in the world would have prevented this. He was apologetic when I came back upstairs, but his apology feels hollow to me because I know he meant what he said.

Since getting pregnant I've been able to push aside all the emotions that come with having PCOS but now with the GD diagnosis its all coming back to me. My doctor told me I could cure PCOS by losing weight. I was ten pounds over my ideal BMI. Jack was at that appointment and he's reminded me ever since that I have PCOS because of my weight though research also shows you can have weight issues because of PCOS. I tried for years to lose those ten pounds, and let me tell you staying ten pounds overweight (and not more) was a struggle. Metformin helped a lot. I suddenly could see the results of my hard work and through diet and exercise my weight did start going down like normal people's do when they eat right and work out- ofcourse I got pregnant and lost pregnancies for the duration of that year so I never fully lost those ten pounds but with Metformin I saw it was possible to finally lose the weight.

This whole GD thing is taking me back there. To the place of guilt. To the place of: its my fault and I may have caused this to happen. I'm fighting the guilt because guilt does me no good but I'm tired of my family, my doctor, my husband pointing fingers at me. And- I'm also tired of me sometimes also, pointing fingers at me. I can only do what I can now that I know- blaming helps no one.

Gestational Diabetes- waiting waiting waiting

I'm frustrated. I was told to take the one-hour test at 28w3d into my pregnancy. Most people take it earlier than that from what I understand. I found out at 29weeks that I failed the one hour so spectacularly I don't need the three hour test to confirm my gestationally diabetic status. The nurse told me Friday that someone will call Monday or Tuesday to set me up for a class and get me the supplies I need to monitor myself. Okay, but what am I supposed to do in the meantime? I am reading blogs, your comments, researching on different sites to figure out how to eat but I don't enjoy doing this "on my own". I want the class and the meter NOW so I can know what to do.

Since the diagnosis I've made changes. No more cereal with a glass of OJ for breakfast. Now I eat egg with whole grain toast. I got low calorie OJ and I dilute it by drinking 3/4 water 1/4 juice. I'm eating vegetable soups for lunch and salads with protein for dinner. For snacks I eat apples or grapefruit or a glass of milk and I always combine it with some sort of protein like cheese or nuts. I also am going to do light walking after dinner which I read can help. I'm also trying to eat a snack before bedtime.

But how do I know any of this is working? Thanks to PCOS I have Insulin Resistance and so I don't know if diet alone is going to do anything? I might need insulin shots as we speak and I don't know. I am scared that my baby is growing too big, that he might be in the NICU, that there may be complications I can't foresee.

The reason I'm stressing out more than usual is that my insurance is ending Friday. My new insurance is with Tri-care which is a little complicated. I have an appointment March 4 to get into the system and then I have another appointment March 8 with a primary care manager to refer me to see the doctors I'm already seeing. It's a weird system but its what I have to work with. Essentially if I don't get my class and meters this week I may not get them until mid-March around week 32.

I've explained this to my doctor's office and they say they get it and will make sure I get in this week. The nurse gave me the number of the coordinator who should be calling me and told me to ring her up if I don't hear from her by Wednsday. Wednesday? That seems so far away. I have no reason to disbelieve them when they say they'll get me in this week, they're always efficient, but the stress of feeling like its very late in the game to start addressing GD, and wondering if the diet I'm doing is right, and worrying about my upcoming insurance gap is all giving me a major headache.

If you made it this far into the vent, thanks for listening. Just feeling a bit like my hands are tied behind my back. Am I making too much of the GD diagnosis? If I am, please tell me. I really am okay with watching what I eat- I've done South Beach in the past and I'm used to it. I'm just scared of what can happen if my best efforts aren't working as time continues to tick.