Mari Walker

My experience with gestational diabetes wasn’t all bad, although I certainly wish it hadn’t been so long. Because I was diagnosed at 17 weeks and my pregnancy lasted nearly 42 weeks, I tested my blood sugar and maintained a strict diet for 25 weeks, or more than six months. It was so long that I completely filled the tracking log and had to make my own pages for the last few weeks. Good grief. During labor, my blood sugar was tested every six hours. I didn’t have regular food intake, so the tests weren’t timed to two hours after eating. In fact, the numbers were usually higher than the 120 two hours after eating limit that I’d stuck to for those six months. Hearing the higher numbers stressed me out, but they were fine because they could be explained by juice or other intake. And I think they were testing more to be sure I didn’t bottom out. Read the rest at Woman's Hospital's "Life Among Women" blog . (Called Mommy-Go-Round when first published.)

What a difference nearly four and a half years of parenting experience makes. Bringing home our second daughter has been very different from our first. With my first baby, I was meticulous with writing things down. For the first six weeks of her life, I wrote down every nursing session – side and time – and every wet and dirty diaper. It started in the hospital and so seemed important, and I like data so I kept that notebook up-to-date. I finally stopped because we were traveling for Christmas and it was too hard to keep up with it while visiting and staying away from home. Read the rest on Woman's Hospital's "Life Among Women" blog . (Called Mommy-Go-Round when first published.)

Before I was pregnant with my second daughter, I read a book called “ The Wife ,” and copied down this quote: “Whenever I was nursing, I felt as if there was nothing else in the world I needed to be doing. It didn’t matter to me in those moments that I had no career of my own, no standing in the world. I was a nursing mother, and that was all I had to be.” The book wasn’t that great, and I certainly don’t feel like I have no standing in the world or career of my own. But I loved this quote because being a nursing mother was so important to my identity as a mother when my first daughter was small. It’s proving to be true for my younger daughter as well. Read the rest on Woman's Hospital's "Life Among Women" blog . (Called Mommy-Go-Round when first published.)

Both my daughters had jaundice, a condition in which the baby’s blood contains too much bilirubin and makes her skin and eyes appear yellow. My older daughter’s jaundice resolved itself on its own, but my younger daughter born at the end of March had a more severe case. She had a lot of risk factors – exclusively breastfed, larger baby (born 10 lbs, 8 oz.) and our blood types were incompatible, which seemed to be the thing that worried the pediatrician the most. Read the rest at Woman's Hospital's "Life Among Women" blog . (Was called Mommy-Go-Round when originally published.)

Despite everything stacking up against my desire for a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) – previous big baby, ultrasound estimating an even bigger baby, being overdue and having gestational diabetes – I was ultimately successful and delivered my second daughter vaginally. I knew I was having a big baby. My first was 9 lbs, 10 oz, and ultrasounds late in the pregnancy were predicting an 11+ lb second baby. I knew in my heart that she wasn’t quite that big, especially given my strict diet and lack of weight gain (thanks, gestational diabetes!). Read the rest at Woman's Hospital's Life Among Women blog . (Called Mommy-Go-Round when first published.) 

Our four-year-old daughter is very excited about becoming a big sister, and she’s maintained a very positive attitude about the new baby since we told her around week 12 of the pregnancy. (We didn’t tell anyone else before her, since it impacts her more than pretty much anyone else.) It’s good that we’re expecting another girl, since she suggested we just “pretend it’s a girl baby if we have a boy baby.” So far my daughter hasn’t been around many babies, but when she is she loves them. We also haven’t had much reason to visit the hospital, so we knew that the sibling preparation class at Woman’s Hospital would be a great idea. We signed up for the A Baby is Coming class a couple months before our due date. Read the rest on Woman's Hospital's "Life Among Women" blog . (Called Mommy-Go-Round when published.)

As I am rounding the bend to the end of this pregnancy and my experience with gestational diabetes (and hopefully diabetes all together – unless I should ever become pregnant again), I find myself wanting a cookie more than ever. Both literally and metaphorically. I have worked very hard to maintain my blood glucose levels, and so far my readings have been well managed with diet and exercise. I can’t speak to the experience of insulin-controlled diabetes or how that changes things, but my experience with diet-controlled GD has produced an obsession with food and eating, although hopefully it’s improved my relationship to see food more as simply fuel. But I’ll be honest, I still have carb and sweets cravings and know it would be a slippery slope to falling back into the food-as-comfort attitude I’ve had most of my life. Read the rest on Woman's Hospital's "Life Among Women" blog . (Called Mommy-Go-Round when first published.)