Bad Attitude, QID

I truly do know that there are a zillion worse things, and I still have plenty of blessings to be counting, but I also can't help but notice that gestational diabetes sucks. S-uh-cks.

I am very fortunate not to have a thing about needles or other minor pokings of sharp objects into my flesh. (I'd kind of thought that was a characteristic of all nurses, but working on Wright 10, I learned I was wrong. Some of my co-workers dreaded their flu shot for weeks before managing to force themselves to get it.) Strangely, doing the four-times-a-day fingersticks to test my blood sugar has actually gotten harder rather than easier, though. I still don't hate it or obsess about it, but I'm noticing the distinct beginnings of a build-up of resentment of the nasty poker thingy--um, lancet device--and all related paraphernalia.

My blood sugars have mostly been in target range, which is good, but somehow I still seem to view the glucometer (a One-Touch Ultra, a thoroughly unobjectionable little navy blue instrument the approximate size and shape of a largish skipping stone) as my enemy. I test, as instructed, when I wake up in the morning and two hours after meals. It's really not that onerous a process, and Pete has pointed out that the technology is actually pretty cool. To me, though, the cunning little gizmo can do no right. I test my 2-hour post-prandial level, and the little screen flashes a very satisfactory 97, say. "Yeah, well," I snarl silently at it, "what did you expect when I never eat anything good?" But on those few occasions when I've overdone the carbs a bit, and the little gray screen, in perfect judgment-free deadpan, flashes 138, I think, "oh, shut the hell up, it was just soup with fucking potatoes and barley in it for godssake, leave me alone."

A diet of predominantly low-glycemic index foods makes eating frankly not so much fun. I get weary of trying to think up something okay to eat. I do eat meat when I'm pregnant, so that expands the options a bit, but I'm afraid I've reached the point where meat is just tedious. Pete has now twice very kindly made with his own two hands (and bottles of worcestershire and soy sauce) big batches of beef jerky in the oven. It's delicious, but there's only so far you can go on beef jerky. I spent eleven stupid dollars on a pound and a half of almonds to roast with tamari on them. They were good, but they're gone now. I'm sick of eggs, I'm sick of cheese. There are these low-carb tortillas that are good with peanut butter, though one really can't eat too much of that. And I still like vegetables but have a hard time preparing enough. I'm just too cranky and disgruntled. Well, and tired. I've been struggling with some pretty hard-core fatigue lately. There are times when I get winded and have to sit down just from walking around the house.

One major problem with eating not being much fun is that I seem not to eat enough. I was kind of appalled to discover, at my last midwife appointment, that at a time I'm supposed to be gaining in the neighborhood of a half to one pound per week, I'd actually lost 5 pounds since my visit two weeks previous. Meanwhile, some of the things you read about gestational diabetes actually talk about being careful not to get too much fat in your diet, to which I have been responding with impolite gestures in the direction of the page and dark mutterings about where the hell do you want me to get my calories, then?

Something I haven't noticed, to my surprise, is any particular difficulty in keeping myself from eating sugar, white flour, potatoes. I'll have two bites of Cassie's suppertime pasta, or a large spoonful of Pete's potato salad in the fridge, but I'm not really even tempted to take more. I guess it must just not feel worth it.

Despite that, though, I do seem to be feeling deprived at some level, because I've developed this ridiculously acute awareness of all mentions and instantiations of simpler carbohydrates. Watching an episode of Law & Order, I see Vincent D'Onofrio and Katherine Erbe sweep into a coffee shop to interview somebody about a dastardly crime, and through the whole scene, I can't hear what they're saying, because I can't take my eyes off the platters of really handsome pastry on the counter at the far left side of the screen. Pete, a Red Sox fan of very longstanding, mentions that the team has just signed Coco Crisp as a center fielder, and I immediately get vivid sense memories of all the sugar cereals I've ever loved. (Even the kind of mediocre ones, truthfully--I could so go for a big bowl of Golden Grahams...) Cassie and I go to the playground, and she's climbing on some curved bars she's taken to calling "the big pretzel," and despite the fact that said structure is cold, metal, and painted blue, I find myself off into a reverie about fresh, warm, yeasty homemade soft pretzels with the lovely gritty kosher salt clinging to the brushed-on egg coating.

All of which of course makes me think about the people who are faced with diabetes not for a wimpy two months but for their whole damned lives. Negotiating diet and blood sugar testing and exercise and medications, day in and day out, week in and week out, year in and year out. Almost makes me want to be a little less cranky and pissed off.

Almost.