blackmoondog

I composed this timeline after getting the first positive test but before the second (which you saw in the picture).

That'll teach me to lament that all my squash is small. It seems like overnight they went from teeny to humongous. I see zucchini bread in my near future. Lots of zucchini bread.

This is what we picked last night:

And here's to show the scale:

I finally took some pics of my current crochet/knitting projects.

First up is the third and final installment of the Family Afghan Triumverate (one and two can be seen here and here, respectively). This is the "Stunning Stripes" afghan from Book 3 of Afghans For All Seasons using Red Heart acrylic yarn. It is the Christmas 2005 gift for my mother-in-law (it's not late until Christmas 2006!! :). Socrates kindly made a cameo appearance in this pic.

Next up, we have my Very First Sock! Whenever someone asks what I'm making and I say "a sock", the next thing is always "Oh, are you making baby socks?". No way! Babies lose their socks all the time! I'm making socks for *me*. :) That said, I probably will make some baby socks somewhere along the line. Just not as my first pair. I'm using the free pattern from elann.com for the Sock It To Me toe up plain socks. Toe up sock knitting appeals to me because I don't really know how long I want the socks to be. Here's a pic of the sock as of last night with a cameo by Kira.

The OB office I went to recently went through a split so now instead of having 3 OBs and 3 midwives in the practice, there are 2 OBs practicing separately and one OB backing the 3 midwives. My original OB is working on her own now so while my first prenatal appointment was with the nurse practitioner, it was made clear that I would have to decide who I wanted to go with for the second visit and beyond.

I initially chose that particular practice because I had been looking into birth options in the area that didn't make me a slave to some doctor's routine medical procedures. This particular group of midwives had been highly recommended by a co-worker of Mark's, as they were then expecting their *7th* baby and they used various local midwives for all of their births, IIRC. Because of the strong recommendation from them and the statement by our doula that they're very good (a good sign since she keeps tabs on the local birthing scene) and my apprehension about having an OB who doesn't have any backup, I decided to follow the practice with the midwives + 1 OB (which still only has one actual doctor but he's not the one and only person in the practice that can attend the birth).

In any case, my second prenatal visit was July 10th with one of the midwives. We heard the heartbeat which triggered the going public with the pregnancy news and I got the results from the bazillion tests run the month before at my first visit. Everything looked good until I asked for my thyroid (TSH) number. 3.71. Taken over a month before. While technically still in the "normal" range for this particular lab, it was too close to hypothyroid for my liking. Because of my background with thyroid problems and PCOS, the midwife suggested I see an endocrinologist (something I'd been meaning to do for *months* anyway) and went right then to call the *only* one in SLO county (who she saw for thyroid problems as well).

Somehow a miracle occurred and the endocrinologist (who normally has a 3-4 month wait) saw me *after hours*, a week and a half later (July 19th). This is probably due to the fact that I was pregnant, headed back toward hypothyroid, had a family history of type 2 diabetes, and a very high risk for gestational diabetes (because of the insulin resistance component of PCOS). I left her office with 140 100mcg doses of my thyroid meds (up from the 75mcg I was taking), a standing order for a monthly thyroid check, a glucose monitor, a bunch of test strips, and a grocery bag full of lancets (the poky bits). I'm supposed to test my blood sugar first thing in the morning and then 2hrs after breakfast, lunch, & dinner so we can get a baseline of where things are now and get an early warning should they start heading toward gestational diabetes land. The nurse also explained why babies of GD mothers get so big. My insulin doesn't cross the placenta but the extra glucose that I can't process does so the baby has access to more fuel and grows faster (bigger) than normal.

The testing is kinda annoying but hurts less than I expected. I was dreading it feeling like the finger prick you get at the blood bank when they check to see if you have enough iron. Thankfully, it is much less painful than that. I'm finally getting the hang of getting it right the first time. Thus far, my readings have all been pretty good except for today at lunch.

It appears that I have eaten my last Pop Tart ever. About half an hour after lunch, I wanted something else to eat and decided to go for the last of the smores Pop Tarts that I bought in a moment of weakness a couple of months ago. I toasted them up, grabbed a glass of milk, and basked in their smore-y goodness. And then, my blood sugar revolted. My stomach felt like total crap (still does 3hrs later) and I could not stay awake. I ended up going to bed until the alarm went off for my post lunch glucose test. It was 132. The highest I'd gotten before that for a 2hrs-post-meal test was 106. Well-managed blood sugar is supposed to stay under 120. If the indigestion wasn't already enough on its own, the idea that I could be fueling the growth of a King Kong-like fetus banging on the walls of its tiny uterine prison is strong enough image to keep Pop Tarts out of my life, at least for the next 6 months if not for good.

Our volunteer tomato plant (I think it is the Stupice variety) has a ton of fruit. There was finally enough to make our first batch of salsa. Mark is currently chopping up tomatoes, onion, jalapeno, cilantro, & garlic. In about 5 minutes we filled the green colander with ripe tomatoes.

The plant that I actually *intended* to use for salsa making turns out to be an imposter! The container said it was a roma variety but this is definitely *not* a roma:

I'm really just glad that it looks like we're gonna have a decent turnout this year. The past several seasons have been really disappointing tomato-wise.