Oh, baby

This is a test to see how many people read our blog.

Franzen baby #3 should be joining us in April. I haven't been too eager to tell people because I've had...some issues, including a miscarriage earlier this year, some early bleeding this time around, and a high a1c (3-month glucose) test. After that test, they sent me to the Diabetes Center, where I found out that by high, my test was 5.7 when they want it to be 5.6 or less, and the nurse told me right away that many factors can influence the test, including stress, which I have experienced a bit of over the past several months. Normally, a 5.7 would mean I would be in the very bottom of the pre-diabetes range and they would tell me to watch my diet and exercise more often, but I wasn't getting off that easy.  I was presented with a glucose meter and instructed to test my blood sugar four times a day, test my urine for ketones every morning, count carbs, write down everything I eat, and come back once a month. I also had to meet with a nutritionist, which was a pointless waste of time. She gave me some ridiculous sounding advice, like encouraging me to  eat unlimited amounts of cheese and to buy Nature Valley protein bars for snacks. I've been testing my blood sugar for almost three weeks now and every single reading has been well within the normal range.

It seems unfair that I should be the one who has to deal with this. I'm the healthy one. I've been eating brown rice and steel cut oats for years. I get made fun of for eating scrambled eggs and sauteed kale for breakfast. I pin recipes like this while my sisters are busy pinning recipes like this and this and this. I'm the one who doesn't buy fruit snacks or juice for her poor, deprived children. And yet, here I am, having just pricked my finger for the third time today. The pharmacist and I are on a first name basis.

I've been trying to see the positive, and so far I have found one positive in all this:  when I had to show up for jury duty this morning, I told the judge I was pregnant and had periods of nausea and faintness and that I had to eat every 2-3 hours and test my blood sugar an hour after every meal. He kindly excused me from the two-week murder trial they were preparing for. Thank you, plum-sized fetus.

Hopefully all this fuss really is over nothing and leads to the safe arrival of Lauren's long anticipated little sister (I'm 95% sure it's a girl). She keeps patting my stomach and telling me she can't believe there's really a baby in there. Sometimes I can't believe it either, but the frequent headaches, aversion to vegetables, and waves of dizziness make it more real. Anyway, it's been three hours since lunch, and I must go have a protein rich snack to appease the masses who are watching over me.