Last night was my Diabetes Education class. I was going to blog about it last night when it was all fresh in my mind, but my class was from 6:30-8:30pm, clear on the other side of Portland and I had to stop at the store on the way home for some groceries so I could actually attempt to follow my new diet (I’ll get more into that in a bit). By the time I got home it was all I could do to change into pajamas before falling asleep. It was a looooong day.

So I managed to find my class and being the over-achiever that I am, arrived a little early. I walked into this fairly ghetto looking clinic only to find that aside from the teacher (and someone who was being trained to teach this class) I was the only one there. At first I was thinking maybe I was earlier than I thought or, worse yet, that I was in the wrong place. But they quickly assured me I was in the right place, it was just that I was the only one enrolled in this class. I was actually pretty excited about this because it meant I got a one-on-one with the dietician and could ask any questions I had, no matter how stupid they may be.

Overall, I would have to say the class was pretty helpful. As a frequent Internet user (Google, anyone?) and a first-time mother who reads anything on pregnancy she can get her hands on, a lot of the stuff was review. I mean who doesn’t jump online to look something up the minute you are diagnosed? So since I was the only one in class, we got to skip over a lot of the basics and get into the nitty-gritty. They provided me with my own Medisense Precision Xtra glucometer and taught me all about testing my own glucose levels. Surprisingly, I have to test my blood four (!!) times a day. Once first thing in the morning to get a fasting level, then two hours after each of my main meals (breakfast, lunch & dinner). So my little glucometer (it is actually quite cute-I will have to post a picture later since I can’t find a good link to it online) pretty much travels with me all day long. I just have to actually remember to use it!

Then we jumped into the diet portion of the class. I know how to eat healthy, as I have done diets in the past, but learning to eat to balance my blood sugar is going to take a little bit of work. There are some pretty zany rules specific to gestational diabetes (such as no fruit before lunch) due to the ever popular raging pregnancy hormones. There are some, in my opinion, contradictory rules (I can only have 8 oz of milk at a time, yet I can eat endless amounts of cheese) that are going to take some getting use to. For now I just have to stick to my diet book and become best friends with my measuring cups (and, sadly, measuring spoons) for portion control.

I also have to keep a food journal as well as a glucose journal to see how my diet correlates to my blood sugar levels. Then next Monday I have a follow-up with the dietician to see how well I did and if anything needs to be adjusted. At this point it is looking like I might get bumped up to a little bigger food allowance since my blood sugar has been pretty low. But I guess that is better than too high. Then again, maybe not. I don’t know. Eeee.