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Week 25
~ Dietitian Appointment
More landlord woes this week! My parents arrived Tuesday and my dad was able to fix the water pipe without a problem. Unfortunately the landlady had been by the house that morning and tried to water the grass, but found all the water had been turned off to the inside and outside of the house. Now that means she entered the house without our permission! She demanded to know why the water was turned off and started accusing me of ruining her lawn by not watering it. Then we got a call later from the daughter who was upset that something needed fixing, and we hadn't notified her. As a tenant the way I see it is we broke something so we get someone in to fix it.
This was just the start of a whole mess with the new landlady and her daughter. I'm afraid my suspicions were right. And as far as ruining the yard is concerned, even in the recent heat wave we've had a mere one week of not watering a lawn which will not cause the entire lawn to die. Yes her lawn is brown, but that is because it doesn't have any grass in it. The lawn is green weeds and brown wild grass! The "grass" she has is rye grass, a wild short grass that is green in the winter and brown in the summer. The lawn had also obviously not been mowed in weeks so I asked when the gardener was coming. I also said that I was not aware that watering was my responsibility because she said the gardener would "take care of everything". I said that now that I knew he wasn't coming that often I would water the lawn. When the gardener finally did come on Friday I asked him how often he comes and what he does. He said he is a good gardener, but she didn't hire him to take care of everything. She pays him peanuts and he only mows the lawn every two weeks. He said he told her a year ago she needed to fully re-sod the lawn and he said should there ever be an issue about me "ruining" the lawn that he would stick up for me and report the condition when we arrived. I am a little worried about the yard now. In the lease it does state that there is a gardener and that the gardener is the landlady's responsibility so if she tries to keep our deposit because we haven't trimmed the bushes or something I will fight it! I did say to the daughter that I cannot take care of the trees and bushes aside from just watering them, nor can I mow the lawn in-between when the "gardener" comes. I do not have the proper gardening tools and even if I did I have nowhere to store them unless they give us access to the garage. I cannot keep the required tools in the house with two young children. She agreed with me on that, but I still worry that she will hold our deposit against us when we move out because we "ruined" the yard.
There have been more points of annoyance with the landladies, but hopefully most will be cleared up with a letter we are writing. I have asked the daughter to come by for a walk-through as well. Hopefully this will sort some things out and at the very least the letter will offer some protection to me should they try to keep our $3000 for the damages that were already here when we moved in. I was so hoping things would be different. We have had such an awful landlord for the past three years and this is not a good start with the new one!
Other than this mess I have been enjoying having my parents here. Tommy didn't take long at all to warm up to his grandparents! By the end of the first day he was smothering them in hugs and kisses. In the mornings he is a real grandpa's boy, but in the evenings it is all grandma. She takes him after his bath and cuddles him, dresses him and rocks him to sleep most nights.
I saw the dietician on Wednesday. Unfortunately it did not go well. I think she basically saw a woman of my size and made lots of assumptions about my lifestyle! The appointment started off on a bad note when she weighed me. She read my weight out loud and then when I was putting back on my shoes she for some odd reason repeated my weight just as another male patient was walking by! She went over my current diet and demanded I tell her exact amounts and times of when I ate every meal. I tried to explain that I eat when I'm hungry and graze a lot throughout the day when my son is hungry, that we have no set schedule, but she demanded I give her exact times. She quizzed me on how often we eat out (almost never), order take-out (occasionally - but more often when I'm pregnant because of my food aversions), fast-food, junk food, desserts, etc. She didn't seem to believe me when I said that I rarely have real desserts. I will often have yogurt or fruit. She asked how many servings of vegetables I eat in a day and I said on a bad day maybe only one, but usually about five. She then shoved a measuring cup at me and stated, "A serving is a whole cup. You're telling me YOU eat FIVE of these a day?" I said yes and she looked like she didn't believe me. She then started explaining the diet to me. She told me to eat every two hours throughout the day. At breakfast I have to eat 30g of carbohydrates and some protein. I cannot have milk or yogurt (cheese is ok) or any fruit because they tend to cause more of a sugar change and in the AM you are more sensitive. Then for a snack I need to eat another 30g of carbohydrates and 1-2 proteins. Then two hours later it is lunch where I should eat 45g of carbohydrates and 2-3 or more proteins. Two hours after that I need to have a snack, again 30g of carbohydrates and 1-2 proteins. After two more hours it is another snack with the same, then two more hours and dinner with 45g of carbohydrates and 2-3 or more proteins. Then I need to have at least one more snack before bed with another 30g of carbohydrates and at least one protein. I am allowed no fruits after dinner as that can have an effect on my morning fasting level. I can have unlimited amounts of vegetables which she assured me I would need anyway so I could keep my hunger levels down. I also need to have a certain amount of fat at each meal, but she warned me against the bad fats like butter because it is "very bad for diabetics". I asked how that was so when fats do not affect your sugar levels and she replied saying that my higher cholesterol put me at a greater risk for heart disease and how butter can make that cholesterol even worse. It was at this moment that I informed her that my cholesterol is only 120! In the past I have had issues with my cholesterol being too low and my doctor had told me to eat real butter not margarine! She then stammered out something about the breakdown of triglycerides being important as well and I informed her that my HDL level was excellent and so were my triglycerides. I had just had a physical this past September. This just further confirmed that she had made all kinds of assumptions about my diet and lifestyle and medical history by simply judging my weight! She also repeatedly mentioned how it was important for me "at my weight" to not gain too much weight through this pregnancy. That fifteen pounds was the most I should gain. I should have said "Oh good! That means I can gain twenty-seven pounds now since I have already lost twelve!" Can you tell I don't like this dietician?
I followed her diet for the rest of the day and felt ill the entire day! The next day I saw my midwife and she adjusted the diet. She first of all said that she doesn't even consider me to have gestational diabetes, but I am on the borderline so it can't hurt to follow a gestational diabetes diet though. The way I had been eating was not good for someone who has mild sugar intolerances. The idea behind making me eat carbohydrates evenly throughout the day was to stimulate my body to make more insulin. What happens in pregnancy is that the placenta produces a hormone that interferes with your body's ability to use insulin. A pregnant woman actually needs to make more insulin to make up for this. Some women are not able to meet this demand and it is these women that have "gestational diabetes". When the placenta is delivered after birth the need for extra insulin goes away and these women typically no longer have problems with tolerating sugar. Unfortunately about 50% of women who have gestations diabetes will develop type II diabetes later in life. It isn't the gestational diabetes that causes type II; it is because they were predestined to have issues with sugar intolerances. At least this is the way it was explained to me. The midwife explained that by eating carbohydrates frequently and eating even amounts throughout the day it forces my body to keep producing insulin. For this reason she recommends having a few crackers with some peanut butter or cheese in the middle of the night when I wake up to pee. Often not eating for long periods actually causes you to make less insulin the next time you eat. I had not been eating well from a sugar level perspective. I rarely eat breakfasts because eating first thing in the morning has always made me feel ill. I also tend not to eat carbohydrates at every meal. A typical lunch for me would be a spinach souffle or an artichoke. My midwife modified my diet to include around half the carbohydrates at my snacks and she also said I can eat less often. She said as long as I go no longer than four hours it is fine. I felt much better after following the midwife's version of the diet and my sugars were the same. I am still frustrated with the diet because I am constantly feeling too full and I don't eat as many vegetables and fruits as I want. I tend to want fruit in the AM and for dessert and I am not allowed it at those times. At meals and snacks I have to eat a certain amount of carbohydrates and protein and by the time I finish that I have no room for vegetables. I'm really starting to miss them and I'm worried that I'm not getting the nutrition I should be. The only good thing about this is my IBS is pretty much completely in control. I had feared that I would be put on a low carbohydrate diet, but instead I was actually told to increase my carbohydrates and by decreasing the vegetables I am actually having less problems.
The rest of my midwife appointment went well. The baby's heartbeat is nice and strong and my mother started crying when she heard it! She had never listened to her baby's heartbeats and had never had an ultrasound so it was completely new to her. The midwife kept the Doppler on a good long time so my mom could really hear her little grandbaby. It was so sweet to see my mom's reaction. I asked when I would get to meet the OB in the practice and my midwife suggested I see her for the next appointment, so in three weeks I will finally get to meet her. I trust that she is as wonderful as my midwife says she is. She must be to have the same philosophies on birth as my midwife.
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