Second trimester

Second trimester started off with a good note. The doctors at  the HRP unit assured me that since  I was not overweight, diabetic or hypertensive my  prognosis was good. When I think about it now, I can only laugh and say "Well, you were so naive!". The second trimester threw in completely unknown and unfathomable challenges on our face. 

Since, I was on corticosteroids (which predispose you diabetes)  my gynaecologist asked me to go in for an early OGTT (Oral  Glucose tolerance test: to screen for gestational diabetes and normally done at 6 months of pregnancy) at 4 months, as an act of caution . An overnight fasting , gulp of 500 ml of sickeningly sweet liquid,  2 hours of immobility and 3 pokes  later, I was a confirmed diabetic. To say I was shattered is an understatement. All my life, I did Yoga, swam twice a week even during pregnancy, ate well and I-GOT-DIABETES??  Holy cow, where was my life rolling? Gaining weight was already a herculean task and now I had to control my diet! My doctor was so unhappy with the values that she asked me to take it again. Oh well, all the sweetness in my blood decided to concentrate even further this time around to give sky rocketing values. So, here I was officially a diabetic and one till today.

Remember the HR in MHH (not human resource, the  high risk pregnancy Dept)? They hurled in a diabetologist  to my list of doctors. The young chap asked me to take the horrible OGTT again. Apparently, hospitals do not trust the OGTT done in private clinics! And take this, the values in this particular test were all over the place resulting me taking the test 4th time (in comparison to other lucky pregnant ladies who take it only once). Additionally, I was asked to poke myself and monitor my sugar values 8 times per day for the next 7 days and then come and meet him again. As expected, the values  were as high as an excited electron. So it was decided that I would be put on insulin and the nutritionist would tell me what to eat. Unfortunately, no matter how religiously I controlled my food intake, every S.I.N.G.L.E thing raised my sugar levels. Dairy would make them do tango, grains were already a problem and fruits were a forbidden dream. Every day, I would wake up thinking what to eat, since avocado and eggs could not be my only source of nutrition for the next 5 months. Pregnancy throws you one opportunity to crave, enjoy food and eat galore. And here I was counting calories and punching my figures before and after every meal. Destiny also threw in some stomach ulcers as a return gift for hoarding medicines in my system year after years.

All this coincided with the most horrific and massive Uveitis episode I got for that year. I sat in a dark room for days since even a tiny ray of light felt like a bomb in my eyes. Poor husband sat in darkness too (really he is the best thing that has ever happened to me). Since, the doctors had reached the upper limit of  recommended steroid dose, they decided to try intraocular injections. The first injection in the eyes locally anaesthetized them  and the one that followed inserted an implant containing Triamcinolone Acetonide (a potent and long lasting corticosteriod) intravitrealy. The injections in practicality were not as painful as the thought of taking them. However, a fiery red eye due to subconjunctival haemorrhage and the drug floating in my eyes like a Mother Diary milk pouch definitely made me look like a scary drunk.

Nevertheless, Husband and me went through all this with élan, as long as our baby was  fine. But all hell broke loose when our baby stopped growing. I still remember that awful day. It was a typical dark and grey Hannover day and one of those when I went alone to see my doctor. After my scan she had a look of worry I was already familiar with. I felt a time bomb starting to tick inside me. She explained that our boy looked very thin and had dropped way below his original percentile. Moreover,  the levels of Amniotic Fluid were far below the threshold which was hard to imagine since I drank water like a buffalo (I later learned, drinking water does not influence the levels). She referred me again to my old friends at HR, MHH for a second opinion. They did some additional Doppler scans. The blood flow through baby's umbilical cord and my placenta was fine, but there was abnormal vascular resistance in one of the Uterine arteries. This time I knew the reason why. Since, I had never smoked, drank alcohol or doped, ate well and  exercised regularly, I was the ideal candidate to be hypertensive in my uterus and relay my baby an unexplained IUGR (Intrauterine Growth Restriction: A condition where fetal growth slows down or stops in womb) . 

It's hard to explain the feeling when you realise  that your baby is better outside than inside you. I wanted to be really sad, dig my face inside a pillow and scream. But our little one was doing such a kickass job of beating the overwhelming odds each day that I denied myself any mourning. I knew that if I would fight for him , he would fight harder.