In general all the stories women shared on the show reflect on Roe in part because they show how challenging pregnancy can be both physically and mentally even when pregnancy is highly sought after. That’s one of the major take homes from this podcast real women sharing their actual experiences and hopefully contributing to a more realistic narrative around pregnancy and birth. And today’s story is very much in this vein. My guest today walked into pregnancy unsure about whether she wanted to have a child. Ultimately she and her partner decided they did. She ran into gestational diabetes which effected how she felt about the pregnancy and her ability to control her blood sugar, and had a significant impact on the delivery, which happened in late fall of 2019, so she also had to contend with a six month old when the first lockdown happened. She and her partner managed it all and now are enjoying their 2 and a half year old.
To find Tabitha’s writing, click here, here and here…or search for her on the web
Gestational Diabetes
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3120181/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3542067/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4290225/
The Placenta in Pregnancy wrt GD
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK1668/
https://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/455904
GD and preeclampsia
https://www.everydayhealth.com/gestational-diabetes/gestational-diabetes-and-preclampsia.aspx
Induction and Breastfeeding
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378378216302122
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0889854517301158
https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/bfm.2017.0012
Audio Transcript
Paulette: Hi, welcome to war stories from the womb. I’m your host, Paulette kamenecka. I’m an economist and a writer and the mother of two girls. A few things to mention before we get going. First, this episode is late, because COVID essentially grounded me for the better part of two weeks that I’m recovering and episodes will roll out on a regular schedule again, starting now. Second, since the last episode, Roe v Wade was overturned. I still have too much rage about this outcome to talk about it. But in future episodes, we’ll address this specifically. In general all the stories women shared on the show reflect on Roe in part because they show how challenging pregnancy can be both physically and mentally even when pregnancy is highly sought after. That’s one of the major take homes from this podcast real women sharing their actual experiences and hopefully contributing to a more realistic narrative around pregnancy and birth. And today’s story is very much in this vein. My guest today walked into pregnancy unsure about whether she wanted to have a child. Ultimately she and her partner decided they did. She ran into gestational diabetes which effected how she felt about the pregnancy and her ability to control her blood sugar, and had a significant impact on the delivery, which happened in late fall of 2019, so she also had to contend with a six month old when the first lockdown happened. She and her partner managed it all and now are enjoying their 2 and a half year old.
Let’s get to this inpsiring story
Hi, thanks so much for coming on the show. Can you introduce yourself and tell us where you’re from?
Tabitha: My name is Tabitha Blankenbuehler. I’m an essayist I live outside of Portland, Oregon.
P: So nice. Well, let’s go back before children for the very start. You grew up with siblings?
T: I did. Yeah, I’m the oldest obviously she had a brother and a sister. My sister was three years younger than me. And my brother was nine years younger than me. So he was kind of like, you know, I sort of got that mothering experience a little more with him. And still think of him as like a child.
P: Yeah, my sister is eight years older than me and her little nickname in my email is kiddo. So I’m with you. And so we were just talking about before we went to tape, the fact that for a lot of people growing up in a house with siblings makes them think, oh, I want a family. I’m definitely gonna have kids. And it sounds like for you that was not the case. So why don’t you tell us what your experience was?
T: Right? Yeah. I mean, I had, you know, a really great childhood. My parents were loving, supportive people. You know, the kind of people that you would say, okay, they were like born to be parents. I guess. For me. It wasn’t so much that I was that I didn’t have a good childhood that I wanted to recreate or anything like that. It was just sort of that I saw how much time and how all encompassing. Parenting was especially, you know, for my mom and I just didn’t want to do that. Like I wanted to do other things. I wanted to be a writer and you know, I had a bunch of other things I wanted to do be president and all these things. I really wanted to take precedence over having a family and I also kind of thought, you know, well, my family is really great. I don’t need more.
P: Yeah, yeah, yeah
T: I have, I have what I need. So also, when I was growing up, I just didn’t really like you know, I was an oldest child and I was very stereotypically the oldest child. You know, I was like, best friends with my teachers. Oh, all the adults around me and people pleaser and all those sorts of very boilerplate things. So I didn’t like kids. I had a hard time with other kids. I just didn’t relate to people my age. So I think there was that too, but just that I don’t like kids, even though I am one. I don’t want to be I can’t wait to not be one anymore. So
P: Well, I think seeing your mother in that way is wildly insightful. So maybe you were just kind of ahead of the curve there. And I for sure have you know, most people don’t know how they’re going to jack in a child to their existing life. And, and a lot of people, myself included, just kind of threw my hands like up, people figure it out. I assume I’ll be one of them. But it seems to me very smart to look at that and say Holy shit, that’s a lot of time. I can do other things. Right. And now that you’re on the other side, right, you’re right. It is time consuming. Yeah. So how did you move from the I don’t like kids. I don’t want kids to look I’m pregnant.
T: Yeah, it was, you know, really unexpected. Journey, I suppose. So, in 2018, I was on the end of my book tour I was doing I was completely absorbed in that in the writing pursuit and everything. And towards the end of my book tour, I realized I was you know, a few days late on my period, and being very obsessive about everything. I just took a pregnancy test. I figured, oh, well, there’s no way that I’m pregnant. I’m on birth control, blah, blah, blah. And it I took it in my office bathroom, and it was positive. Yeah. And, you know, completely threw me for a loop. It was the last thing I was expecting. And my first instinct was that I didn’t want to have a child and I wasn’t going to keep this pregnancy. So I went in and talked to the doctors at Planned Parenthood. I had caught the pregnancy super early, just because of being so conscientious about my schedule. They wouldn’t have been able to do an effective procedure at that time. And so when I just kind of sat and thought about it for a while, you know, it just sort of gave me the opportunity to react in a way that I didn’t expect because my initial reaction is I don’t want to do this, which is a completely valid response.
P: Totally, especially especially when you’re on birth control, right? Yeah. This was not my intention, right?
T: No, no, and we totally wasn’t and I think we always kind of said, my husband and I, well, maybe when we feel like the time is right, like, you know, whatever the hell that means. means nothing. Yeah. Yeah, the longer I kind of just sat and thought, I realized, maybe this is something that I want to do. I sort of feel a connection to this pregnancy that I didn’t expect to have and you know, I’m just I’m feeling a way. I didn’t know I’d feel. So we had a discussion and we decided that we were going to keep it and was we were really excited. And then a few days later, I had a miscarriage, which is super common in those early pregnancies, but you know, it was devastating as it is in any stage in a pregnancy. So after recovering from that a little bit, we still wanted to try and we still wanted to go down that path that had been presented to us. So we did and fortunately, we were pregnant a few months later.
P: So it sounds like it was easy to get pregnant the second time.
T: It was
P: good.
T: Yeah.
P: So that’s great. That’s one hurdle over. And then this time, you’re excited to check the pregnancy tests, I’m assuming.
T: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Super excited. My big reveal my husband had to go to work trip to Arizona when I was able to take the pregnancy test. So I was flying down to visit him while he was working. And so it took the pregnancy test and my carry on, and I wrapped it up in a little plastic bag. And I picked up In & Out on the way to the airport and I put it in the bag with the double double is like the happy meal price. So yeah, we it was it was all a big party. We were really excited.
P: That’s a cute reveal. So that’s exciting. And then what’s the first trimester like
T: first trimester was pretty good for me. As far as you know, I didn’t get very sick and I didn’t have a lot of problems. The complications for me started to start about I’m sure the second trimester when I had to get the gestational diabetes check. And I ended up getting diagnosed and it was a case where I couldn’t control it no matter how hard I tried with diet, you know, I counted out all my grapes and didn’t do anything that I wasn’t supposed to do, but it just like would not work which was extremely disheartening and induced a lot of guilt. Because it’s like, no matter how hard I try, no matter what I do, I can’t make my body it feels like safe for this child.
P: So there are a lot of different ways to respond to that right to some degree. Your body has already shown that it has a pretty good autopilot in that like you can get pregnant and you’re you’re pregnant and you don’t have any control over that chemistry. Right. It is what it is. But for some reason you’re feeling guilty over the gestational diabetes, which I also assume is like a chemically induced shift in your ability to process blood sugar that you also don’t really have that much control over.
T: No, no, I don’t. Nobody does.
P: Right.
T: But you know, there’s just like any sort of condition. You go and you try to find your answers. And there’s a lot of conjecture about, oh, well, maybe you should have been this weight when you got pregnant or maybe should have thought of that before. Your parents had diabetes are all these all of these things that make you second guess yourself?
P: Is it in your family?
T: Yeah, I have risk factors from both sides of my family, which isn’t necessarily a indication that you will get it but it does of course. Yeah. increase your chances. Yeah.
P: Well, that sounds hard. I flirted with gestational diabetes, which is to say like, I think I had to do like a week long trial where you prick your finger with a needle to measure blood glucose levels at home, which is so wildly unpleasant. I think after day three, I was like who do you say, Well, I don’t eat. There’s no reason to, you know, to scrap the whole system. So that sounds really hard to do. You have to prick yourself every day. You’re nodding yes. On paper. It’s a small thing, but in reality, I thought it was really uncomfortable from the oh my god, the middle of the second trimester.
T: Yeah, right about then yeah, I started to have to do the finger pricks. And then like I said, I couldn’t control it with the diet alone. So I started having to take insulin, and the amount of insulin I had to take just kept going up and up and up. And you know, which was also really distressing. You know, as the vile just kind of keeps like going and going and going and you have to stick it in your stomach, right? Yeah, like, I mean, obviously, I know. Like scientifically or biologically I can’t hit the baby, but it still feels like you’re just jamming it.
P: Yeah. That’s not a great visual. No, I agree.
T: No, it’s not. It’s great.
P: So we took some questions about gestational diabetes to an OB today and we’re lucky enough to have Dr. Mehta Thiago on the show a fabulous OB from California who’s got a lot of experience with these issues. So Dr. Mathis Yeah, who thanks so much for coming on.
Dr. Matityahu: Thanks so much. Paulette, I love being on your show. Great.
I’m wondering first of all, if you can just define gestational diabetes.
Dr. Matityahu: So gestational diabetes is basically elevated blood sugar in pregnancy. We test for it around 25 to 28 weeks because as the placenta develops, your placenta is basically making the insulin not function as well. And so your blood sugar’s begin to run higher, and for some women, they run high enough that you’re considered diabetic. And so if you’re someone who maybe has a family history, or borderline would become diabetic later or just isn’t following a very good diet, you’re you’re likely to have issues with managing your blood sugar later in the pregnancy because your insulin isn’t working as
well,
P: I neglected to ask them to Dr. Matityahu more about the placenta when we spoke but then I found some articles that suggested that every pregnancy independent whether you have diabetes or not, involves a placenta that churns out more hormones over the course of the pregnancy, some of which block the effects of insulin, which will lead to higher blood sugar levels, the mother’s pancreas will release more insulin but if it’s not enough to compensate for placental changes, and you can end up with gestational diabetes, although there are numerous routes to gestational diabetes. If you have that condition, your needs for insulin will grow as the pregnancy progresses because of an increase in placental hormones.
P: does it feel Like any like not the needles obviously the needles are uncomfortable, but having gestational diabetes doesn’t feel like anything.
T: No, no, you don’t feel different, but only way you’d feel different is just being hungry.
P: Okay, yeah. So once they put you on insulin, does that free up the constraints on your diet or no, then you still have to eat like, grass?
T: Yeah, yeah. They still want you to have really low numbers compared to someone that you might know in your life with diabetes, like type one or type two. The numbers that a gestational diabetic has to get to are so much lower,
P: as I understand that the numbers for gestational diabetes to qualify you as as having that condition are relatively low compared to diabetes outside of pregnancy.
Dr. Matityahu: Yes, we have very strict guidelines of where your blood sugar should be in pregnancy. And so we’re super super tight with sugar control in pregnancy and blood sugar’s that may not at all be considered diabetic for someone who’s not pregnant. We consider that diabetes in pregnancy.
P: Is that because of something that a higher level of blood sugar does to a pregnancy to a fetus?
Dr. Matityahu: Yes. So high levels of blood sugar causes high levels of sugar in the amniotic fluid in the baby’s bloodstream. And so then the baby reacts to that high sugar, high blood sugar by producing more insulin and that puts weight on the baby. So now the baby starts gaining and getting like big and so the body of the baby can get if it’s uncontrolled. So really high blood sugars that are not controlled, would cause the baby to start gaining a lot of weight. So the body of the baby gets much bigger. The baby starts peeing more and so the amniotic fluid is managed by the baby drinking and peeing. And so in a person when they have high blood sugars will drink a lot more fluids and will pee a lot more to kind of dilute the sugar in our bloodstream. The baby will do the same thing will start drinking and peeing more and that also makes the amniotic fluid start to expand because now the baby’s peeing a lot more. And so it causes weight gain on the baby increase in the amniotic fluid and and it can over time they get to like the baby’s lungs don’t develop as quickly as they should. And so it so it can cause a lot of problems with the baby. So one of the problems with the baby getting so big is the baby can get pretty large, the head can come out and now the body is way too big because the baby gained too much weight and so you get what’s called Shoulder Dystocia where the baby can get stuck.
P: So aside from all the difficulty with the needles and the food, like how are you taking this emotionally because it sounds like you’re someone who’s detail oriented. So that seems like
a lot of pressure.
T: Yeah, yeah. You know, it was sort of back to the days when I was in college and on Weight Watchers and writing down obsessively everything I ate and being really obsessive about food and yeah, it was extremely depressing just feeling like no matter how hard I tried, it wasn’t good enough and just being worried that something could go wrong. I think it’s a really common condition but a lot of people don’t really understand it. Like so many things with pregnancy. It’s like unless you’ve actually been with child you don’t know it exists. Like I had to explain it to everybody in my life.
P: Oh, that’s interesting.
I’m wondering if we know why sometimes you can control diet and sometimes you can’t.
Dr. Matityahu: We can’t predict we don’t know. What we know is if you can control your blood sugar’s by diet, or even if you’re controlling them with medication, the baby’s going to do great for women that can control it with diet. We don’t even consider them high risk. That you know you have gestational diabetes, but if it’s diet controlled, you’re a normal risk pregnancy you’re not even a high risk pregnancy. Once we give you medication, we consider it a little bit higher risk pregnancy and so we follow that pregnancy differently. Can we predict who’s going to do well with diet and who’s not? No. And a lot of times even for women like Tabitha who are incredibly meticulous in like cutting out almost all sugar in their diet and doing like the perfect combination of foods doesn’t always work. And, and yeah, and so women also will easily feel like I’ve failed because I have not been able to control how my body responds in all aspects of life. And yes, the reality is we don’t have the ability to control how our body responds in all aspects of life. And we just have to let that go. It’s similar to women who end up with a C section and feel like I’ve failed. I you know, my I wasn’t able to make my pelvis deliver a baby. You know, vaginally we just don’t have control. We just have to accept that all of us type A people have to accept that like we cannot micromanage every aspect of life and how our body responds to things. And I think you know, most of us that have kids quickly learned that you know, we can’t manage how our kids come out and, and grow up either.
P: I mean, one thing that’s interesting about your experience is when things are screwed up, like on the front end, like we could not get pregnant and you do feel like your body is failing you and I you know, why can’t I reproduce and but that’s a totally different feeling than being like waist deep in a pregnancy and having things go a little topsy turvy because now there’s no way but through, right. So that’s a little s and now like you’re very much thinking about the baby that you’re growing and how’s this affecting him or her and like it just seems like it’s a much harder thing to manage.
T: Yeah, yeah. So it just caused a lot of stress. I also had a lot of stress going on in my job. So it was kind of just compounding all of that. And yeah, it was it was a bad final trimester. So for sure,
P: also, like everyone’s telling you not to stress out right, stress is just as bad for the babies. You’re like I’m not freaking out because that’s the one thing I can control kind of not really. So that sounds like a time so take us to the day that you’re it’s your daughter, right?
T: Yeah.
P: Take us through the day your daughter was born. How do we know today’s the day? What does that look like?
T: Yeah, well with the way that my gestational diabetes progressed. I knew fairly early on that it was likely to be an induced pregnancy. Because another thing that happens when you have gestational diabetes is that the baby develops faster, grows bigger. So she already was sort of predisposed to be a larger baby. My husband was 10 pounds.
P: That sounds like a threat.
T: Yeah, it’s not good. When every time you go to the doctor, you get this like ooohh face when they ask about it. So yeah, it just sort of was coming from all sides there. And we kind of had like this tentative date for about a month. or so. So I was sort of working with that. And by that time, I was going into the doctor at least once a week to check on it. And the day before we went into the hospital. It was let’s see. Over a week before this date that we were going to originally induce my doctor, she ran some tests, looked at some things and she said, oh you know you’re kind of borderline for some things and I don’t know I’m sort of thinking we should maybe have the baby sooner and ask okay sooner, like this weekend or what? No, why don’t you come in tomorrow morning. So all of a sudden, I mean, this was a I remember it’s a Wednesday so I had just come off work. hadn’t really obviously prepared to be going yet. But honestly, that was kind of my silver lining of having this condition was sort of the feeling of control and knowing when it was going to happen even if it was like 12 hours.
P: Yeah, yeah.
T: So like nicely packed my bag. We stopped at Starbucks on the way to the hospital. I dressed up and took a selfie by the doors. I mean, it was it was very that so that was sort of a little bit of retribution for all the stress but
P: I like you making the most of it. That’s that’s a good way to do it. Let me ask you before we get to the actual birth, are you imagining giving birth in a tub surrounded by angels strumming harps, or like what what what image did you bring to the delivery?
T: It was so hard for me to imagine because I did all of the classes that the hospital offered and did all of those things and it was all centered around a natural uninduced birth, or they also have a lot of good information for mothers that were getting a C section, which is great, but I kind of raised my hand and asked what happens when you’re induced and they’re just like didn’t really have a very good answer. We toured the hospital before we went so I did see the little jacuzzi and I thought that sounded cool. But yeah, the reality was that with the monitoring for preeclampsia and everything I had to be stuck on an IV the entire time. So all my dreams were very quickly squashed and I just sort of wanted things to be, you know, I want to make use of all the drugs, very happy with modern science love it. So my birth plan was all laid out with those sorts of things. And I remember bringing the printout and pointing at them and everybody just basically was like Oh, cool. we’ll recycle that for you. Yeah,
P: great. That’s a lot of support at the hospital. New Plan.
T: Yeah,
P: so you check in when you’re supposed to and have a blackout I feel like induction is usually thought of as kind of painful because it’s your like ginning your body up in a way that puts it on a schedule that might not naturally be on, which is a hard thing to manage.
T: Right? Yeah, it wasn’t. It wasn’t painful, especially at the beginning, basically, the first 24 hours when I started taking the initial medication. Were just boring, you know, just sitting in the hospital and since I did have to be hooked up and monitored and poked. They took my numbers for my diabetes every couple hours or whatever. I couldn’t go up and move around, but couldn’t go sit in the tub and couldn’t do a roll around on the ball. You just had to sit in the room. And I remember binging probably 20 episodes of restaurant impossible with Robert Irvine. So I always, you know, kind of think of him when I think yeah, the hospital and so yeah, it was just kind of sitting and just trying to figure out if something was happening, like just sitting and trying to listen to my body, you know, is anything happening? How will I know what’s happening? And I think that was another issue I had was that I didn’t know what labor pains were going to feel like. And I don’t know how someone has to describe that to you. I don’t know how you prepare for that. But what I was thinking was not at all accurate. I am going to go ahead and blame Hollywood and producers and directors because every TV show and movie it made it seem like someone was stabbing you in the gut kind of pain. When it’s actually that feeling that you have to take the world’s worst shit. It’s like the most terrible constipated sort of feeling. So since I felt like that I kept getting up and going to the bathroom thinking I had to poop when I was really starting to have contractions. So oh my gosh, I was really far along by the time I finally asked for my epidural. I think I was I can’t remember like which centimeters or which at this point, but it was like they were kind of saying I’m glad you told us now because you weren’t getting really far along before kind of raising your hand and saying I might be having the baby. So that’s when things started to get painful was when it finally kicked in 24 hours or so later. And that wasn’t so much I don’t think that I was induced it was just sort of the way Well, no, I guess it was sort of that I was induced because some of the things they had to do. They might not have had to do if it was my body’s natural response, like they had to go in and break my water. And that was the most uncomfortable and painful thing in the entire process.
P:Wow.
T: Yeah,that really was awful.
P: Because the cause the getting the thing in your cervix is painful or because the actual breaking of that amnion is painful.
T: Kind of I’m not sure which was which but the whole thing and they had to use the needles so they poked my daughter in the head. You know what she did? I was fine, but it wasn’t fun for anybody. And
P: also when they bring it in, I’m sure you’re like get that crochet needle away from it. Right Like what are we doing here?
T: It’s really terrifying. Yeah. And it was the middle of the night. It was must have been like 3am or something. So everything is very surreal. Yeah, very bad. And then after that, because it was about 5am that I got my epidural. And they missed my spine with the needle. So they had to do it twice.
P: Oh that’s bad
T: Oh my God…But then again, it’s, I think when you’re at that point, it’s just like whatever. I don’t care.
P: I remember being terrified of delivery and I got some comfort from the fact that I knew that at some point, things on the outside would be so bad that I would say, Do whatever you have to to, you know, the threat of an epidural needle seems small compared to having my body crunched from the inside, right. So
T: exactly. Yeah, yeah, you can just whatever, whatever makes it go faster, whatever makes it over. I don’t care. Take my fingers. Take my toes.
P: Yeah. So you get the epidural and then does that calm everything down because now you can’t feel it or where are you?
T: It did a bit but then Yeah, it did for a while. I remember a few hours where I kind of fluttered in and out of sleep. But then slowly those contraction pains started, you know, making their way through the medication I could. I really felt that that was coming. I remember telling my husband you need to go get the nurse now. It is time. It’s amazing how much you know it is time. I had no idea when to know but I did. And unfortunately, I thought that I thought my worst case scenario was like okay, well, once I get to this point, it’s going to be 45 minutes or so. I had to push for three hours. Three hours.
P: yeah that’s a long time. That’s an amazingly long time.
T: It was so long, and I don’t know how. I don’t know how I did it. You know, it’s it’s exhausting. It is the most exhausting thing I’ve ever done or will ever do. And, you know, it’s really easy to say from here. And from before and from any other angle that well you always find a way to do it. Your body knows what to do. It’s natural. Okay, yeah. But when it’s happening, you really feel like you’re going to die. There feels like there’s no other alternative than this is just going to destroy you. And I guess it kind of does in a way. I mean, by the time you’re done, you really are a different person.
P: Yeah.
T: You’ve been through something that I don’t think is necessary. I don’t think anybody has to go through childbirth to you know, live a full life or experience things, but that very specific feeling is just so I don’t know how it could be recreated in any other capacity.
P: Yeah, I mean this to some degree, which is ironic in a conversation between two writers but is something that kind of defies language, which is why no one can tell you what it’s going to feel like when you’re having contractions There are no analogies that are fitting, right. So usually you can sidle up to something similar, but there’s not really anything that’s like it.
T: Yeah, no and yeah, the funny story was my doctor or the doctor who was delivering the baby just kept telling me with each push, one more push, and then you’re a mom. One more push. Gonna be and this went on like five or six. times and I just like screamed “where’s my baby?”.
P: Yes, this is very much like it’s just around the next bend right there. Yeah, that sounds frustrating. So but once the head crowns and all that then it was quick.
T: Yeah, yeah, I had to have an episiotomy which was in my birth plan is don’t do that. But when they brought up the options, like yes, anything now, yeah. So there was you know, that kind of final complication, which also I was surprised how long that took honestly to recover from postpartum you know, I had a lot of issues with sort of pain and things with it and sort of feeling it being there for probably six to nine months after giving birth. So I think, you know, I think it’s a good thing that it was done, but you know, it’s also I think it gets brushed off a lot like, oh, it’s not that big of a deal. But it’s, it’s kind of a big deal. It kind of really sticks with you for a while.
P: Yeah, I wouldn’t I wouldn’t even say kind of, I would say and actually a big deal and it’s a little bit like it falls into the postpartum black hole. And you are everything falls where you just we don’t talk about it anymore. And I find in the discussions of pregnancy, there’s a constant kind of conflating of common and easy
T: hmm,
P: episiotomies maybe common, but it has these real repercussions as you have experienced for a long time, you know, postpartum as some people think it lasts a year after birth, right, which kind of makes sense because at six weeks, your uterus shrinks down to its normal size, but there’s so many other things that don’t either never go back to the way they were or take much longer to heal or so six weeks is kind of I think the date we all have in our head, but right it’s a little bit false. Yeah, I’m jumping ahead a little bit. Your baby is born. They put her on your chest.
T: For a second, and then they had I think she had some of that fluid. So they had to really quick like grab her and start doing some things that really alarmed My poor husband, who could actually see them. But no, she was she was great. She was fine. Of course, the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen and all the all the good things all the good, happy feelings for sure.
P: That’s awesome. That feels fitting after three hours. And then what happens to gestational diabetes does that how does that resolve?
T: Fortunately I the first thing that I made my husband do after I had given birth and kind of got the all clear like okay, you can take a drink of water you can have some food and a little bit. I sent him down the road to Five Guys. He had to bring me a double burger fries and a milkshake. He didn’t think I could finish them which was hilarious. Yeah. after that. But uh, yeah, so they have to test you they keep testing you on when you’re in the hospital to make sure nothing weird happens. And then for the rest of my life, I’m going to need to be screened for diabetes, I believe on a yearly basis, especially with my family’s history and everything but so far I’ve I haven’t had any signs that it’s back or it’s coming back. And neither is Sophie. They have to check her a little more to because that does raise her risk. But no, it’s it’s gone.
P: If you have gestational diabetes doesn’t resolve with the birth.
Dr. Matityahu: Yes, once the placenta comes down, then you go back to having normal blood sugars in the future. About 50% of women can develop diabetes. We usually have women we remind them like every year or so check your blood sugar to make sure that you’re still doing okay.
P: And we think that’s because the pregnancy exerted this extra stress on their body and that has changed the trajectory or we think they were going to get it anyway or there’s no way to know.
Dr. Matityahu: It’s more that they were they were at risk of getting it anyway and with the placenta causing an issue with their insulin. It pushes them just over the edge while they’re pregnant. But if they continue to have a high carb high sugar diet for the next five or 10 years, then they’re going to continue to push their body into becoming diabetic. A lot of diabetes is diet related and not for everyone. So it’s not to say that everyone that has diabetes is has a poor diet because that is that’s not it at all, but but for a lot of diabetics is that we’re giving our body too much sugar and our body’s insulin can’t handle it. And so our blood sugar ends up being high and for some diabetics that’s the issue for others. It doesn’t matter. You can have the most strict, you know, low carb diet and you’re still going to have issues with your sugars because for some people, they just have issues with their insulin production and it has nothing. It has nothing to do with how well controlled or strict they are with their diet.
P: Other than physically healing. How did you find the fourth trimester?
T: I wasn’t I wasn’t prepared for it. I’m sure that might have been said before once or twice Yeah. I was not prepared at all for the hormonal issues and changes. I didn’t sleep for about the first week after having her and it was it was literally making me insane. I felt like I was losing my mind. And I got misdiagnosed. When I called the doctor as having postpartum depression, which wasn’t my issue. It was just it was more I have anxiety. So it was the anxiety manifesting itself. And so the combination of not being able to sleep and the anxiety of just, you know, when I lay down to sleep, and she’s right next to me, I’m like, listening for to breathe, afraid that something’s going to happen. Or on the reverse side. I didn’t have this is like tripping me up. I didn’t want to miss anything. I didn’t want to be asleep while she did something. And I would miss it. I don’t know what I was looking for. You know her to sit up and start talking to me or something. But I felt like the time that I was there was so important. And so precious that if I slept it would it would be gone or something.
P: I mean there’s there’s something real there right like they are one day old once that’s it ever again. So so and they develop so quickly in that period that there’s a lot there’s a lot going on. There’s a lot to watch. There’s a lot going on
T: I also had a lot of trouble because of being induced. my milk would come in. Yep. So I had physical problems feeding my daughter I was going to try and breastfeed. It wasn’t the end all be all to me. I just wanted to make sure that she had food. So when I started having troubles, I wasn’t opposed to using formula or any of those things. But the frustrating and heartbreaking part was you know, she’s telling me she’s crying and she’s telling me that she needs to eat, she’s hungry, and I physically can’t help her I have to wait for my husband to go in the kitchen and mix up a bottle. And so that was really heartbreaking. Not so much that we had to make a change but just that in those moments where she needed me, I couldn’t immediately help her. The way I wanted to
P: and did that wane as she got older because you got more in a rhythm or didn’t have that the whole time?
T: Yeah, I think I continued for about two months to try and feed her breastfeed her and and I supplemented with formula. And by that point, it had become so unpleasant for me. And obviously unpleasant for her because if it’s not pleasant for me, it’s not going to be pleasant for her. And also she was just very not interested. You know, she learned like, oh, this bottle is already to go and I don’t have to do anything. So why am I messing around up here? Yeah. So you know, she was more into that and the process of trying to pump and everything was making me miserable. So one day I had to do a long drive to visit family and during the drive you know my I got those painful over just painful feelings and I just got to home I’m like I’m done. You know, I feel like my body has sort of stopped gotten angry. We’ve done some things during this drive. So we’re just gonna donate the equipment and move on. So
P: yeah, that seems smart. I mean, if you think of all the things your body is doing to get pregnant to stay pregnant, to grow a baby to deliver, and then also to breastfeed, you know, you’ve done like 87 of them. So, all of which are amazing, right?
T: And it’s very weird to see one of my sister’s best friends. She had her baby right around the same time we all kind of clustered together and she was posting on Facebook saying I have so much extra milk and is taking up all my freezer. How is that possible? If I I was taking cell phone pictures of a vial like this big that I’m able to fill like I am having an amazing day and other people are filling up their freezer. It’s very inequitable, it feels like
P: Yeah, yeah, it is like randomly distributed. Yeah,
T: right. Exactly.
P: So how old is your daughter now?
T: She’s just shy of two and a half. Yeah, she was born in September 2018. So Wow.
P: So just before the pandemic,
T: she turned six months old when the lockdown started. So we were just you know, at that point where the newborn infant days was ending, and we were going to go into the world. And then everything stopped. So
P: wow, you’ve been one of the people who’s been shut in with a runaround baby. How’s that going?
T: Yeah, I it’s been very difficult. But at the same time, I am infinitely grateful that she was here. Yeah, it definitely shifted sort of certain priorities. And it shifted different priorities and timelines for our family. So you know, we’re going into six months old and I’m thinking, Oh, we have to start planning your first trip to Disneyland. Oh, we’re going to go to the zoo all the time. You know, all these sorts of social, fun, interactive things. And then all of a sudden, we’re right back into the space we were in, which was a small house that had been purchased. When my husband and I were envisioning a life where it was just the two of us. And it was small. It wasn’t very kid friendly. All these things which wasn’t going to be a huge problem if we were out doing things and having a life out in the world. But then all of a sudden, we were spending all of our time in this small house. So instead of the life I think we were looking at with her for when she was a toddler of doing traveling and doing this class and that group and all these things. We concentrated instead on moving so we’re in a new house or in a bigger house. So that’s been a huge positive change, because there’s so much more room for all of us to move around. Plus, yeah. And we weren’t also not planning for my husband to be working from home for most of two years.
And that’s another silver lining because he’s been able to bond with her in a way that he never would have been able to before the pandemic. She’s really close to her dad and it’s really beautiful, to see that relationship, and also just have that support. I mean, even now when he’s home, it’s nice to just be able to run outside and get the mail or drive out and pick up some curbside groceries without having to necessarily take her with me. It’s just an extra pair of hands and eyes that is super helpful but you know also sometimes you just want to do things yourself and have your time so just the same as anybody. There’s a lot of that give and take with balancing everybody in the same space.
And when I was growing up, my mom was a stay at home mom too. And so, I wasn’t initially planning that for myself or for us. I had a situation with my work where I was going to take an extended maternity leave unpaid so I saved up for all my pregnancy so we’d be able to survive a few extra months, but it was really important to me to be able to be with her for those first six months. Because, I mean, I was very privileged to be able to do that. I think everybody should have that option.
P: Yeah,
T: well, weeks is nothing.
P: Agreed. It doesn’t make sense. Yeah. Yeah.
T: Unfortunately, a few weeks before I gave birth, my company rescinded our agreement. Until me I’d have to be back within 12 weeks. And by that time, I had already made my child’s childcare arrangements with the original timeline in line. And as you know, as any mom or dad knows, finding a daycare and setting up that timeline is not a simple task. Does not magically shift on a dime. You know, I was on waitlists for daycares that I didn’t hear back from until she was talking. So
P: yeah, yeah.
T: So it really kind of forced me to say okay, well, I am going to have to quit this job and stay home with her and that wasn’t my plan, but faced with either I mean, you know, no childcare or
so, once I made that decision once our family made that decision, I thought a lot about my childhood growing up and what my mom was able to do with me. And my favorite memories and those are all really simple things. Those are going to the park and splashing around in the pool, the public pool and doing picnics and all of these things that she was able to do when we were able to do together. And that was super important to me to give to my daughter and experience with her. And so not being able to in so many ways. In so much time you know there’s been those patches here. And there where okay, we’ve gone to the zoo, and then we can’t again this not going back and forth. That’s been really for sure painful and just makes me feel like I’m not not giving her what I wanted to Yeah,
P: although I totally hear what you’re saying. For every parents of every kid at a different age. There’s something that’s being sacrificed in the pandemic. But yeah, but for all of us who are lucky enough not to get sick or get over the sickness quickly. There’s also something gained for like every single age I have friends whose kids are in college and they say like, oh, the kids had to come home and now we get to spend time with them in a way we never would have gotten before and it sounds like your husband has gotten this amazing gift of it and you have the gift of your husband getting that gift right so there are all these things that kind of no way to manage this easily or beautifully. And this is sort of how it falls so I can see how it’d be a bummer if you had plans for music school or all that stuff to be gone but I’m imagining now your two and a half year old has an amazing vocabulary. I haven’t been around to adults. for them.
T: It’s insane. I can’t believe the things she can say and do and you know that’s of course me saying and I haven’t been around enough kids to know but it certainly seems impressive. She knows she has a state puzzle. And she knows almost every single state by sight and can assemble America. I still that’s
P: that’s amazing. That’s amazing. My high school seniors like where’s Illinois?
T: Exactly.
P: Kudos to you. Well done. So does she have any tricks that you want to talk about at two and a half?
T: She keeps asking Alexa for her favorite songs. So right now it’s always Alexa, talk about Bruno.
P: So funny. Talk about digital natives. Good Lord.
T: I know it’s awesome.
P: Very fun. So here’s a question for you even though she’s pretty young still. If you could go back and give younger Tabitha advice about this process. What do you think you would tell her?
T: I think I would say just to keep trusting your gut and not what not even what other people think. But what you told yourself you were going to be and what you were going to do. You need to stop holding yourself to what you were thinking when you were 10 or 20 or even 30 Because yeah, I needed. I trusted my gut when I had my first pregnancy and changed my mind. I trusted my gut when I thought that I’d have to quit my job. And you know, all these all these times that I made decisions that I never would have thought I would have made and probably wouldn’t have supported. Somebody else making To be honest, but they all turned out to be the right thing. Or the thing that has brought us to the here and now which fortunately, is a really beautiful, wonderful place to be we’re really lucky. So yeah, if I would have kept trying to be the person that I thought it was going to be. It would be a miserable mess for nobody but me.
P: What can you say but that a lot of life is experiential…10 or 20 or 30 year old you couldn’t have imagined a lot of the events that happened–getting pregnant despite using birth control correctly? The flip flopping of your work agreement? That sounds like good advice to follow. I wish we had more time to talk about your writing.
I’ve read some of your work. You’re beautiful writer. Where can people find your stuff?
T: My website is Tabitha blankenbuehler.com. And I’m the only type of the blank and biller so if you find it, you’re there. That’s good.
P: That’s good to know. Excellent. Well, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your story. I certainly appreciate it.
T: Of course. Thanks for having me.
P: Thanks again to Dr. matityahu for sharing important information about gestational diabetes, and thanks also to Tabitha for sharing her story. I regret that we didn’t talk about her writer, she is a beautiful writer; I will leave links to her website in the show notes, where you can also find links to some of the medical issues that came up. You can find those show notes at war stories from the womb dot com. Thanks for listening. We’ll be back soon with another inspiring story.
