My body is not handling this pregnancy at all well. I have been on prednisone (a steroid) for five months now because of ITP (low platelets). My hematologist just had to raise my prednisone dosage to 80mg again because my platelet count fell below 30,000. A normal person has a platelet count between 150,000 and 300,000.

But now I have prednisone-induced diabetes. Prednisone commands your body to create glucose and to dump it into your blood. Pregnancy creates hormones that block your insulin. So I have a ton of glucose being dumped into my bloodstream because of the prednisone, and my insulin is not working very well because of the pregnancy. All carbs turn into sugar in the blood. So I am basically on a low-carb diet… an extremely low-carb diet. I can’t eat any carbs at all during the day as that is when my blood sugar spikes all on its own because of the prednisone. And I can eat very very few carbs for breakfast and dinner.

Well, milk and yogurt both contain carbs. And my pre-natal vitamin does not contain calcium because it does contain iron, and the body doesn’t absorb iron as well if it is taken with calcium. So, now because of this crazy low-carb diet, I am calcium deficient and losing weight. In fact, I am 30 weeks pregnant and I have not gained a single pound… not a single pound. I weigh exactly the same as I did when I first found out I was pregnant.

I asked my dietitian for a calcium supplement, so now I am taking a calcium supplement to deal with that problem.

And I don’t like my obstetrician. I’m so tired. I don’t mean physically tired, I mean mentally tired. It’s hard to keep up this diet. It’s extremely difficult to eat hardly any carbs at all. And I get so hungry, and my diet is so extremely restricted. And prednisone is so hard on the body, and I’m on a pretty intense dosage. And I’ve been battling ITP since I was told I had it at 15 weeks. And now I’m losing weight. I’m in my third trimester and I’m losing weight. 🙁

So all this is going on, and my obstetrician has only seen me once this whole time. I am due in two months and my obstetrician has only seen me once during the entire pregnancy. She has no idea who I am and I have no relationship with her. I meet with her nurses all the time for my check-ups.

I’m so unhappy. I’m so weak… mentally weak… hard to stay upbeat… hard not to cry. I’m hungry but I can’t eat anything but salads and meat. I can’t just go have a banana and a glass of milk for a snack. I have to eat something with no carbs. And my platelets keep falling. And my obstetrician is crap.

I’m going to try to switch obstetricians tomorrow. I really like my hematologist and maternal fetal medicine doctors, so I want to continue seeing them.

I thought pregnancy would be fun. And it was fun. I was dealing with the ITP just fine. But then diabetes, then losing weight, then the realization that my obstetrician is crap. Why can’t I be happy? Lily seems to be doing fine.

I think it’s because so many things are going wrong with my body during this pregnancy, and I feel alone because my obstetrician sucks. I don’t have a doctor to hold my hand and tell me that everything will be alright. And the problems just keep piling up. And I’m hungry. 🙁

So very sad… I don’t want to waste this joyous time while I’m pregnant on sadness but I am having a hard time shaking it. Maybe when I change obstetricians things will start looking up.