u/Orange_Saxaphone9024

My beloved soul cat has very suddenly become extremely unwell and it's looking like we will have to let him go this week. I am scheduled to have my baby in exactly two weeks today, and I am inconsolable. I cannot even fathom finding the strength to learn how to parent a newborn, navigate the sleep deprivation and all the challenges ahead, let alone find joy in it. I know I just have to suck it up and do it, but I am just so so sad, completely to my bones devastated, and the idea of being in the house so much without my cat is even worse than grieving the future I wanted him to have as part of our new little family. I was already worried about post partum depression and now I feel like it's a certainty because I can't even find the strength to feed myself or enjoy anything right now. Does anyone have any advice who has been through this? Please tell me your baby brought you some joy to help you navigate the time, I just cannot imagine how I'm going to cope with this.

I'm 33 weeks and it's suddenly hitting me that baby girl could kinda rock on into our lives any day now (though of course hopefully not) and I'm realising everything I don't know and going into a slight panic.

I'm frustrated because I've read books and been to newborn classes and watched Reels until I'm blue in the face and yet I still don't feel like I understand what to actually DO hour by hour with the baby. I haven't neglected to consider the realities of parenting (I promise!). I've been batch cooking like a mad woman, have supports in place, got all the gizmos and clothes and things that we need... it's the actual day to day of it all that I can't seem to wrap my head around (or why nobody seems to tell you???)

How do I know when to do tummy time? How long for? What are we actually doing about wake windows because people keep telling me they wish they hadn't lived and died by wake windows but I can't see any other way of building routine for her... Are we doing the app tracking or not? Hindsight always seems to have people saying no it made them crazy, but how else am I supposed to remember when she last fed if I don't know my arse from my elbow because I'm so sleep deprived?! What's sleep pressure? What do I do if she's screaming? How much is normal? I saw a video about not being a "container" parent, e.g. not putting your baby in capsule/bouncer/carrier constantly... ok where is she going then? On me? That's fine if that's the case... but how do I know?!?! How do I know what to believe about letting them sleep vs waking them to feed (aside from if she's underweight at birth etc)?

I'm aware I sound off my chops at this point. Maybe i am. ANY ADVICE from first timers on the other side? Genuinely where did you find this info? Is there a book that talks about the day to day of it all? Can anyone share their day to day routine or something?! Not to follow to the letter obviously, but just for some rough idea of what I need to be doing for her besides feeding her!? When does she need toys? Sensory what?! HELP!

Thank you in advance! *I promise my tone is exaggerated for effect and I'm not completely bonkers*

This is the flavour of the month with my uBPD mom now. She has health issues which I do sympathise with, and I am across all her medical notes and medications so that she has someone else aware of her condition (we have no other family) but my god, every single blow up lately turns into an hour of her yelling or blowing up my phone with messages about how hard her life is, how i have no idea how hard it is for her, how i'm just "swanning around doing [insert thing I've done recently]", how she gave me everything and should've prioritised herself (i moved out of home 19 years ago when I was 18 so she's had ample time). I'm having a baby soon and she sat there with hate in her eyes saying "maybe this will be good because you'll finally understand how hard it is because right now you have no fucking idea what life is really like for me".

I cannot stand it anymore but explaining literally anything to these people is futile. If I reply with anything remotely rational she just moves onto something else. The other day she decided to start ranting about things from her own childhood when she had been gazumped by a point I'd made. IM SO EXHAUSTED.

Hi all, hoping to get an Australian perspective on what's normal for GD here, particularly in private. I'm reading a lot of info that's obviously from America or other countries where standards are different, but I'm at a bit of a loss as to how some places seem to treat it differently. Basically my OB just seems very chill about it all, but then I read things from other people and they seem to have been monitored far more than me for numbers that are lower than mine.

I've been on insulin at night time since 25 weeks and it's taken me a full month to get my first fasting number within target. From what I've read, the medical guidelines say that insulin-treated GD makes the pregnancy high risk and that birth should be expected to be induced earlier to avoid the risks of the placenta ageing. I've said do we need to look at making my c-section earlier and she said no.

My OB has been lovely in terms of telling me not to worry, but it seems that in Australia we don't do regular NST (Non stress tests) on the baby like they do in other places for GD patients, and I had to ask for an extra scan at 28 weeks otherwise I wouldn't have seen her again between weeks 25 and 30 (and with uncontrolled fasting numbers during that time that seemed way too risky to me?).

I'm being led by her expertise obviously, I'm just curious to see what other people have experienced, especially those who are insulin controlled. Having high fasting numbers that aren't even responding to insulin feels like it would warrant some kind of concern, but there just hasn't been any!

(Fully aware that I have my own anxiety issues wrapped up in this. I've been worried for ages that things would be/are being missed in my pregnancy and this has just added another layer).

What the heck are we doing about fasting duration?!?!? I'm starting to establish i have better numbers (still bad but better) when i skip the snack, but skipping the snack means I finish dinner at say...7.30pm, and i don't test again until 6.30am at the earliest, which is 11h. Shortening my fast doesn't work, so I'm not sure if the 11h matters, but all the diabetes info seems to suggest a longer fast time is bad, so I just don't know what to do.

I'm having an absolute battle with my fasting numbers, got put on insulin real quick because they just weren't changing no matter what i did. Snack, walk, ACV, all that didn't work or change a thing.

Now i'm on it and still barely anything has changed, but i had my lowest fasting reading ever this morning (5.6mmol) (aka 100mgdl) and it was one of the nights where i skipped the snack and ate lower carb at dinner (and increased insulin by 2 more units as I have been doing ongoing) so I'm finally maybe hopefully seeing a light that SOMETHING IS WORKING, but I still can't be sure.

I got a CGM to find out why my fasting numbers were so high, and turns out I don't go below 5.0 basically....ever. During the day I'm within target but that's because the meal targets aren't below 5!!! but basically i eat dinner, go up to somwhere between 5.8-6.8 usually, and then.... stay up. My overnight numbers are steady as hell, they're just too high. I'm sitting at like 6.0 all night long, so no wonder I wake up over 5.0.

This whole condition is such a guessing game!