Tag Archives: pregnancy

Considering?

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Okay, so remember yesterday I talked about being on all these loops?? Well, I was thrown for another one this morning.

Last night, my OB called to tell me that all my blood work and my 24hr urine collection results came back great, and that he was actually shocked given my history with diabetes and renal disease (I had kidney problems about 10 years ago which from my understanding, had reversed itself with tight bg control), and that the protein levels were no worse than someone who was a healthy, non-diabetic pregnant lady…. all to which I was elated. So, the ruling for the swelling and random star-flashes is that it can be normal in pregnancy and I need to deal with it. (And no, he didn’t say it like that, but that’s the gist of it.) Then, this morning, I get a call from his nurse. She wanted to be sure he had called me back last night. She went back over the results, but said it in a slightly different way. She said that the results came back good considering my diabetes and renal history.

Considering??

What is THAT supposed to mean???

So, I go from feeling wonderful about this pregnancy.. that somehow I had done something good and that my body really was able to handle pregnancy just like any other woman and that it didn’t affect me that bad and I may actually be around a long time for this kid,  to feeling an instant rush of panic. “OMG, so I’m just in the good range for a diabetic? I’m not in the good range for a normal, healthy person? So that means I actually do have raised levels? I’m probably at risk for having to go back on pills for my kidneys once again not because of lack of control but because I decided to have a baby in the midst of having a body-wrecking disease????”

Then she tells me my A1c… 6.9. The highest since becoming pregnant. I swear, if anyone had walked into where I work at the time, they would have seen a 9 month pregnant woman doing everything she could not to lose what little bit of hope and happiness she had. Everything seemed to pile on me at once, and I felt like I had been a failure somehow. Had I gone through this pregnancy trying to do everything possible to keep this baby protected from what my disease could do to him just to have it all slip away in the last month?

I know a lot of this has to do with the hormones and just the general uncomfortableness and wanting this baby out of me. The pregnancy is coming to an end and I’m going through the transition of loving being pregnant to, well…. NOT loving it, dealing with the worry of how things are going to go and how I’m going to protect him on the outside, and the realization that I’ve only got less than two weeks until this transition occurs. The overwhelming knowledge that very, very soon, there will be a baby – my baby – in my arms.

After having my little down-fit, I called the OB office back and requested that the results be sent to my endo’s office. I know they usually do, but I wanted to be sure he got them because I trust his judgment of my diabetes care over my OB. I wanted to be sure he had them so I could discuss them with him when I go for my appointment Monday.

I am also going tomorrow morning for my 37 week (well, almost 38 week) OB appointment. I’m going to see if they’ll go ahead and schedule the induction date then so we can have a definitive date to mark on the calendar of BabyK’s arrival… that is unless he decides it’s time to come before then and I magically go into labor between now and the date set. That way Erik can know when to take off from work and I can schedule a few days off before to make sure I have everything ready for the hospital stay and be sure the house and BabyK’s room is 100% (or as close to it) ready for him to come home with us. I’ve said since the middle of the pregnancy that I felt sure he was going to be a July baby… and we still have 11 days left for that to happen. But with the way my primary OB sounded last night, the induction is still going to be set for the week after I turn 39 weeks (I’ll be 39 weeks on Saturday, July 30th). I’ll be sure to update tomorrow as to what the on-call OB says.

Marshmallows

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What resembles marshmallows on sticks?

But with baby marshmallows on the ends of the big marshmallows??

………….

……….

……

…

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MY FEET!

From Beach2011

Now granted, my legs aren’t the skinniest around either, but they’re also a bit swollen.

But with all the swelling and uncomfortableness, I am still enjoying being pregnant.

That or I’m really trying to convince myself of that. I really just want BabyK to bake as long as needed to be sure he’ll be as healthy as can be when he comes.

It’s also said that “a watched pot never boils”… so if I keep dreading it and wanting it to be over, he’ll never come.

So I’m going to try to keep my mind off of “labor” things and just keep watching the calendar for August 6th, not before.

Winking smile

Nearing the End

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35 Weeks 5days

35 weeks and 5 days. We are getting close to the “end”. Saturday, (by the pregnancy calendars), I’ll be 9 months pregnant, and will have yet one more month to go. BabyK will be technically “full term” on the 16th… which there is a full moon on the 15th, so we may have a baby in the middle of this month, or he may hold out a little longer. My next OB appointment is on the 14th, so I guess we’ll see if the moon’s increasing gravitational pull is having any affect on him!

BabyK is still rolling and squirming at times, and even has his own pattern going. He stretches in the mornings, pushing his butt up into my ribs and his hands into my lower side. Then his feet go pushing my upper side under my rib cage out. Then he’ll squirm a little more and he’s still again. He’s not as active during the day as he used to be, but when I’m at home at night in my recliner, he rolls and twists and does whatever acrobatics his little small room will allow him to do. I love feeling him move, but boy! Being short-waisted also makes it a bit more uncomfortable since when he moves, he doesn’t really have far to be able to move or stretch up and down. If I could, I would grow two or three inches to give him some room, but I know that’s not possible. It would be nice though!

Things are getting uncomfortable. I feel like a huge watermelon myself, not just the belly. My feet and ankles (and sometimes, hands) resemble something out of a fun mirror house where things are made to look either super skinny or really fat…. mine being the really fat one. There’s no shape to them at all… just two big balls of water with little tiiiiny appendages that I used to call toes not too many weeks ago. And while it seems gross, and it is but I’m kinda weird this way, if I press on my foot (that is when I can reach it), a huge dimple stays there for a while. It’s kinda cool looking but horrifying at the same time… “Is my foot really that swollen that I can press a 1/2 inch dimple into it?? Wow!”.

Infusion sites are starting to react weird. Not sure why, but really are hit and miss now. The ones that are misses, are ones where I can place it, do a bolus, and it will leak. I’m wondering if I’m swelling that much that it’s affecting them. I’ve even resorted to not only utilizing the slow-delivery function on my pump, but also doing a combo bolus for every single bolus that will deliver the insulin over 0.1hrs (I’m assuming that means it will take 6 minutes to deliver? 1/10 of an hour…? Right?) to see if it will help. So far, it has.

The Guardian gave me my first really-off reading this morning. It said I was holding steady in the 90s, but when I checked, my actual bg was 235 (stupid Hardees breakfast!). Now, I have had this “off”ness with the Dexcom, so I’m not saying it’s a bad system. Then again, what bg monitoring system is a perfect one? NONE. My thing is if you don’t expect perfection, you’re not going to be as disappointed, and you actually appreciate and rejoice more when things do work out to be just the way it should be. Crazy, I know, but that’s been my way of thinking almost my whole life. I get too stressed and depressed otherwise.

I know that we are nearing the end of this pregnancy, and while it will be a relief to not be on as much insulin, I am starting to worry about how things will go after he comes. As with this whole pregnancy, my diabetes has been a whole new ballgame. Diabetes is a baby itself… one that never grows up. I know countless numbers of you out there have been down this road before, and that gives me some peace of mind. So, while I am so ready for this pregnancy to be over in terms of I really want to hold him and hug him and kiss him and all that stuff, I’m also not wanting it to be over because I’ve finally gotten comfortable with knowing what pregnancy does to me as a diabetic and knowing how to handle certain situations. But as with everything in the diabetes world, nothing is constant. Nothing is easy. It always changes – pregnant or not. And rolling with the punches one day at a time is the only way you can do it and stay sane.

Hormones are Evil

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bottle

See this bottle? It’s a free one I asked for through a special offer on the internet. To be honest, I had forgotten about it really until this morning when I checked the mail and saw the box…. then the next thing I did was cry. Yup. I cried because I got a bottle. Our first baby bottle. The first one I had ever held that would be for my baby.

Or so I thought… Then I remembered the Christmas baby stuff I had bought back when things were going on clearance – bottles, bibs, onsies… And cried again.

Not to mention I had already been crying anyway because when I woke up this morning, I realized it was the day I would get to pick up Erik from work after a week of not seeing him.

And I cried again when I looked at my desk calendar and saw where I have in big, balloon letters “4D Ultrasound” marked on tomorrow’s date. We’ll get to see our little boy tomorrow…. albeit it will be from a monitor screen, but I prefer it that way right now. He’s still baking in there.

As far as blood sugars go, I’ve had a rough week with lows (20’s and 30’s again!) and then some highs.. like this morning, I woke up at 198… WhatThaFructose??. (Thanks Mike * @mydiabeticheart * for getting that stuck in my head!)

All of which make me a crying, mad, moody mess on top of being pregnant. As if either one needed a sidekick. It’s as if they have meetings while I’m asleep…

Hey PGH (pregnancy hormones), wanna really mess with Sarah today? –DBH (diabetes hormones)

Sure, let’s really sock it to her today. You make her mad, I’ll make her cry, k? –PGH

Got it. – DBH

So, I’ve come to the conclusion. While we do need them, I do believe hormones are evil.

Confusing

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Pregnancy so far has been pretty good. From a “normal” person’s stand point, the baby is growing right on track, I’m gaining weight as I should be, and am in full awe and love with the kicks, punches and rolling around this little kid is doing inside of me. All clothes (save one dress) are now too small in the belly (so this means all shirts, and pants must be either maternity or regular with a belly-band device to cover the wide-open fly area). Diabetes aside, I am loving being pregnant. I know what most of you are thinking though… “Yeah, yeah, yeah, wait til that third trimester and we’ll revisit how much you love being pregnant”.. and you’re probably right. But just thinking back to when I never thought I would be pregnant or the worries that something would go horribly wrong before I could even feel the first kick, I am completely in love with how things are going. This is, with no doubt in my mind, due to all the thoughts and prayers of all of my friends and family all during this pregnancy so far.

 

24 weeks

So, what’s so confusing? as the title of this post refers? Blood sugar. Yep. That thing that all of us diabetics have to deal with monitoring. But this is what is truly confusing to me. I kept decreasing insulin needs so fast at the beginning of the pregnancy – less than half of my normal dose within the first 6 weeks, and it stayed that way until week 20. Now? It’s been 4 weeks, and I have met, if not exceeded my pre-pregnancy basal rates in my pump, and mostly done within the past week and a half. It’s like “BAM! Destination Insulin Resistance.. FULL SPEED AHEAD!!”.  Numbers that I normally would never have seen on my meter are coming up, and worrying me. Yesterday’s average? 150-160 range, at every check. I even went to bed with 5 units still active (or so said my pump), and stayed at that 150-160 range until this morning. Yes, I could have corrected, but I was worried it would all hit and I would bottom out.  I am going to fax my numbers into my endo’s office first thing tomorrow, but at the rate my numbers seem to be jumping up, it almost scares me to wait for him to get back with me. I mean, what if by then I need yet another increase?? Can you see the visual I have playing in my head of me at the 9 month mark with a smoking, worn out pump clipped to my side, with an army of backup needles and insulin pens in hand yet???

I mean, like, right now, BG is 215… 2 hours after I have eaten. To me, this is NOT acceptable. And I hate it. All I can think of is the illustration given by Dr. Oz on that sorry Oprah episode where he talks about how to imagine a high bg as nails in a mason jar, swirling around. The nails are the blood sugar level, and the mason jar is the blood vessel wall. The more nails, the more damage that can be done in a short amount of time verses having fewer nails (lower blood sugar) in your system. And thinking of that illustration leads me to wondering if my high nail content blood sugar is doing the same damage to my little boy? It’s all overwhelming, and very mentally taxing.

It’s all so confusing because it’s not a gradual shift from pre-pregnancy to insulin sensitivity to insulin resistance during pregnancy… It comes in spurts or all at once it seems (or for me it does). There’s no rhyme or reason to it. Just a guessing game and battle every day. Like, what am I going to encounter today?? I swear, if it weren’t for this little one, I’d already be gone to the crazy house.

But would I trade any of it to go back to before?

Nope.

Halfway

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19weeksI’m now 19 weeks and 2 days pregnant. By books and online places, this means I’m in my 20th week, which means I’m at the halfway point of the pregnancy. Boy has time flown! Looking back, it went by so slow, but that was because I was anxiously awaiting the feeling of my baby kicking and rolling around in there… to have proof every day that I am actually pregnant, not just every 3 weeks when the doctor did the doppler wand thingy to find the heartbeat at my appointments.

I’ve done well so far as far as my blood sugars. The lows were tiring and aggravating at first, but I wasn’t as worried about them because both my endo and my OB said they wouldn’t hurt the baby as bad as a high. And, up until a few days ago, I had balanced out pretty well and only had a low once a day and the high (above 140) would hit only after breakfast.

That is until sometime around Thursday or Friday of last week. Random highs here and there. I knew the time was coming, just wasn’t sure when that would be. So, I did what I knew to do. Treat and go on. But with pregnancy thrown into the mix, it makes for a new learning curve. Learning whether or not your prebolus time needs to stay the same. Learning whether or not this food still works with you or if it makes your bg do funky things now. Learning whether or not you should skip eating the food in the morning but that it’s okay to eat it in the afternoon because of the wicked (<—term stolen from Kerri) Dawn phenomenon + insulin resistance that hits in the morning I guess from not only waking YOU up, but the little one as well. Learning that just because you’re starting to see higher numbers does NOT mean you need to cut back on food or that you can skip a meal.

I knew all of this was coming. I knew it wouldn’t be long before it set in. What I didn’t know and didn’t count on was the emotional impact. After working so hard at getting good control before the pregnancy, I didn’t realize that the mentality that I had before would actually hurt me now. And what I mean by that is that every time I see a number pop up on my meter that’s out of range now, I’m instantly irritated with myself and I start thinking “Oh crap, what’d I do wrong now?” and I get upset and mad at myself. I used to do this before, but I could in just a few minutes shrug it off if I couldn’t pinpoint it (i.e., didn’t prebolus far enough ahead, miscalculated that SWAG bolus a little, you know) and wouldn’t worry about it. Now, I go through a whole drill over and over and over in my head because I feel like it’s something I can’t just say “Oh well, I screwed up…” and go on. I feel like I have to figure out what I did… when in the end, it may not be what I did at all, but just the fact of being pregnant itself. Even while I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong, and I’m rubbing my little belly, my d-brain isn’t making the connection with my hand that “HELLO!!!??!! Are you forgetting something!!???”

This morning, it all got to me. The higher numbers. The increased need of insulin for bolus’ and basals. I still have that frame of mind that “Uh oh. I’m having to increase. What did I do wrong?” and I go all into diagnostic mode. And when I couldn’t figure it out, I wanted to skip breakfast because my CGM was rising and I didn’t to add to it by eating – I just wanted to correct and go on until lunch like I used to. But I can’t. I can’t do that stuff anymore. I can’t treat my diabetes as I used to. Things have changed and I have to balance the pregnancy needs WITH diabetes needs. I honestly wanted to break down, but I can’t. Break downs for me usually result in a “I need a break” mentality and I follow through with that and take a break for a couple of days. I can’t do that not only because I’ve got 19-20 more weeks to go, but because I DO have this little one inside of me, and if I give up on myself now, I give up on him or her. I simply cannot do that.

I thank God for people like Cherise, Kerri, and ..well, I don’t know her name, but she tweets as @DeerPassion, who have been through this pregnancy wild-“hat” bg mess and have been my support net so far in this journey more than anything because they have been there, they know and understand the whole diabetes + pregnancy mess. If I could go and hug each one of them, especially this morning, I would. Thank you guys (or, uuhh, gals).

Diabetes and New A Phone

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Sorry the video is shaky. I was trying to one-hand hold the phone while I did the video. Overall, I like the phone for videos, though it does take a while to upload to YouTube.

And don’t forget, only 10 more days to cast your vote if you think the little one is a boy or girl! I will announce which one is right in a very special way… we may even have a special guest! ;)

16 Week OB Appointment

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Monday we had our 16 week checkup at the OB’s office. Things are looking good so far.

I actually gained back a pound of what I had lost according to the scale, but I’m not sure if that’s right or not since all of my appointments have been first thing in the morning and this one was last thing in the afternoon. My blood pressure was right on target as always, and my blood sugar at the time was great, even though I had a nasty 36 while driving. We were going to pull over for Erik to drive, but we were in the bad part of town when I tested and only had a little ways to go before getting to the hospital, so I drove on with him “at attention”. They asked if I had another A1c yet, which I haven’t since the beginning of January, so they ordered another one, and I’m hoping to have the results in by the end of the week.

I also found out that I have an Rh negative blood type, so at 28 weeks, I have to get a shot just in case the baby happens to be a positive blood type and in the event that it’s blood mixes with mine at some point, my body would recognize the Rh positive blood as a foreign body and attack it by producing antibodies towards it. This can be bad because if anything happens while I’m pregnant now, it would cause my body to attack the baby’s blood, ending in miscarriage. It could also prevent future pregnancies if that baby were to be Rh positive. I also have to get a shot at the time of delivery as well. So, yet another reason to have to take shots. But for this reason, I’ll gladly be punctured.

dopplerWe waited our turn and got to a room rather quickly. The nurse came in with her little doppler machine and listened around for the baby. I know this sounds weird, and I know it’s another one of those “Uhhhh, DUH, Sarah!”, but it’s so weird feeling like there’s a ball in my stomach. I’ve always known what it felt like on the outside from feeling other pregnant tummies, but to feel the pressure inside is weird to me! Anyway, back to the story, she placed the little wand with gel on it on my stomach where it’s now all pooched out and round and she put it right where I thought the baby was – on my left side. Within seconds, she got a reading of 137. Of course, this being my first one, I kinda freaked because that was lower than the 145-147 we had gotten before. Not to mention, it sounded like it was my heartbeat, not the baby’s, that it was picking up. So, she tried again.

Only this time, the baby had moved. She tried to massage around to find the baby, and put the wand on my stomach again. She got a reading for a few seconds and the baby moved again. She spent a good 2-3 minutes just trying to track the baby down long enough to get a good reading. Finally, she got it again at 135, and it read mine at around 80, so we knew it had to be the baby’s. I wasn’t thinking about mine being louder, both on the doppler and in my own ears, and that the baby may just not have been right below the wand to get a good, loud sound. But knowing that the baby was moving THAT much was also reassuring.

We saw the doctor, who was “okay”, but also, I was still bothered by the heartbeat enough to not really worry about some of the other stuff he was asking me. I completely forgot to ask him about my allergies and also about some leg cramping I’ve been having. I felt like a complete ditz when I left. He was going to schedule me for a 3 week followup, but that would put me at 19 weeks, and apparently they strictly do not give the second ultrasound unless you’re 20 weeks (which I would have only been a couple of days off from that). So, he put it at 4 weeks so we can have that done.

We’ll be going back on March 21st to have the ultrasound and (hopefully) find out if this little bean is a boy or girl. I’ve added a little widget to the “Cast Your Vote” section on the left that shows the days left. So, if you haven’t already, cast your vote and tell me what you think the baby will be! I’ll update everyone the night of the ultrasound with a special post.

Smile