Tag Archives: pregnancy photo

Nearing the End

Posted by

3

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.

Confusing

Posted by

2

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

Posted by

3

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).

31 More To Go

Posted by

0

I debated on doing pregnancy belly pictures because I wasn’t skinny as a rail to begin with, but after seeing some soon-to-be mom’s pictures that are on the net, I’m not as ginormous as my minds-eye had made myself out to be. So, I bit the bullet and did it. I took a picture at 4 weeks, which is on my flickr page now, but I kept it to myself on my private online journal (one that I can have printed after the baby arrives for a keepsake of the pregnancy journey). I still wasn’t willing to put it up there for everyone to see.

So, when I got home, and took the (what was supposed to be 8 week) 9 week picture, I saw that I am slightly bigger than I was 5 weeks ago. It’s hard to believe. Which, most of what I read is that even though the baby is the size of a prune, and my uterus is as big as a cantaloupe now, most of the waist-line expansion is from bloating. Lovely. I prefer not to think of it that way. Since I’m short, I’m telling myself that it’s the uterus pushing up the fat to make way for it to pop out of the pelvic area in the next few weeks. So, yes, I may be wrong. Maybe it’s not baby yet, but then again, who cares? Whether it’s bloating, baby, or whatever, I am getting bigger, even with the total 6 pounds lost since 5 weeks ago. My jeans are going unbuttoned most of the time under my longer sweaters and my pj stretchy-waist pants are becoming my most favorite bottoms.

9 weeks, day 4

Since I won’t start getting a rounded belly until around 16 weeks, I’m going to take another picture at 12 weeks and another one at 16. Then it’ll be once a week or every other week.

 

On the diabetes forefront, weird things are happening. My basals are starting to go funky. I’ve had to drop my overnight basal 0.2u/hr to keep from being low in the mornings (sorry, Dr. OB, I’m not comfortable with waking up in the 50’s even though you are!), yet, during the day, I’ve had to increase by that same 0.2 to keep from staying high all day. Of course, that has been in the past few days, and I had some issues with occlusions as well, which lead to me changing everything out this morning – site, tubing, and cartridge – just to bolus for my measly breakfast. So, I may not have been getting my daytime insulin as I should have been. I’m leaving the increase as is just to test and see.

After the news of the higher A1c, I faxed over my readings with a note to my endo. I told him how upset I was about the increase and how worried I was about the baby. I got a call back from his nurse basically trying to calm my fears telling me that it’s okay, that the A1c I had wasn’t terrible, and the baby should be fine. I saved that voicemail so that every time I think about the A1c and start getting upset again, I can play it back. I know it’s not a promise that everything will be ok, but it helps me not to get upset all over again.

As far as the queasiness goes, I’m not getting as sick as I had been, so that’s a plus. I can eat more on the days that I’m not queasy, and I just try to keep things balanced on the days that I am. I still have to stay away from fried foods being cooked, but that’s a good thing anyway, right? They say that by the end of the first trimester, the placenta then takes on the production of the hormones needed for the baby and that’s why you don’t’ get as sick anymore. Maybe I’m lucky and my body is taking a head-start on the whole second-trimester hormone making business? Just a guess. (Okaaayy, wishful thinking!!!)

So, now that’s 9 weeks down, and 31 more to go.

Saturday will be 10 weeks and 30 to go!

Wow.

Smile