Postpartum: In the blink of an eye

This post is the final post in a series about my labor, delivery, and postpartum story. When we left off, the entire family had been delivered to my room in the postpartum unit to recover.

See the following posts for a recap:

• Labor: Day One
• Labor: Day Two
• Day Three: The Delivery

Read on to find out what happened during our stay in the postpartum unit.

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It was late in the evening by the time we finally got settled in our postpartum room. I’m really not sure what time it was, because we had been inside the hospital for going on three days now. The flourescent lights were starting to really throw off my sense of time and place. I was disappointed to realize that my room only had a half bathroom (no shower!!!) and was right outside of the nurses’ station, so was quite loud. But I was so tired and elated and just so full of wonder and fear all at the same time that I didn’t even bother to ask if they could move us. We were all here, together, in one piece (or I guess you could say two pieces :)) and that was what really counted.

I was comfortable at this time because I still had plenty of pain killer from the epidural running through me and a catheter to keep up with my peeing needs. So I was anxious to try when the nurse suggested that I breastfeed. I did so, under the guidance of a gruff and less-than-sympathetic postpartum nurse who seemed bothered by my incessant questions. Lukas latched right on like a champ, and the pain was immediate for me. Too bad that epidural couldn’t have spread just a little further north!

Afterward, the nurse suggested that I pump to help bring in my milk. I complied, after observing her rudimentary lessons, but, looking back, I think this is where all of my trouble with breastfeeding started.
And now a sidetrack about breastfeeding:

It turns out that I really didn’t need any help bringing in my milk – It came in on day two with abundance. However, lacking good lactation advice, I continued to pump in an attempt to build up a “buffer” for when I couldn’t breastfeed. But by the time we were discharged, we already had several ounces of stored breast milk and two really engorged breasts. My totally uneducated opinion is that the pumping I did in the hospital set me up for the oversupply I dealt with later that eventually played a big role in my decision to quit breastfeeding.

So if you wondering about breastfeeding and pumping, here is my advice: listen to your body. If you have plenty of milk, DO NOT pump, not even to build up a “stockpile.” If you’re anything like me, you will end up with more milk than you can use and you will pay for it with sore, rock-hard, lumpy, leaky boobs. So much fun.

Instead, just feed your baby when he or she needs it, and let your body do what it’s built to do. And if you have to supplement with formula at night so that you can get some sleep, try not to agonize over it. A healthy mom is critical to the health of a new baby, and if you are a wreck, your baby will be too.

Of course, everybody is different, so take my advice with a grain of salt. If you don’t have plenty of milk, for example, than you have the complete opposite (and much more common) problem from me. In that case, my advice certainly does not apply.

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The next morning, the nurse stripped the bandages off of my incision, drug me out of bed, and showed me how to get to the toilet. Getting out of bed is a lot hard than it sounds when you have a belly full of stitches. But they had removed the catheter and my body was starting to flush out the swelling that the Pitocin had caused, so I got lots of practice getting to the toilet in short order.

We spent four days in the postpartum unit and it was just an absolute whirlwind. I fed Lukas every three hours and my husband changed all of the diapers. In between, we struggled with an allergic reaction to two of the three pain meds they tried on me, gas pains, general incision pain, constipation, insomnia, and the standard noise and interruptions that come along with a stay in the hospital. It turns out that I had more pain than most new moms, so this added another layer to my struggle to recover.

I had one nurse who was a real diabetes moron. She gave me a lot of trouble for not finishing my lunches and for treating my near-constant lows with orange soda pop. My doctor set her straight, though, and she laid off. Aside from that one nurse, the hospital staff went out of their way to be helpful, which was a godsend when I was struggling with all of that pain. And they did not try to impose on my diabetes management. Instead, they just wrote down my BGs in their logs and kept track of the changes I made with my pump and the food I was eating.

Speaking of the near constant lows, I was hardly taking any insulin at all during those first few days. I had entered my pre-pregnancy basal rates into a profile on my pump before we left for the hospital, but most of the time my pump was on suspend. My insulin needs increased slowly over the next several weeks, but I still had random lows, especially after breastfeeding.

Our days in the postpartum unit passed in what seemed like moments and I felt so helpless. I could hardly crawl out of bed. My husband had to help me shower and get dressed.

By the time we got home, it had been seven days since we had stepped foot outside of the hospital and I was so happy to see the light of day that I could have cried. It was late afternoon on a sunny day in June. As I walked toward the house, I felt the warm breeze on my cheek and noticed the sun glinting through the tall grass. I looked down to see Lukas asleep in his carrier. I just stood there for a moment, trying to take it all in. We were all here and we were all healthy. It was just incredible.

Day Three: The Delivery

This post is a continuation of my labor, delivery, and postpartum story. When we left off, the first 48 hours of labor had drawn to a close and I was only five centimeters dilated.

See Labor: Day One for a breakdown of the going-ons on the first day and Labor: Day Two for a review of what happened on the second day.  Read on to find out what happened on day three.

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Things happened quickly after my doctor made the decision to do a c-section. I watched everything as if I were floating outside of myself. I was scared and nervous. It just seemed like a dream. The anesthesiologist came back and injected a boatload of some sort of painkiller into my epidural and they rolled me into a sort of staging area outside of the operating room. Here we waited for our turn.

Once inside, I tried to take it all in, but it was just so much. There were like three or four nurses and two doctors standing at the foot of the table. The anesthesiologist stood behind me. Everything was stainless steel. A nurse asked me if I could move my feet. I tried, but could not, but was not convinced that I was numb. They strapped my arms down to the side of the table like you see on TV and they put up that crazy paper shield right in front of my face so that I couldn’t see anything. I was kind of freaking out.  My doctor was standing on my left and an assistant was standing on my right. Just before the surgery, my doctor leaned around the shield and showed me what looked like a pair of pliers. He says, “I just cut you several times with these and you did not feel it.” I think he was trying to put my mind at ease, but his comment only served to freak me out further.

During the actual event, I did not feel anything. Not even the tugging or pulling or pressure you sometimes here about. Before I new it, my doctor was saying, “He looks good.” He held my baby up over the curtain for just a moment, but I couldn’t really see him because the curtan was basically in my face. I was still pretty freaked out and I said nervously, “He’s not crying.”

They took little Lukas over to a bassinet in the corner of the OR where they had oxygen and all kinds of other treatments, but he didn’t really need them. Just like that, he let out a surprised yelp and then started to cry in earnest. Tears of relief pricked at the corners of my eyes.

Meanwhile, the doctors and nurses were working on putting me back together. They discovered that Lukas’ cord was in a full knot, which explained why his heart rate kept dropping. And they found a large fibroid (the reason for our ectopic pregnancy scare at six weeks), which they removed. As soon as they started to close me up, I felt pressure in my shoulders. Sort of under my collar bones. That and nausea. I mentioned this to the anesthesiologist, who assured me that both were normal (the pressure is a result of gas that is trapped in the abdominal cavity during the surgery) and gave me something that eased the gas pain and Phenergan for the nausea.

My husband took pictures of the baby, of my open belly, of the knot in Lukas’ cord, even of the fibroid. Kind of gross, but I was glad he did it, so that I could sort of relive the expereince later after I had calmed down. I was not able to hold Lukas in the operating room because the pain in my shoulders was too great, but my husband was and we have a great picture of him in his white jumpsuit and “shower cap” holding our little bundle.

It wasn’t long, though, before I was able to hold him. Out in the recovery room, the nurse tested my sugar (the only test that I or my husband didn’t do during this entire week-long event) and then they propped me up and let me hold him. I can’t even describe the feeling. It’s like a dream. It doesn’t seem real. After a little bit of bonding and a few visits from family, they took Lukas to the nursery for a quick checkup and took me and my husband to the postpartum unit. They rolled Lukas into the room just behind us, and reported that he was doing splendidly. His BG was near perfect and he showed no signs of distress. And with that our postpartum adventures began.

Check back soon for one more post about our experiences in the postpartum unit.

Labor: Day One (Finally!)

Scrolling through the archives of my blog the other day, I realized that I never really told you all about my labor, delivery, or postpartum experiences. I started a collection of posts on these topics some time ago, but never finished them.

It’s just so hard to explain the rush of activities and emotions that occurred over the course of those seven short days. I  kept trying, but was never satisfied with the results. And then my netbook died, taking those draft posts along with it.

So I thought I might try again. And this time I’ll be sure to back up my files.

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You might recall that the day before my induction, we had an amniocentesis which confirmed that BabyNoName was ready to be delivered. The office assistant gave us instructions to arrive at Labor and Delivery the next day at 5pm.

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We arrived at the hospital right on time at 5pm and the nurses were ready for us. I was surprised by the amount of paperwork to be completed and the details to be finalized. But I was comforted by the fact that the nurses seemed confident in their ability to deal with my “special” circumstances and their seeming interest and concern about my baby’s well-being.

It seemed to take forever, but it was probably only a couple of hours before we finally got started with the IV and then the Cervidil. As a reminder, Cervidil is a gel that is applied to the cervix by means of a tampon-like device that is placed in the vagina. It’s supposed to thin the cervix and, in some cases, can even dilate the cervix. As expected. It caused light cramping, but was not difficult to deal with. I was still allowed to get up, walk around, and use the bathroom on my own.

My husband and I fell into a routine of testing and logging my BG every hour. At one point, I was low and the nurse let us treat it with our own stash of supplies, so from there on out, we took care of my BG.

The Cervidil stayed in all night, and in the morning, the doctor on call checked my progress. Boy was I disappointed to hear that we’d only progressed to one centimeter. One! So next we started with Pitocin through the IV. The Pitocin increased the discomfort of the cramps, but they were still not debilitating. They gave me morphine every four hours or so to keep me comfortable. We also used the exercise ball to sort of massage away the pain and to try to take advantage of gravity.

The nurses really went out of their way to keep me as comfortable as possible, and they were very hands off with the whole BG control thing. They wrote down everything I did, from BG tests to basal adjustments, to low treatments, but really stayed at arm’s length. One nurse told me that as long as I was able to keep everything under good control, they would let my husband and I handle it. But if things got out of control, they would step in. And they kept their word. I was impressed.

So after a whole day of labor with low levels of Pitocin, another on-call doctor checked my progress. Still one centimeter. No, I’m not joking. Oh, how I wish I was! At this point I had been in “labor” for about 24 hours. My doctor stopped in and advised me that they would next try a “foley ball”. I’d never heard of this procedure before. Fair warning: if anybody ever suggests it, consider running in the opposite direction.

Stay tuned for “Labor: Day Two”

One final update before the big day

We’re down to just a weekend before the big amnio. If all goes as planned, this might be my last post for a little while. I’ll do my best to at least post a couple of pictures once Baby NoName finally makes his big debut, though.

In the meantime, here is an update on my and baby’s health over the course of the last couple of weeks.

As has been the case throughout this pregnancy, Baby NoName and I are healthy. Neither of us has an diabetic complications to speak of, although I continue to struggle with “real people” pregnancy symptoms like swelling, heartburn, and round ligament pain. These have mostly improved now that I am on my “staycation” and resting more.

For the last three weeks, though, I have really struggled with my BGs. I’ve averaged about 100 throughout the entire pregnancy until these last couple of weeks. Now my average is up to 120. I’m seeing an alarming number of post-prandial readings in the 170-180 range and an occasional number in the 200s. Of course, I do my best to bring these numbers right back down, but they are alarming after all of the great numbers I saw up until this point. I have no idea how much of an effect this new development will have on baby’s BG when he is born, but you can be sure I am worrying about it. Hopefully all of the good numbers I’ve managed to accumulate throughout the pregnancy will offset some of these higher ones.

It seems that my basal and bolus rates are increasing every two to three days. And the needs are not consistent. One day this week, I used a 140% temp basal all day, and the next day, my numbers dropped back down into the normal range.

My average daily insulin intake is up to 82 units, up from 35 units pre-pregnancy and up from 75 units a couple of weeks ago.

I’ve gained about 17 pounds over the course of this whole journey. Given that I came into this at a less than ideal weight, I was hoping to keep my weight gain to about 20 pounds or so, so I am pretty happy with this number. Still, I am not exactly thrilled with my new, flabby and water-logged figure. I do my best to avoid seeing my rear end. It has widened considerably. And my arms and legs look increasingly like stuffed sausages. Yikes.

Psychologically, I am a bit of a mixed bag. I am so excited to finally meet this little guy. But I am scared and nervous, too. Can I actually do this? Childbirth? Breastfeeding? Childcare? What if it turns out that I am not “mom material?” I’m sure we’ll figure it all out as we go along, but that doesn’t mean that these thoughts don’t keep running through my head.

Spending the last couple of days at home has not helped. When I was always running to work and appointments, I didn’t really have time to think about what was coming up next. But now that I’ve had a chance to relax and regroup, it’s given me time to think about these types of things.

Tip of the week: Avoid the TLC channel and the shows Baby Story and Bringing Home Baby during the last couple of weeks of your pregnancy. I’ve seen all sorts of births on TV this week: c-sections, at-home births, natural births, medicated births. In one episode, the mom was in so much distress that the doctor asked the camera crew to turn off the cameras so that they could deliver the baby. My mind made up all kinds of scenarios for what happened while the cameras were off.

My life is about to change in ways I can’t even begin to imagine. And this is something that I’ve always dreamed about. The journey has been long and stressful but oh so worth it. But I realize now more than ever that this journey is not even close to over. In fact, you might say that it’s just beginning.

Maternity Leave: The Ins and Outs

So I am officially on maternity leave now. Technically, it is a sort of pre-maternity-leave vacation. You see, my company requires that I use any remaining vacation during the first days of my actual FMLA/short term disability leave. That is, all types of leave, including vacation and sick time run concurrently, or at the same time. So you can’t use your vacation and then use your FMLA and then use your short term disability. The clock starts ticking on all of them on the day you begin your leave. In my case, this is the day the baby is born.

The really crappy part about this is that my HR department did no clarify this requirement with me until I was already in my third trimester. Too late to travel to an exotic location for a “baby moon.”

So I am on a “staycation” now. At home. With swollen ankles, sore hips, and heartburn. I’m trying to put the time to good use, though. I am preparing the house for our little one’s arrival. It is slow going, though, because I am tired, swollen, and sore. I spend more time on the couch resting my fat ankles than I do actually preparing. Today our new mattress is being delivered, so I am here to manage that, and then it is off to Target for some last minute baby items. I’m also on the lookout for a seamstress who can sew up the cushion covers for my deal-of-the century, hand-me-down rocker/glider.

You might remember that my struggle with my company over maternity leave was a bit emotional for me. I work for a small company where only one other co-worker has ever been pregnant. So the company has no written policy on maternity leave, and it seems that the policy changes pretty regularly to suit the whims of a few select people in charge. I was really hoping to avoid that kind of battle. I just didn’t need it on top of all of the appointments and tests and emotional ups and downs I was already facing.

In the end, though, probably because I am so darn stubborn, I was able to negotiate what I consider to be a reasonable amount of time, but it is not without risk. And, of course, none of the time is paid except for the 6-8 weeks of short term disability which are paid at 60% of my normal wage.

This is what I was able to cobble together:

• 4 days of personal leave and 4 vacation days before my leave actually starts. I structured the leave so that the first day of my actual leave will fall roughly on the day the baby is delivered.
• 6 weeks of short term disability starting on the day the baby is born. I am using 5 days of vacation to cover the elimination period. If I have a c-section, I will get 8 weeks of short term disability leave. The amount of time you get under short term disability is based on the amount of time your doctor says you are unable to work. Typically, your doctor will allow 6 weeks for a vaginal delivery or eight weeks for a c-section. Your leave might be extended if you have complications. If your doctor requires you to be off of work longer than your short term disability coverage lasts, you might then get long term disability. Not all companies offer short term disability leave and the benefits under it differ depending on your plan. Some states require that the company provide a certain amount of short term disability leave, but mine does not. Another important note about short term disability: Many plans have an “elimination period” in which you do not receive benefits. In my case, this is the first week. You can use vacation time to cover this financial shortfall. This is what I decided to do, but only because my company did not give me enough notice to use that vacation for a proper “baby moon.” I would have preferred to have the extra time off and sacrificed the pay during the elimination period.
• 12 weeks of FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act.) This also starts on the day the baby is born. So basically, I’m losing the first six weeks of FMLA leave because they run concurrently with the short term disability leave and the five days of vacation. Also, you can typically use FMLA time intermittently, as opposed to using it all in one block. Unfortunately, there is a clause in the law that allows companies to force you to take all of your FMLA time in one block if you are taking it for the birth or adoption of a child. A total crock, right?
• A leave of absence totaling four weeks. This leave is not required by law; it is an extra leave benefit at my company that is approved on a case-by-case basis. Thankfully, this leave does not run concurrently with my other leaves, so it extends my total maternity leave time to four months. Unfortunately, since I will no longer be protected by FMLA, the company is not required by law to hold my job for me during this leave.
• When I return to work, I will return part time. One surprising perk at my company is that if you maintain 25 hours per week, you can keep your insurance benefits. So I will return to work three days a week starting in October. I will continue on this part-time schedule until the end of the year. I’m losing some vacation and my bonus is going to be pro-rated as a result of the drop in my hours.
• At the first of the year, I will return to my normal full-time schedule. However, the company is completely within their right to deny me full-time status if they do not have enough work to warrant my return.
• One other benefit I managed to squeeze into the plan was for my company to cover my tuition for my final MS class which just started last week. This is huge for me, because that class costs over $2,000. The way I understand it, the company does not have to cover the class by law; the only benefit that FMLA requires them to offer me while on leave is health insurance. I argued that, because of the repayment clause in out tuition reimbursement policy, if I decided not to return after my leave, they would get their money back. If I do return after my leave, as is my intention, then they get the same benefit they would have gotten if I was not on leave (a more educated employee.) I think that argument helped.

Anyway, that is the low-down on how my maternity leave panned out. I learned a lot more than I ever wanted to know about the laws surrounding maternity leave, disability, and discrimination during this process. I hope I never need to know these things again, but it is good information to have in my back pocket should the need arise.

Finally, an Update

First, let me thank the couple of readers I have who have hung on with me through my most recent hiatus. Things are getting kind of crazy in my little world now and blogging has definitely taken a back seat. Without further adieu, here is an update on what’s going on and how things are going.

I am officially 36 weeks pregnant today. Baby NoName is still passing his non stress tests with flying colors. I was scheduled for one yesterday, Memorial Day, and the Fetal Eval Department was closed, so I had to go to Labor and Delivery for the appointment. It was kind of nice to get a sort of dry run for finding L&D and where to park again. The maternity ward was pretty quiet. I’m hoping for the same environment on the big day.

Luckily, when we arrived at the reception desk, I recognized the L&D nurse from the Fetal Eval Department. She fills in there from time to time. Along with Baby NoName’s regular kicks and heart beats, she also recorded two contractions. She says this is normal at 36 weeks. They are just “practice” contractions. They were so weak that I didn’t even realize that they were contractions. They felt kind of like Baby NoName was stretching inside my uterus and just pushing his little walls to their limits. If I have more than six in an hour, I should call my high risk OB.

We officially have a plan for the birth now. Seeing as both baby and I are healthy, we have planned a tentative induction for 37 weeks. That’s next week! I think that if I had resisted and tried to wait this out until closer to 40 weeks, my doctor would have agreed, but the truth is I am tired and grumpy. The testing and prodding and doctor appointments are really starting to get to me. I’m not sure how much longer I can take this routine. Couple that with an increased risk of fetal death in the last month for type 1 diabetic moms, and I am more than ready to get this show on the road.

So the plan is that we have an amniocentesis scheduled for next Monday. The amnio is used to check the maturity of Baby NoName’s lungs. Apparently, the only real risk with an amnio is contractions. When you get an elective amnio in the earlier stages of pregnancy this is more of a risk because it can lead to miscarriage, but at this late stage, the risk is much less because the baby is much more likely to survive if you go into early labor. Basically, contractions at this stage are OK because we are more or less ready to deliver the baby anyway.

If the amnio shows healthy, fully-mature lungs, then we are ready for the induction. If my cervix is not yet dilated, I will be admitted to Labor and Delivery the same evening for Cervidil. This is a prostaglandin gel that they apply to the cervix to soften and thin it. Then they will start the Pitocin through an IV in the morning. Pitocin is an artificial version of oxytocin, the hormone that my body would make naturally during labor to cause contractions.

If I am already starting to dilate on my own, then we will just wait until the next morning, skip the Cervidil, and start with the Pitocin.

I am a little freaked out about the whole induction process. I’m reading that Cervidil can cause painful but non-progressive contractions. And Pitocin can cause contractions to be more painful, but ultimately not work well enough to progress the labor. I have heard horror stories of inductions that last three agonizing and exhausting days and then result in c-sections anyway. It seems that sometimes induction works and sometimes it doesn’t. I expressed my concerns to my doctor who told me that these scenarios are all possible, but that there is no way to know if induction will work until we try it.

He is strongly in favor of induction over a straight c-section given that Baby NoName and I don’t have any of the standard diabetic complications. It is hard for me to believe, but my eyes, my kidneys, my blood pressure, baby’s heart, baby’s weight, and baby’s spine are all perfect. I guess all of those late-night BG checks and the never-ending appointments are finally paying off.

So I made a deal with him. We will try induction for one day (24 hours if we have to use the Cervidil the night before.) If I am not progressing and am not at least semi-comfortable, we will move forward with the c-section rather than waiting another day or two as is his standard procedure.

In the end, I think it just comes down to me freaking out about the whole labor and delivery thing. No matter what route he takes to get out here, it is not going to be a walk in the park,. So ultimately, it doesn’t really matter which avenue he chooses as long as he is healthy.

Why I Didn’t Buy a Dexcom

I had my monthly prenatal appointment with my Endocrinologist last week. We have seen each other once a month and traded e-mails once a week for eight months now, so we seem to sort of “get” each other now. My appointments are friendly and chatty. This month, he gave me a good ribbing for choosing not to purchase the Dexcom after my trial. He says I am the only person he’s ever met who decided that she didn’t really need it.

While he is right that I did choose not to purchase the Dexcom after my trial, his understanding of my reasons for doing so are a little off.

Let me start by saying that the device is impressive. I tested a Medtronic MiniMed CGMS several years ago when it was in trials. It was clunky, was not remote, and was not waterproof. You had to put the thing in a little waterproof shower pouch that you could hang around your neck in the shower. Really? You had to go to the doctor’s office to have the sensor inserted. To top it all off, the thing was testy. The first time I trialed it, it crapped out after just a day. The second time, the result were better, but you could only wear it for three days. Probably the worst part about the device was that it did not communicate any of its information to me, the patient. Instead, all of the information was stored in the device until the doctor downloaded it. So much for catching highs and lows.

Today’s CGMs are in another realm completely. The Dexcom sensor was really pretty simple to “install” and the user interface on the device itself, while basic, was relatively easy to figure out and was functional. The sensors are now remote, so I was not tethered to the device, and they’re also waterproof, so I could attend water aerobics and take a shower without worrying about a shower pouch. Perhaps most importantly, this new generation shares its information with me, so I have “real time” information about whether my BG is trending up or down, or is out of range. I’ve got to admit, that’s pretty helpful.

When I trialed the Dexcom, I managed to get over 14 days out of one sensor, although by the end, I was seeing a lot of ??? screens. The low and high warnings were a bit annoying in the beginning, especially when I was recovering from a low and it was STILL beeping at me. The lag-time was frustrating. But once I got the alarms set to the right levels (60 and 160 worked well for me,) this annoyance was somewhat tempered. Of course, the fact that it caught untold numbers of pending highs and lows during the trial is not lost on me. My graphs and charts from the second week, once I got used to the thing, were amazing.

So why didn’t I buy? It basically comes down to a sort of psychological burden. I really felt like the thing just put too much of my focus on this damn disease. Before the Dexcom, I was already testing 16 times a day. Now I had to do even more finger sticks either to calibrate, or because Dexcom thought I was high or low and I needed to confirm. It was like the thing was whispering in my ear all day, “Hey you … you’re diabetic. Don’t forget.”

I’m also really hung up on the idea of yet another hole in my skin. I don’t like wearing all of these devices on my body. When the pros outweigh the cons, I’m willing to do it, but otherwise, I’d like to get away from sensors and infusion sites. If they ever figure out how to put the two together into one site, then I would be really interested.

The device is big and cumbersome, too. It did not fit in most of my pants pockets, and the clip was worthless. The size and shape were a constant reminder … when the darn thing popped out of my pocket in the bathroom … when I would leave it on my desk at work during a meeting … when it took up precious real estate on my nightstand where it was jockeying for position with my tester and my juice boxes and my box of Dots.

In the end, I looked at my current diabetes regime, the fact that my A1C’s have been amazing throughout my pregnancy, that my baby is healthy, and that my non-pregnant A1C typically hovers in the 6.0 range, and I decided that the slight improvement in my control was just not worth the psychological pressure.

The day I returned the device to the sales rep, I caught a low in the 20’s only because I tested. I didn’t feel it. I wondered if I should have bought the Dexcom. I still wonder sometimes. And maybe I will change my mind one day, when my A1Cs are not as good, or the lows and highs are more frequent. But diabetes, and life in general, is all about balance. We need to find a way to manage this disease while staying mentally healthy, too. And the best way to do that is different for every one of us. For now, I think this is the best decision for me.

Happy Belated Diabetes Blog Week

So I totally dropped the ball on Diabetes Blog Week last week. I only managed to write two days all week, an all time low for me. Unfortunately, life just keeps getting in the way of my blogging.

Case in point: things at work are getting busy. I work as a Technical Writer for a software company. We have a new release coming out in a couple of weeks, and that means A LOT of work for the Technical Publications department. I spent all day Saturday at work – so not my idea of a nice weekend.

And the doctor appointments just keep coming. Between the non-stress tests, the physical therapy visits, and the “meet the pediatrician” appointments, I feel like I am spending more time in doctors’ offices than I spend in my own home. I’m pretty sure my High-Risk OB sees me more than my husband does.

I finally finished the spring semester of my Masters program at the end of April, but I quickly had to enroll for the summer course, too. It is the final course in my degree, and the professor has agreed to let me finish the course in the fall as an independent study project, but I still have to attend the first couple of classes. So that started up again last night.

The good news is that Baby NoName is doing great. I had an ultrasound last week, and he was weighing in at just over 4 pounds – right on target. I’m so proud of him! Last week, he “dropped” into my pelvis, so I can finally breathe a little bit again. He is definitely getting stronger and more active, too. He spends most of the day twisting and kicking and punching at my internal organs. Things must be getting tight in there. On the outside, my belly feels tight and stretched to the limit. Occasionally, I see a stray limb or rump poking out of my belly before he swims off to the other corner of his home. Oftentimes, I catch a glance of my belly bouncing all around as he continues his dancing and maneuvering.

My husband and I have now visited three pediatricians. We have one more to interview. We are nothing if not thorough! So far, I am leaning toward one who is affiliated with the Children’s Hospital in the “big city” nearby. They have a Pediatric Endo who services their office and would be available to answer my never-ending questions about things like diabetes triggers and formula and vitamin D drops. Plus she seemed like she had a nice mix of a friendly bedside manner and a down-to-earth, tell-it-like it is approach.

I’ve also contacted four daycare providers and I have one more on my list. Some work in their homes and some are large daycare centers. We won’t need anyone until I go back to work sometime in October, but I’ve heard that the “good ones” book up fast, so you have to reserve your spot in advance. I’m learning that interviewing daycare providers is a difficult task. It’s hard to even know what to ask them. I’ve found that the phone calls have allowed me to weed out a few, but I am nervous about the actual visits that will help me make an ultimate decision. For those of you with children in daycare, how did you decide on a provider? What questions am I forgetting to ask?

My husband keeps hounding me to pack my hospital bag, so I started a pile of things to pack: Test strips, insulin pump supplies, insulin, juice boxes, robe, bathroom essentials, etc. What am I forgetting? I’m sure we will get there and I will have forgotten something really obvious like my toothbrush. Is there one thing that you wished you had packed that you didn’t? Or something that you did pack that turned out to be indispensible?

Slowly but surely, we’re inching toward the finish line of this journey. I am full of emotions; I’m ready, anxious, excited, scared, tired, and energized all at the same time.

A Day in the Life of a Diabetic Mom-to-Be

In response to Karen’s great Diabetes Blog Week idea, and also in response to Saffy’s question about how I fit in all of the pregnancy-stuff around work, here is my contribution. The topic is “A Day in the life . . . with diabetes.”

5:45 AM: Can’t wait any longer. Have to pee. I’m dancing in front of the toilet while I fight with the vial of ketone strips. Finally.

6:00 AM: My husband stumbles into the bedroom headed for the shower. Seeing as I have been up at all hours of the night for months now, he usually sleeps on the couch. One of us might as well get a little sleep, right? “Are you done in bathroom?” he asks. I mumble “yes” from under my pile of pillows. I can’t believe it’s time to get up already.

6:30 AM: My husband leaves for work. I do a test: 97. I crank up the laptop and upload my BG readings out of my pump, then print them for my doctor.

7:00 AM: Into the shower. A frantic hour of readying myself for the day ensues: shower, hair, teeth, breakfast, packed lunch.

8:15 AM: Another test: 98. I’m late. I throw everything into my laptop bag and rush out the door. Along the way, I discuss this BG reading with my inner self: “It’s only been an hour since breakfast. Will I be low at the two-hour mark? Maybe not … I did have peanut butter with breakfast. I stuff my meter in my coat pocket and pull out of the garage.

9:05 AM: I’m late for my non-stress test. I roll into the parking garage and make a mad dash for the fetal evaluation center. They hook me up to the monitors, and Baby NoName sleeps. We give him a little jiggle, I drink a glass of ice water, and we use the “alarm clock” to try to wake him up. Finally he startles and starts dancing in there. The peaks and valleys are recorded on the red and white graph paper. A half hour later, the nurse is satisfied. She permits me to move on to the next appointment of the day.

9:45 AM: I arrive on the other side of the hospital at my High-risk OB’s office. I am making good time. Sometimes the non-stress test takes an hour. The office manager smiles and calls me by name from behind the sign-in desk.  I sign in, pee in a cup, and weigh myself. It turns out that the Ultrasound Tech is ready for me already. I do a quick test while I’m sitting on the exam table. The Ultrasound Tech has to wait for me and I feel guilty. 156. Damn peanut butter. I ignore the “insulin on board” recommendation of my pump and dial in a .7 unit correction. Let the ultrasound begin.

Baby NoName is doing great, although the tech discovers for the first time that the umbilical cord is a two-vessel cord, not a three-vessel cord as we originally thought. The doctor assures me that it is nothing to be concerned about, but I make a mental note to google the difference later.

I realize that I left my BG readings on the kitchen counter … or somewhere. Pregnancy brain again. I will have to fax them in tomorrow.

10:45 AM: I finally arrive at work. Another test: 93. Much better. On to e-mails and meeting preparations. I sneak in a quick glance at a couple of DOC blogs between projects. I’m starving, so I eat my mid-morning snack.

12:30 PM: Lunch break. BG is 115. I head out to my car for a thirty-minute cat-nap. I am absolutely exhausted.

1:00 PM: Back in the office, I get back to work, and nosh on my packed lunch. Sometimes it’s one of those “healthy” frozen dinners. Today it’s a ham and swiss sandwich and an apple. Due to digestive woes, low blood sugars, and cravings, my pregnancy diet contains a lot more carbs than my non-pregnancy diet. BG is 62, a little low, so I take a little less insulin than the pump suggests.

4:30 PM: The office is starting to clear out. BG is 55. I peel an orange and start to munch on it while I work on one of many never-ending projects. For whatever reason, my BGs have been plummeting in the evenings, so the 4:30 snack has become a normal part of my pregnancy routine.

6:30 PM: One final test before I hit the road: 83. Afraid that my sugar might be dropping, I grab a handful of M&Ms from the office candy dish. I pack up and leave because the “late shift” support rep is locking up, even though I don’t have all of my hours in for the day. This means tomorrow will be an extra long day.

7:30 PM: I am at home, collapsed on the couch. My husband and I are trying to think of something to eat for dinner. All I want to do is sleep, but my BG is low AGAIN. We settle on grilled cheese sandwiches. I am delighted because he is doing the cooking AND the cleaning up. We watch a little TV while we eat and catch up.

9:00 PM: I can hardly hold my eyes open. I get ready for bed, do a test, take my pills, and double-check my stash of juice boxes and gum drops on the nightstand. Satisfied that I have enough sugar to make it through the night, I fall into bed. Because I under-bolused for dinner in fear of another low, I am at 180 now. I take a small correction bolus and settle in under my pile of pillows.

11:00 PM: My husband is on his way to bed. He wakes me up to test. 105. The number barely registers before I roll over and fall back asleep.

2:00 AM: I have to pee. Again. And my hip is killing me. While I’m up, I test. 65. Eyes closed, I slurp down a juice box and then drop it on the floor in the general vicinity of the trash can. Close enough.

4:00 AM: Again with the peeing and the testing. Luckily, my BG is in the “safe range.”

6:00 AM: My husband stumbles into the bedroom … another day begins!

There are a bunch of other D-bloggers participating in Diabetes Blog Week, too. Check out the list on Karen’s blog here.

Review: Balancing Pregnancy with Pre-Existing Diabetes: Healthy Mom, Healthy Baby

If you’ve been paying attention to the DOC for the last couple of years, you are probably familiar with this book’s author, Cheryl Alkon. You might know her better by her moniker: Lyrehca, or by her blog: Managing the Sweetness Within, where she chronicled her journey through infertility and a successful pregnancy all against the backdrop of pre-existing type 1 diabetes.

I have been anxiously awaiting my copy of this book for months now. In fact, I first placed my order with Amazon in February when I was a mere 21 weeks pregnant. For some reason, Amazon kept delaying my shipment, so it wasn’t until last Friday that it arrived on my doorstep. Finally!

Cheryl noted recently that you can avoid the delivery delay by ordering straight from her. She uses Paypal, and, as an added bonus, she will autograph the book, and you’ll be putting more of your valuable dollars into her pocket, instead of the pockets of the distributors and publishers. If only I’d known!

Now that I am EIGHT MONTHS pregnant, I was worried that the book would not be a very good resource for me, but I was SO wrong. I decided to start into the book from the end instead of from the beginning. I figured that this tactic would allow me to skip to the parts that deal with the later stages of pregnancy.

Right off the bat, I found valuable information. For example, lately I’ve been stressing about breast-feeding. What if it doesn’t work? How will I handle the frequent feedings? And the low blood sugars? What if I have to resort to formula? I was freaked out about the potential connection between formula in the early months and Type 1 diabetes.

Thankfully, Cheryl devotes nearly ten pages to the topics of breast-feeding and formula feeding and her writing style and content put me at ease right away. A mix of scientific evidence, quotations from doctors, and first-hand accounts from REAL diabetic moms, the book helped me realize that there are lots of ways to “skin a cat,” as they say, and provided me with the information and knowledge I need to make informed choices.

In the case of breast-feeding, I am still nervous, but feeling much more confident because I now understand the  potential connection between formula and type 1 diabetes, and am armed with the information necessary to make the best choices for my baby. Whew! What a relief!

I was also really impressed with the sections that deal with delivery and the postpartum period. There are first-hand accounts of birth stories ranging from the very natural to the emergency c-section, and everything in between. Cheryl also tackles topics like sleep deprivation, birth control, infertility, and loss, and how the big D plays a part in all of it.

I was also surprised to find that the earlier sections of the book were also useful for me. For example, it was nice to get a refresher on advocating for my health and my baby’s well-being in the medical community as I am preparing to hand over some of my control to doctors and nurses at the hospital. And as I read the section on morning sickness and low blood sugar, it was nice to be able to relate to the stories. Finally, I felt like I was not the only one who struggled with these issues.

The book was an easy but informative read — kind of like a cross between a conversation with a good friend and an appointment with a doctor who just happens to have diabetes. I’m so glad that Cheryl took on this project. I would recommend the book to anyone with diabetes who is considering pregnancy now, or in the future, and even for those who are already pregnant.