Wow, I didn't realize that it had been so long since I've written.
I'm 25 weeks today!
Everything is going great! At least now that I've gotten over sickness, colds and infections that I dealt with for a while. It's amazing how great blood sugars can be when those don't come in to play. Not that I haven’t started struggling with insulin resistance because I have.
I think I talked a bit about my increasing insulin needs in a prior post or two. They have defiantly increased. As of the changes that my CDE and I made this week I am at 18 more basal units (insulin pumping through my pump into me on a 24/7 basis) of insulin a day than I was prior to pregnancy. This does not include the increased insulin to carb ratios for meals and snacks that we have made. We are at the point of making changes on a more regular basis. We are defiantly making changes every week and sometimes twice a week if not more. I was freaking out for a while thinking how quickly and hard it seemed that insulin resistance was hitting me, but unfortunately/fortunately not sure which, I got cold/sickness twice in a month’s time that screwed with things pretty hard core and made my BGs all wack! Now that I'm over all of that things are "better". Like I said, we did increase some basal rates this week, so my needs are increasing but since getting over sickness, numbers haven't been nearly as terrifying as they were. I'm learning that about 2-3 days prior to any kind of symptoms of sickness showing that my BGs will spike more often and have a much harder time coming down. It seemed that one of the last day of my cold was one of the worst too. I think I felt awful that day not just because of the cold but because my BGs hung in the mid 200's most of the day and I just felt like crap from that. Between those and the emotional toll it took that day and the worry over baby girl, that was a really tough day. After that, it was like a switch flipped and my cold symptoms lessened drastically and my BGs started to come back into line.
Since I last wrote, we came up with a name. Nora Joy. I'm happy to be calling her by her name now. I had my last ultrasound last week, it was a fetal echo. They took an intense look at her heart, but she really didn't want to cooperate at first. She had her arms and legs up over her head and her butt sticking up so the tech was having a really hard time getting a good look at Nora's heart. The tech had me try emptying my bladder, lay on my side for a while and neither worked. She tried for at least a good 30 minutes but Nora just wouldn't move, I guess she was just too comfy. Once the tech left and right before the doctor came in to take a look then Nora moved to a perfect position. My doctor was then able to get a great look at her heart and everything else and he says we have a beautifully healthy baby girl. Right now nothing to be concerned about whatsoever. She is right on track with her growth and everything.
Monday we started our 6 week classes on Labor & Delivery, Breastfeeding, Newborn Care. With the holidays coming we really wanted to get the classes completed before and not have to be going during all the hustle and bustle and rushing of Christmas and New Years. Our first class was so so. Hubby isn’t too crazy about the fact that I’m dragging him to the classes. I think that as the weeks go on we will glean more needed info. I think that the first week was just a lot of info that I’ve already read and relayed over to hubs. I think that the breastfeeding, and newborn care portions of the class will be what we really need.
Mid December is when I start the NSTs, the none stress tests on her heart. At 37 weeks I'll be going twice a week for these. From what I understand a band is put around my belly and her heartbeat will be monitored and she’ll be monitored for movement. These sessions could last from 30 minutes, to two hours, depending on if Nora cooperates or not. I'm sure I don't have all my facts straight so once I'm actually going through all of this I'll have more specifics and details.
We have a lot of her nursery completed, just need to get organized as well as a decorating things completed. Once we have my showers then I'll really be able to get things together in her room. I have my first shower this weekend. Can’t believe the time for it is already here.
More diabetes related.... A few Saturdays ago I had a bad day with my Dexcom sensor. I went through 3 in a 12 hour period. I changed the first one out that morning, but when I did I must have hit a blood vessel because blood just pooled up under the sensor site. I still tried to keep it in and see if it would work, but after over 8 hours of just totally inaccurate readings I knew it just wasn't going to work. My Dexcom would say I was in the 60's and really I was in the 120's. I'd try to calibrate and then it would go from saying I was low to too high. I'd get readings in the 200's for example and I was only in the 130's. I knew in order to be on top of my BGs that I had to change my sensor. Having inaccurate readings like that would only cause me to freak out and waste test strips when I really had no need for any kind of correction. I finally changed it only to have the 2nd one in for 1 hour marinating in my skin when I accidentally ripped it out of my thigh when I went to the bathroom. Third time was the charm. That one I didn't rip out and the readings were "better". I gave it time and it eventually got pretty close to being on track. It actually became more accurate when I got closer to day 10 but I had to replace it because my skin was getting irritated. This new one that I now have in I've placed in a new spot that I've never used before. I've used my love handles but had switched to my upper front thigh saving love handle space for my insulin infusion set sites. I've been pretty happy with my thigh area as a place for my sensors, but decided it was time to change it up. I placed it closer to my back, not really sure that it's considered my love handle, maybe a bit of a muffin top? ;P I don't know, anyway, readings have been pretty spot on from the get-go! That's been pretty fantastic! At first I wasn't sure how comfortable I was having it there, but now that I'm on day 9 of having it here I've gotten accustom to it being there. Since I can't lay on my back that's not what the issue was, it was just a little uncomfortable when I'm sitting at my desk and I lean back, or when trying to roll over in bed. I was a little nervous I'd rip it out in the middle of the night trying to get comfortable, but that hasn't happened yet.
A couple of weekends ago we did our last big trip away before baby, I don't know that I'd say we went on a baby-moon. We went to LA to visit Brad's best friend and his family. Since there was no just us time, I myself wouldn't call it a baby-moon. It was a bit stressful for me, but nice to get away for a long weekend. We left on Thursday and came back on Monday. I say that it was stressful for me because being off my normal routine and eating junk most of the weekend of course threw my BGs to the sky a lot. Of course I played it off to all of that when I should know by now that it's more likely insulin resistance in my pregnancy. I finally changed some basal rates on my own Sunday morning after another night of highs that wouldn't come down. That seemed to help a lot and I wish I would have done it sooner. Since then and the changes that my CDE made when we got back things got much better. My other stress was of course airport security. Leaving wasn’t so much of an issue. I kept my pump on and went through the metal detector with no problem. Coming back…. LAX would only let mother’s with children go through the metal detectors and everyone else had to go through the full body scanners or opt for a pat down. I told them my situation hoping that they would make an exception for an obviously pregnant diabetic and they wouldn’t. So I had to wait for a pat down. That’s never fun.
I’ve been able to get back to my evening walks which have been really nice since the weather has changed and gotten really really pretty. It’s helping a bit with my BGs and I know it’s doing both of us good in more ways than just for my BGs. I'm hoping that this gets me on a schedule so that once it's too cool for my walks I'll be in the habit of some sort of activity and I'll jump on my exercise bike. I know that Nora needs me to do this in order to help with keeping my BGs in a safer range.
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