It's Been Too Long...

It's been way too long, but that's life and that's just how it goes. I honestly thought that I posted what follows, but apparently not. I feel kinda weird all of the sudden blogging after so long, but what the heck why not. So what follows is what I wrote back in March but never posted. Along with some updates since it's now October for crying out loud!


 Honestly, I know I've let my diabetes management slide a bit since Love Bug came into the world 3 months ago. I can't believe it's been 3 month! She's doing very well, having her come 7 weeks early is like having a newborn that much longer. She's doing things that a 9 week old does, not a 3 month old. And that's okay, she'll catch up. She a strong little thing and healthy!

I know my last post I wrote about her birth, but I didn't get into all things "D" related during her birth and during my own hospital stay, so I'll talk about that now and try to remember as many details as I can, now 3 months later!

For the most part, all the doctors and nurses let me do my own thing regarding management. I was admitted to the hospital twice before she came. Both of those times a week apart and starting 2 weeks before she arrived. Both times sucked, really sucked in regards to dealing with the doctors and nurses about my diabetes. I wasn't very hopeful about when I would be there after her arrival, but it was different. When I was admitted both times the nurses put into their system so that when I ordered room service ( sounds like a fancy hotel),  to see that I'm a diabetic. When I'd call for my meals they assumed I was type 2 and always made comments about if I was ordering too many or too little carbs and I always felt judged. They were Notzis about things like I had to have a nurse check my BG if I felt low and I couldn't treat my low without letting them know about it or even insisting that I ask if I could or should treat a low. If I checked my BG any time other than a meal time they'd question me as to why I was checking, what made me think I needed to. I'd explain about my Dexcom alerting me to a low or high and depending on if I was low or high would depend on the nurses response if they thought I really should have taken any kind of action or just let it slide. I get it, I'm sure that they get a lot of diabetics that don't do jack as far as caring for themselves but constantly be questioned and micromanaged was really frustrating, especially by medical professionals. When I went in to have Love Bug it wasn't nearly as bad. It was the same hospital and everything, but it was different. I had some amazing nurses and doctors that I really feel like respected my diabetes management. I kept my insulin pump on during the C-section. I remember being really scared that I'd end up going low during the procedure and not be able to tell so I did an extremely low percentage basal rate on my pump. I know I talked to the doctor about my concerns and he was having a glucose drip put through my IV, but I honestly have no idea how they knew how much or little to give me without monitoring my BG the whole time. I didn't have my Dexcom with me during the C-section because there was no place to keep it and since I knew that Buggy was going to need so much attention and be going right to the NICU I wanted my husband to stay with her so I didn't put him in charge of my Dexcom. I guess since it all happened so fast and the whole thing took hardly an hour no one was too concerned since I started out with a good BG. I have no idea now what it was, all I know is I somehow survived. If I hadn't been having magnesium pump into me I think I would have been more alert and more concerned about my BGs and what was going on. In case you don't know, the magnesium was given because my blood pressure was so high that they were afraid I would go into seizures and the magnesium was to keep that from happening. During that week after when I was still in the hospital I didn't have the same issues with room service that I'd had the 2 previous stays. My nurse this time around that had put all my info into the system didn't say anything about a diabetic diet. I still had to let my nurse know before my meals to come check my BG so they could log it and also an hour after meals, but they weren't as crazy about the in between times. I admit it was kinda nice that it happened that way, I was saving my own test strips that way. Most of the nurses and doctors could tell how I had a handle on things and pretty much let me be. I only got really upset about 2 days before I was discharged. I had already been there for 5 days when the CDE (Certified Diabetes Educator) for the Labor and Delivery floor decided to make an appearance. I was not impressed with her at all. I'm sorry, but someone who is supposed to be educating diabetics should actually know what she's talking about. There was some kind of mix up that I was unaware of and so was my nurse. My primary high risk OB's office and CDE (Deb, who I've raved about in prior posts. Ya know, my "D" BFF), had been keeping up on my insulin pump basal rates, bolus amounts and all that. I'd get a hand written sheet with the settings they made and then my nurse would put it in the computer. At this point in time it was down that one unit of insulin would drop me 50 points and that's what was in the computer. Well when this CDE that decided to show up after I'd been there for 5 days already, she was looking at my pump settings and comparing to what she had. She started wanting to make changes herself and one of them she tried insisting on was that I needed to change it to 1 unit of insulin would drop me 25 points! That could be very dangerous and drop me too much. My nurse, who rocked by the way, was in the room at the time and ended up in a fight with her and totally had my back. All in all, we got the woman to leave and no other changes were made.
 Regarding my blood pressure, which is why I had to stay for a week after little lady came into the world.............after 6 days they finally found the combo of meds to get my BP to a place that my doc was comfortable sending me home with. Once they saw that my BP was finally coming down they kept me for another 24 hours to make sure and then sent me home with a couple of prescriptions and instructions to continue checking my BP 3xs a day and sending in my #'s weekly until my follow up appointment. I stayed on the meds for a little over a month before being able to say so long BP meds! I had heard so many times about how after the baby is out that all the fluid retention just disapears, but that was not the case for me. It took over 2 weeks after I was home before all of the sudden over night the water weight just vanished. 30+lbs of water weight is one of the most dreadful things in the world! It was absolutely horrendous! Anyway....


So that was all that, now that it's October....

Short update. I was hoping to make it at least a year, but we made it a full 8 months nursing before having to supplement formula. After that we only lasted about a month before having to go all formula. I'm not beating myself up. Odds were kind of against me but with all of them the fact that I made it as long as I did I'm not letting myself feel guilty, but I do miss it some times.
   I'm no longer on the pump or Dexcom. I didn't go back to my full time job so insurance and finances changed therefor financially it's best to go back to injections and no Dexcom continuous glucose monitor. My last A1c was still pretty good, but has definitely gone up since the pregnancy. My next endo appointment is in November and I'm sure my A1C is creeping up. Life as a mom and working part time is hectic and diabetes just complicates things as usual, but as bad as it sounds I'm ignoring it as much as I can. Not saying necessarily that I'm not taking care of myself, I am, it's just harder and I try to ignore the bad #'s and just correct and forget about it if at all possible. I for sure am doing the best I can because I want to be around for my hubs and baby. I actually went through a phase recently where I couldn't get out of my head the thought of complications arising. One thing I've learned lately is that sometimes it doesn't matter how hard a person tries to take care of their diabetes they are going to end up with severe complications, and another person may not take great care at all and never end up with complications. That does scare me. So this phase I went through, I was mentally scared a lot that if I did or didn't take care of myself something would happen and it would be devastating. Then I started thinking about people judging me, of course people that don't know jack about the disease or that fact that I do work really hard at taking care or myself.  Why I was thinking about what anyone would think I don't know. I'm kind of over that right now, I haven't given it as much thought in a while.

Update on little lady bug. She's amazing! She'll be 10 months on the 26th and I'm totally in love with her and obsessed. She's still ity bity, just now finally reaching 15lbs! She's sitting up, crawling, trying to get into everything, loving every new food we introduce her to, (except hummus, she had an allergic reaction to that), loves bath time, loves people, very social baby, spoiled rotten, boys are scared of her and thinks she's too energetic or crazy, she doesn't stay still ever except maybe when she sleeps, and she still has no teeth despite that fact that it seems like she's been teething forever. With all that said I'll leave you with a picture.

Love Bug's Birth

This is a long time coming, but once you read it all I'm sure you'll see why I've disapered and why it's taken so long for me to write.

My last post was a quick, "Surprise, baby girl is here", but I don't think I gave any real details. I know it took a lot of people by surprise even those that knew the details of our situation, I mean it took me by surprise but I think I was just being optimistic and oblivious to how sick I really was....


All the way up until my third trimester things seemed peachy keen except for how large my stomach got. I now wonder if that was the beginning of me getting sick. Anyway, it seemed like a week or so before my third trimester is when I started to really feel more and more uncomfortable. Retaining water, swelling, back pain, and then the high blood pressure. In the beginning of November is when my blood pressure started to creep up. Doctor sent me home with papers to fill out to monitor my BP 3 times a day and told me to get a BP cuff for home. My BPs were anywhere from the 130's - 140's / 70's and 80's. We started weekly appointments early in order to keep an eye on things. In the second week of December I started the NTSs' a week early, at 31 weeks because the weekend before I felt a lot less movement of baby girl. It was due to my anterior placenta, how it was placed and she was fine, just hiding behind the placenta. I had my first test on Monday and since my BP was elevated then doc wanted me to go ahead and come back on Thursday that week. At Thursday's appointment she was fine, but this is when the down hill decline started for mommy. My BP was 160/like 80 something. Doc admitted me to the hospital for observation and to try and get my BP down. We did already know that we would not be going past 37 weeks of pregnancy, but I was holding onto that and praying she'd stay in until then. I was released from the hospital in a little less than 24 hours, but not allowed to go back to work and I was put on "modified" bedrest. He wanted me to get up and move around but no work, no running errands. Following week when I went in to the doctor's office to have my first set of steroid injections in order to help her lung development is when they found protein in my urine in addition to high BPs. I was admitted again, this time for a 24 hour urine collection as well as monitoring of me and baby girl. She was strong and healthy through all of it, never a scare for her, it was always me. When my urine test came back I was right on the brink of my protein levels being high enough for them to take action, but they went ahead and sent me home. Still told me that I could go to family Christmas events as long as all I did was sit, so that's what I did. Christmas eve I sat in a recliner and was waited on hand and foot.  Christmas day was not good.  I was already dealing with swelling,  but we went to Brad's aunts for breakfast and I could tell that my extremities were swelling more and more and starting to hurt.  We went home,  Brad's parents came over later and his mom made chili.  My neck started to hurt and I chalked it up to how I had slept the night before. As the evening wore on it turned into a head ache. I should have probably checked my BP but I was really scared to. At midnight I broke down and took Tylenol for my head.  For some reason Brad decided to stay and sleep on the couch with me, altho neither of us really got any sleep cuz I felt so awful.  At 2am my head ache was unbelievable.  I had also started to feel nausea and shaky.  I took my BP. 160/104, that was the first time the lower number had been high. I checked again and that second time it showed 170/101. I called the doctors exchange and he said to come in to the hospital.  We grabbed our bags and went.  I was truly expecting that they'd keep me in the hospital on bedrest for a couple of weeks, that's what they had been warning me of. I got more and more nauseous once at the hospital and I finally threw up. I was hooked up to an IV right away and they started trying to get my BP stable.  I had climbed to 180 over 100 something.  It was probably 3:30am when they started with the IV and they just couldn't get my BP to come down no matter how much meds they pumped thru me.  Then my urine test came back at about 5am.  Protein was really high.  My nurse, who I loved by the way.  I loved just about all of the nurses and docs I had. She came in and said that we had a birthday for baby girl.  December 26 2014, that we'd be parents within the hour! I started crying right off the bat.  Because she was breech it had to be an emergency c section.  When I say emergency I mean it. They meant business. I was given the epidural,  Brad was great support, my nurse walked me through what was going to happen and within the hour, at 6:31am she was here.  I was overly exhausted from no sleep and totally drugged out. They had me on Magnesium to prevent me from going into seizures due to the high BP.  I don't remember a lot,  I do remember crying when I heard her beautiful cry.  Brad took tons of pics,  I got to see her and kiss her for a quick second before she was wisked away to the NICU. Because of the drugs I was on I was told I couldn't see her again for 24 hours.  I think if I hadn't been so tired and drugged up that would have killed me more than it did.  I was put in a recovery room while my actual room was prepared.  My nurse that took me to my actual room did take me to the nicu to see my beautiful girl for a quick minute, but again,  due to the drugs I couldn't hold her. She was such a champ! I'm so thankful that I'd had the steriods the week before becasuse I think that otherwise she would have probably been in the nicu longer than the 4 weeks she was in. They only had her hooked up for any kind of oxygen  breathing support for hardly 24 hours. She mainly had to stay in the nicu that time to make sure that she didn't have any heart rate drops, would hold her body temp, gain weight and take all of her feedings by mouth. She had a feeding tube in her nose, which she hated. The first week she was there wasn't nearly as bad as the following 3 for me because the first week I was still in the hospital myself and I could just go down to the nicu any time, not have to drive 30 minutes and leave her. They couldn't get a handle on my BPs. By the time I was discharged I was on 2 different BP meds and it had taken them some days to figure out what would work. In addition to that my swelling was scary awful. I gain 60+ pounds and over half of it was water weight! That water weight didn't come off as quickly as I expected. I think I was home a week before it seemed to just overnight evaporate. My feet were so swollen I had to wear slippers to the hospital to see my daughter, I had no shoes to wear. I had swollen up so much in such a short time that even what I had worn a day before she was born wouldn't fit. At one point Brad, not realizing how bad it was, grabbed my foot and squeezed and I about died. I literally thought that my feet would pop, I felt like the skin was expanding and that I would pop like a balloon. Him squeezing my foot left the grossest imprint for several minutes. After 2 weeks I think of me being home I was able to stop all the BP meds all together. Now that we are home Love bug seems to be getting really big to me, but she's still probably under 8lbs. She was 5lbs 4oz when she got to come home with us. I would spend about 8 hours every day up at the nicu, and I would cry every day as it killed me everytime I had to leave her, but I knew she was in the best hands possible. This entire thing was one of the hardest things I've ever had to endure. Being sick and all that came along with that and then having my baby in the hospital and not at home with me. Hubby was amazing through it all. I think that this all showed how strong our relationship is and made it stronger. I know that I'm blessed with an amazing man. I don't know many that would be able to go through all that we did. We never really realized just how sick I was. There are 5 doctors that are in the practice that I was at and I delt with each of them and they never really let on how bad I was. I guess they didn't want to scare me, but it was after the birth that they kept saying how serious the situation was and how sick I was. Recovery for me was pretty tough. I had the most awful bruising from my c section.  They actually took a sharpy marker and traced it so that they could make sure that it wasn't growing. I was told that I won the prize for worst c section bruise that they'd ever seen. It was always a bit amusing to see the doctors and nurses reactions when they would go to check me and see it. It did make me nervous that if things were so bad looking on the outside what did my insides look like. We are doing good now, so thankful to be home and trying to get the hang of being a new momma.

She's 7 weeks old today, picture taken day she got to come home. Those marks are from the sensors she had to wear during her stay. She's changed so much already, I can't believe it!

Surprise! A Day Late Christmas Present.

Well, we didn't make it to even 37 weeks.  Full blown preeclampsia hit and our little love bug was delivered at 33 weeks via emergency c section Friday December 26th at 6:31am. This is just a quick update that she's here.  We still have a long road ahead of us. I'm still recovering from the surgery of course as well as the preeclampsia and she still has a lot of growing and developing to do,  but she's strong and doing incredibly well.  I'll write a more detailed post later about all that happened. For now, heres our little love.