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.
