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. 

40 Weeks...Will We Make It

So much has happened in less than a week. Surprisingly diabetes has taken a back seat, for now. When I researched and we prayed about trying for a baby it never occurred to me that any complications would arise during the pregnancy that wouldn't be diabetes related. I wrote a little bit ago about how my blood pressure has been slightly elivated and we were keeping an eye on things. I still have maybe been a little too optimistic or maybe just nieve.

Today I am  32 weeks pregnant, I should have started the NST or baby heart/movement monitoring this week, but I started last week, a week early.  It all started because she had been getting really active and then from that Saturday night to Monday I really didn't feel her enough for my comfort. I called my doc first thing that Monday morning and they had me come in for my first NST session. Baby girl was perfectly fine, just hiding behind my anterior placenta. My blood pressure was high as it had been so the tech took it again at the end of testing and it had barely dropped. She wasn't comfortable just letting me go but my doc was not in the hospital that day so she contacted one of the others out of the practice. That doc said to go ahead and have me schedule another NST later in the week since I was running high. Still I was not thinking much of it and I was totally unprepared for what happened Thursday at that appointment. I went in expecting to maybe have a little elevated BP like I had been, but instead I was just really high. I about flew out of my chair when they told me the number. We checked again after testing was done and I had not dropped enough. My doc happened to be in the testing area at the time so he came over to talk to me. I was still expecting to be sent home or for him to just give me a prescription and send me on my way. Nope, he sent me upstairs to maternity to have my BP and baby's heart monitored and to get blood work done to see if my blood was showing signs of pre-eclampsia. At that point I was still not expecting to be admitted. I did have hubby bring me up an overnight bag just in case. By the time he got to the hospital a few hours later they were admitting me. My BP had come down to what it had been hanging out at the last few weeks, and my blood work didn't show any signs of pre-eclampsia. Of all things my body has to go and be the mystery of course. They had to admit me because my sodium levels were severly low. To the point I could start having seizures at any moment they said. Even though they acted like it was a huge deal and had me somewhat  concerned it still took them another 2-3 hours after admitting me to get the sodium solution hooked up to my IV.  Durring this whole process I can say that baby girl was doing fabulously! They all seemed to be impressed with how well she is doing, so that's a huge releif! She is strong and healthy, Praise God! It's her momma that is making things complicated. On top of all of this I was apparently having contractions that they were surprised I couldn't feel. They were slightly concerned and checked to make sure that I wasn't dialating. Thankfully I wasn't. So by the next morning my sodium levels were good again and my BP was okay enough to let me go, but I was put on house arrest, no more work for the remainder of the pregnancy. I can go to church and Christmas funtions as long as I find a seat, prop my feet up and relax. That news was of course hard to take. I'm not totally confined to the house or the couch/bed, unless I have a day like today, but more on that in a minute. I had my weekley doc appointment yesterday, now with my BP looking as it has we will try to go as far out as we can this pregnancy, but right now he is thinking that he won't let me go past 37 weeks, possibly 36 weeks! Thats only 4-5 weeks away! Not the 7-8 we were hopng for! I could very well have my baby girl in my arms in a month, not cloze to 2. I go to the doc office tomorrow morning and Friday to get steroid injections to make her lungs develope quickly so that she can breath on her own when she comes early. This of course makes me super nervous even tho I know this is done all the time. Today I had planned to take the necessary paperwork to work and then get blood work done to check my sodium levels. Right before I was about to walk out the door I checked my BP and it was really high. I called my doc and left a message. I had just gotten off the phone with the doctor right before I checked my BP. I was told that they are thinking that I need to cut down on my meds that I take for the Diabetes Insipidus, that the meds are causing me to retain water, lower my sodium levels and possibly be causing high blood pressure. So no blood work till Monday so they can see how cutting back the meds is working. I had still planned to drive up to work, but once I saw the high BP I wasn't so sure. I got a call back pretty quickly and was told to lay down, drink water and take it easy and check my BP every couple hours and if it wasn't comimg down the  to call back. I had spent all morning on the phone between scheduling appoitments with my high risk OB and trying to coordinate those with the NST sessions, and going in tomorrow and Friday for the steroid injections on top of trying to bump up my next endo appointment to about when we think 4 weeks after baby arrivle will be as well as trying to get him in touch with my high risk OB about the Diabetes Isipidus. I'm guessing all of that may have stressed me out enough to cause the significant high BP. I really don't know what happened. All I know is that all this feels pretty overwhelming at times, and I'm praying and hoping that cutting my meds down cause significant enough changes in BP that baby girl can stay in the oven longer. We'll see how things go with the steroids as well. I've been warned by my doc that those will throw my blood sugars high for about  week or so. Just in time for Christmas. At least little girl is staying active and I'm feeling her movements.  I love that!  Stay tuned.....

I Can, I Will, Accomplish This

It amazes me how much pregnancy hormones come into play with blood sugars! I read other bloggers that write about their T1D and pregnancy experiences and even the one book that I found on T1D and pregnancy and as encouraging as their posts and the book were, at the same time I’ve read time and time again so many say that insulin resistance didn’t really seem to kick in and effect them. Or that that their A1Cs stayed 5.4 the entire pregnancy or that they ate whatever they wanted just bolused for it and had no issues. Or that they would cry when they saw any number above 150. I read how one woman ate a big bowl of ice cream every night with no issues. Good for her! I’m glad she was able to do it, but that blows my mind, and is a bit disheartening for me. Why? Because I feel like I’ve struggled so hard to keep a fantastic A1C, that it has not been a walk in the park and I don’t have occasional highs, but daily and it’s always a rollercoaster of BGs. No smooth sailing for me. I’ve discovered that I can eat light or fat free frozen yogurt and it won’t send my BGs through the roof like ice cream will, for the most part, but sometimes, it does. I feel like I may have 1 maybe 2 good days a week if I’m lucky where I don’t go above 150, but other than that, I still see a whole lot of 180’s, 190’s and 200’s several times a week, and even multiple times a day. I don’t believe this is because my CDE and I aren’t making aggressive enough changes or that it’s my fault or what I’m eating. It’s just plain old dumb diabetes and pregnancy and I won’t let anyone tell me otherwise. This is just how my body works.  I’ve come to the point for the most part, not always, sometimes there are tears and fear of what is this doing to my baby girl, but I’m getting to the point of just waiting them out, praying and trouble shooting and sometimes, okay a lot of times doing some SERIOUS RAGE bolusing. Especially on the weekend if things go really wonky and I won’t be able to talk to my CDE until Monday about making corrections. With all of this being said, when I got all my blood work done this week for the scare that my doctor put me through, (you can read that here if you didn’t already) he also checked my A1C and I still had the best A1C I’ve ever had! 5.1%. Hallelujah!!!! Wowza! I actually did a double take and made him show me the paperwork cuz I really didn’t believe it. This really really hard work is paying off and as long as it continues once I see my little one face to face I will feel that she is the biggest accomplishment of my life! My CDE and I made even more changes to my pump yesterday, second time this week. There have been other weeks we’ve made changes 3 times. First was Monday and there were quite a few changes to be made in just the 3 days since talking to her. It blows my mind how quickly my insulin needs change on a daily basis even. I’m definitely going to be hitting 3x the amount of insulin I used before pregnancy, and I know at the rate things are going that I’ll exceed that.  Pre-pregnancy I was using 17 something units of insulin a day for my basal, amount going through me on a 24hr basis. Now??? I’m at 52.7units of basal, and then you have to add however much I’m taking at meals. By Monday my needs will have increased beyond the 52.7 units. I’m going through insulin reservoirs sometimes every other day depending on if it’s a couple of bad days or I’m eating more. Each reservoir holds 300 units of insulin and I’m getting to the point that on some days I’m going through 100+ units of insulin in a day! All the research and all the inquiring and all the reading really and truly cannot fully prepare one for going through pregnancy as a type 1 diabetic. I’m doing it, it’s doable, but it’s hard, but like I said, when I see my little beauty for the first time I’m going to feel like the most accomplished woman in the world!

When It's Not A Diabetes Scare

It’s still November, it’s still Diabetes awareness month and my plan for doing the daily instagram challenge failed miserably! Mainly because….I’ve been stressing the last week and worried. But I think all the prayers I asked for helped. This time, not diabetes related....

A week ago yesterday I had my 4 week appointment with my high risk OB and it wasn’t a good appointment. It started out normal, baby’s heart beat was good, I measured good, BGs good, talked to him about the water weight I believed I was developing that was causing my feet and calves to swell so that a few pair of shoes don’t fit already and a couple pair of boots I cannot zip up my calves. He wasn’t concerned with that…at first. When I first got there the nurse took my blood pressure and it was slightly elevated, more than what they would like. I told them about the stress of traffic on my way there and he said he would have my BP checked again to make sure it had come down and that it was only the traffic stress. (A sheet of drywall was on the highway I thought I was going to collide with then not even 10 minutes later a huge rock hit my windshield and cause me to actually scream out loud.)  We had started to talk about the NSTs that start in a few weeks and then my CDE came in and he asked for her to take my BP while we talked. She took it and interrupted with that my BP had not come down at all but stayed the same. It was still 149/something. That stopped the doctor in his tracks causing him to grab my file and ask if we had talked about exactly how much weight I’ve gained. I said no, but I wasn’t thrilled with the number I saw on the scale. When he looked and saw that I’ve gained 32lbs already he got serious. He examined me from head to toe, no I don’t look like I’m gaining a lot of fat, he could see it being water weight. I didn’t really look swollen, but with the higher BP and rapid weight gain he wanted to check these out. He told me to purchase a blood pressure cuff and start checking 3 times a day and write those numbers down. Then he had a jug sent home with me for me to do a 24 hour urine collection on Sunday that I had to take right to a lab first thing Monday morning to have tested along with getting blood work. This is pretty standard for all T1D pregos, I’d forgotten about that but wasn’t worried that he was having it done since it’s standard, but was worried that it would show an issue since he seemed to think I’m retaining so much water. He started talking about house arrest, how long I would actually continue to work and preeclampsia. I started to freak out. He had me schedule an appointment to come back and see him this morning so we could talk about the outcome of the tests and BP testing and talk about how much longer I would work. So for the past week I’ve taken my BP 3 times a day, Sunday did the urine collection and Monday bright and early took it to the lab for analyzing and got blood drawn. Today was the appointment to find out how things are looking and I swear, doctor’s like to freak their patience out to get reactions for entertainment purposes. It turns out that he never communicated to me that I should only worry about my BP if it reached 150 or over. Yes it said on the paper work in small print that if I reached 150 to call my doctor or go to the ER right away, so I thought that was worst case. Today he swore he told me that 150 or above was what he was looking for so my BP is perfectly fine, that the 130s and 140s that I seemed to hang out in was fine, he wasn’t worried about those. My urine and blood work came back perfect. No kidney issues and no signs of preeclampsia developing. When I asked about the weight gain he wasn’t worried about that either, although as you can imagine I’m not happy about it. I haven’t gained in the past week, good, and he said yes I’m probably swelling and retaining some water, but that’s normal and he even said I still look like all belly, I don’t look like I’m gaining too much. He wants to monitor that, but we went over my diet and what I typically eat and he doesn’t see that I’m over doing it. Which I am thankful for because even though I feel like my appetite has kicked into full gear and some days all I want to do is eat I do believe I do pretty well at restraining myself from eating everything possible. I was getting nervous that he was going to tell me to cut back or something. No, I’m not under eating either. He is also chalking it up to my DI which causes water retention and the T1 since I do have to take in unwanted calories (like in the middle of the night or after I’ve stuffed myself from a big meal and maybe over did it on the carb/insulin estimating) to correct low blood sugars. So no bed rest, or house arrest as he originally put it. He wants to start seeing me every two weeks already!!! How did this time fly by so quickly??? He did tell me that I can’t do anymore full days of running errands, house cleaning, laundry, dishes, cooking and then going out to dinner with friends. That was how my Saturday was and I knew I was pushing it but it all really needed to be done and at the end of the evening when I got home my feet, ankles, calves and knees where all swollen. When I told him all that he said no more of that. Since the swelling went away after resting he wasn’t worried but to no longer push myself so much, that could eventually cause a problem. So lots of rest, do chores for a bit then rest/nap. Run errands, come home and rest. Cook/bake, then rest. He said as long as I let myself rest I can do things, but not so much at a time anymore. Doctor’s orders, guess I gotta follow them.

Wanting to Give In To Burn Out

I just started to think about how long I’ve been diligently trying for crazy amazing blood sugars and an A1C of the same. I know that we all as T1s’ want this but when trying for a baby it’s something we strive for even more, at least I have. It’s much easier to give in to burn out when you aren’t growing human or trying for one. As of right now it’s been 20 months that I’ve been trying diligently to count every carb and accurately does insulin without swaging, exercise, check my BGs between 10-20 times a day sometimes more depending on the day. By the time little girl shows up and since I plan on nursing, and that is a whole nother reason to stay on top of tight BGs, that will leave me at somewhere around 36 months give or take, or 3 years if you will, of crazy anal control. That’s a loooong time! I was getting really burn out at the 14 month mark, right before we got pregnant. I was starting to slack a bit, but of course once I found out about little one growing inside I was back to being all anal again. Maybe once she is born I’ll let up a bit just because I know she’s not in there anymore relying on me to keep safe and growing healthy in the womb……BUT….. as with everything else BGs seriously affect nursing. I need to do more reading and even ask my CDE and doc more questions because I’ve heard conflicting information, but one thing I do know is that if I run on the higher scale of BGs it can cause milk production to be lacking. We don’t need none of that. Conflicting info I’ve heard? Well, I’ve read that if nursing while BGS are high that the milk itself can be harmful to the baby, then I’ve read that is not true that it doesn’t matter. Either way, I’d rather keeps things at a minimum so there are no issues with milk production, but never nursing with a high BG seems pretty impossible. Altho…… nursing causes lows, which may help against nursing with a high BG? Anyway, with all of this being said.. this is a long time to be so “good” if you will. I don’t know how long I’ll last once she is born. I’m getting tired and if she wasn’t part of the picture right now I know I’d be slacking big time. There is so much pressure and many reasons to keep tight control and I’m getting tired, really tired. I know that it will all be worth it in the end when she is here. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve not been perfect by any means whatsoever. I’ve guessed at times on the carb count on a much too sugary sweet treat and indulged and paid for it, but I’ve also been on the other end of the spectrum and eaten a less carb/sugar loaded item, counted correctly and dosed correctly and still ended up in tears of frustration wondering what went wrong when I was so sure everything I’d done was right. It’s tough, but I was encouraged the other day when I saw on Facebook another T1D just had her baby boy and he is beautiful and healthy! It was the encouragement I needed to remind myself that I can do it, that Nora will be fine, healthy and beautiful and here before we know it! Now to just get the energy to get the house and her room in order, that’s a whole other story……