Diabetes & Pregnancy
Well, its been a while since I've posted and I got a couple of emails from friends of mine asking how I'm doing so I thought I'd post it for anyone else who may be interested. We are officially 3 1/2 months! :) I'm excited about that although most days I wonder if I'm just really sick or if there IS actually a baby growing healthily inside of me. We should find out this afternoon. John and I have our 2nd appt and hopefully we will get an ultrasound and at the very least we should be able to hear a heart beat. I can only imagine how that will make me feel and maybe help me to be more enthusiastic about all the nausea. :)
Its been really hard going through this, I'm not gonna lie. It takes a lot of energy to constantly be adjusting my blood sugar levels and eating enough to keep the nausea at bay. Nothing sounds good to me.. the way that I choose something to eat is by what doesn't turn my stomach the most. The worst things that make me sick are the smell and sight of (any) meat and the smell of food cooking. So, essentially I'm a vegetarian and we eat out a lot. :) Fortunately I have a Dexcom, which is a continuous glucose monitoring system, which is essentially one more device (other than my insulin pump) that is inserted into my stomach each week and continuously gives a graphical reading of where my blood sugars are at, at any given moment. Whenever I go outside my levels of normal it screams two loud beeps at me and vibrates uncontrollably. There's no way to stop this or shut the thing up, even when it is off-track and I'm actually in a healthy range, but its reading "low". Very annoying.
About a two months ago I discovered that I was going low A LOT, like 8 or more times a day. I don't know if this is because I wasn't eating very much or because I was throwing up what I was eating, or because the baby was changing things internally for me. But, when I go low, it always starts with a fluttering in my heart, then I can't breathe very well, then I get dizzy, and then I start shaking and John says I start saying things that don't make sense. But, its scary and I hate it. So, I re-adjusted all my levels of insulin that I take throughout the day trying to stop all the lows. But that has caused me to jump around like crazy, then I would go crazy high (which is horrible for the baby especially during the 1st 10 weeks while organs are being formed) and then I would panic, take a huge amount of insulin and then bottom out again, start shaking and start drinking apple juice like crazy. The worst part of all this is that it doesn't ease up at night, no, all the crazy highs and lows happen all throughout the night, as well as the nausea. So, during the night my Dexcom is vibrating and screaming at me every 5 minutes that I need to drink some apple juice or eat something, but then it would yell at me 30 minutes later because I had drinken too much and gone high and now I needed to take some more insulin to go down. Needless to say, I haven't gotten the best sleep for the past couple of months. (Last night I was SO TEMPTED to open a window and chuck the thing out into the woods!) Fortunately John seems to sleep through most of the drama (or he lies to me) and I feel a little less guilty that I might be keeping him up all night long when he has to get up at 4:30 a.m. and head to the hospital for insane surgeries all day.
Then a few weeks ago I noticed that I was going really high all the time and no matter how much insulin I was taking, it would take me 6-8 hours to come down, and then when I finally started coming down I better have a case of apple juice beside me because it was going to be awful. So, now I've re-RE-adjusted my daily insulin levels to try and account for a much higher dose of insulin. My old doctor from Salt Lake, whom I love and adore, wrote me to tell me congratulations on being pregnant and said, "most people will never understand the uphill battle you are facing but you have proven that you can do it. Keep doing the work that you know how to do." I don't think I understood the kind of work that I would be facing.
I worry constantly that I haven't done enough or that those highs that I have will somehow hurt the baby. I worry that the doctors here don't care or aren't as aggressive as the doctors I had back in Utah (I've already discovered one error they've made in my medication and am praying that it doesn't cause complications later in the pregnancy). All I can do is try to keep up with what my body is doing with diabetes, which takes most of my focus during the day and take some much needed naps to catch up on missed sleep at night. I am also hoping that today we are told that I can get off of the progesterone that I have to take daily and that will help lessen the nausea and vomiting.
All in all, I can't complain. It is what it is. Pregnancy is rough for a lot of people, not just me and as stories go, I can only do the best I can-realizing that perfection isn't attainable- and that the Lord will help us get through whatever outcome happens.
This month has been busy- John and I took a quick trip to Palmyra, NY and Niagra Falls in early August and I just got back from a 9 day trip with my family in Washington state. My sister in law is going to be induced tomorrow and we have had 3 other friends give birth recently, which we are so thrilled and happy for them. I will post some pictures of our trips in the next couple of posts. Thanks for all your support, friendship and kindness... the well-wishes mean a lot to us. We love and appreciate you all!
Its been really hard going through this, I'm not gonna lie. It takes a lot of energy to constantly be adjusting my blood sugar levels and eating enough to keep the nausea at bay. Nothing sounds good to me.. the way that I choose something to eat is by what doesn't turn my stomach the most. The worst things that make me sick are the smell and sight of (any) meat and the smell of food cooking. So, essentially I'm a vegetarian and we eat out a lot. :) Fortunately I have a Dexcom, which is a continuous glucose monitoring system, which is essentially one more device (other than my insulin pump) that is inserted into my stomach each week and continuously gives a graphical reading of where my blood sugars are at, at any given moment. Whenever I go outside my levels of normal it screams two loud beeps at me and vibrates uncontrollably. There's no way to stop this or shut the thing up, even when it is off-track and I'm actually in a healthy range, but its reading "low". Very annoying.
About a two months ago I discovered that I was going low A LOT, like 8 or more times a day. I don't know if this is because I wasn't eating very much or because I was throwing up what I was eating, or because the baby was changing things internally for me. But, when I go low, it always starts with a fluttering in my heart, then I can't breathe very well, then I get dizzy, and then I start shaking and John says I start saying things that don't make sense. But, its scary and I hate it. So, I re-adjusted all my levels of insulin that I take throughout the day trying to stop all the lows. But that has caused me to jump around like crazy, then I would go crazy high (which is horrible for the baby especially during the 1st 10 weeks while organs are being formed) and then I would panic, take a huge amount of insulin and then bottom out again, start shaking and start drinking apple juice like crazy. The worst part of all this is that it doesn't ease up at night, no, all the crazy highs and lows happen all throughout the night, as well as the nausea. So, during the night my Dexcom is vibrating and screaming at me every 5 minutes that I need to drink some apple juice or eat something, but then it would yell at me 30 minutes later because I had drinken too much and gone high and now I needed to take some more insulin to go down. Needless to say, I haven't gotten the best sleep for the past couple of months. (Last night I was SO TEMPTED to open a window and chuck the thing out into the woods!) Fortunately John seems to sleep through most of the drama (or he lies to me) and I feel a little less guilty that I might be keeping him up all night long when he has to get up at 4:30 a.m. and head to the hospital for insane surgeries all day.
Then a few weeks ago I noticed that I was going really high all the time and no matter how much insulin I was taking, it would take me 6-8 hours to come down, and then when I finally started coming down I better have a case of apple juice beside me because it was going to be awful. So, now I've re-RE-adjusted my daily insulin levels to try and account for a much higher dose of insulin. My old doctor from Salt Lake, whom I love and adore, wrote me to tell me congratulations on being pregnant and said, "most people will never understand the uphill battle you are facing but you have proven that you can do it. Keep doing the work that you know how to do." I don't think I understood the kind of work that I would be facing.
I worry constantly that I haven't done enough or that those highs that I have will somehow hurt the baby. I worry that the doctors here don't care or aren't as aggressive as the doctors I had back in Utah (I've already discovered one error they've made in my medication and am praying that it doesn't cause complications later in the pregnancy). All I can do is try to keep up with what my body is doing with diabetes, which takes most of my focus during the day and take some much needed naps to catch up on missed sleep at night. I am also hoping that today we are told that I can get off of the progesterone that I have to take daily and that will help lessen the nausea and vomiting.
All in all, I can't complain. It is what it is. Pregnancy is rough for a lot of people, not just me and as stories go, I can only do the best I can-realizing that perfection isn't attainable- and that the Lord will help us get through whatever outcome happens.
This month has been busy- John and I took a quick trip to Palmyra, NY and Niagra Falls in early August and I just got back from a 9 day trip with my family in Washington state. My sister in law is going to be induced tomorrow and we have had 3 other friends give birth recently, which we are so thrilled and happy for them. I will post some pictures of our trips in the next couple of posts. Thanks for all your support, friendship and kindness... the well-wishes mean a lot to us. We love and appreciate you all!
Comments
I hope that all goes well with your doctor visit today and that you get to see your little one. It makes it all more real. Hang in there! -- Amy McConkie
Thanks for sharing. You've had it rough! You are a real trooper. Good luck with all of the monitoring and readjusting. I hope things settle down for you. Aren't you so glad that you don't have to work right now! I always wondered how teachers could battle morning sickness and teach class. I know I couldn't have done it.
I wish you lived closer. Not that I could do a lot to help, but at least I could accompany you in eating out. :)
Take care!
- Deyce
Star & Mike