Week 34: Time's Marching On

Back with the appointments on Friday. Another baby heart rate check, along with visits to Kind Endo and High Risk OB.

All were uneventful, thankfully.

The kid's heart rate ebbed and flowed, but no one blinked when there was another slight drop (around 110 this time) but bounced right up. Kind Endo looked at my meter's blood sugar numbers and declared them "actually quite good." (Although waking up with a 110 and being told it's "high" annoys me. I just think about the women who gave birth pre-pump, pre-Humulog, and pre-blood sugar testing and think, 110 ain't so bad.) I've been amazed myself at how great my blood sugars have been (yesterday's 7-day meter average was 107, for God's sake. Kind Endo told me that the insulin resistance seen during late pregnancy somehow prevents the bouncing highs after meals. Of course, I regularly take more than 100 units of insulin a day, but hey, who's counting? My numbers look great!

High Risk OB's nurse met with me afterward, and we're sort of at the point where I don't have any serious questions, I've gotten used to the odd side effects of pregnancy like insomnia and cankles and left side rib pain (the kid's leg keeps poking me there) and we're just sort of waiting this thing out.

Had lunch with the fabulous Serenity late last week, which was great.

Work's finally slowed to a crawl, so I'm taking the time to clean out years of emails and to compile the list of people we want to announce our baby news to. This, sadly, is taking up a ton of time (the email clearing, not the list compiling).

Going through a year of receipts this weekend to figure out how much to do f0r freelancer tax deductions. Every year I wonder why we don't just do this on some online tax program and every year I think "I need to upgrade my laptop so I can keep these files on my own computer and not on the work-provided laptop Mr. Lyrehca uses at home." But buying a laptop is another round of details I just don't want to get into right now. The same thing with upgrading my six-year-old Minimed 508 pump--too many details to figure out, and since the pump is still essentially working fine (save for the fast clock and the batteries that wear out more frequently than they ever did before), I figure I can wait til after the kid's arrival to upgrade.

Note to anyone: got any suggestions for either a new laptop or a new pump model I should consider? For the laptop, I've been on a PC for years, but like the idea of a Mac if I knew I could transfer files and have software available without any hassles. And for the pump, I like a good solid belt clip (like the 508) and since I still calculate my boluses manually (i.e., I do the math in my head and don't care about the whole Insulin On Board element), I just want something that my insurance will cover, isn't going to break down regularly, and is as easy to use as the 508.

I did meet with pump reps from Minimed and Animas last summer, pre-getting-pregnant, and actually liked the food database on the latest Animas (the 1250, maybe?), but realized the Animas had more buttons to push and got sort of lazy about upgrading, since the IVF cycle took up a lot of brainspace, and I figured, "hey, the 508 still works, why bother upgrading now?"

At the same time, I find Minimed's insistence on using a proprietary reservoir arrogant, and still have plenty of 508 reservoirs that would work in an Animas or Cozmo. I didn't look into the Cozmo because I erroneously thought I'd have to change meters (I use a One Touch Ultra and ain't giving it up) and thought it was bulkier than my current 508.

So let your opinions be known, either for laptop or insulin pump suggestions. It'll help pass the time as I wait for the kid's arrival.