Yesterday, I made the decision to try to eat more fruit to round out my diet, and was pleased by the two clementines I had for a midmorning snack.
My sugars were good most of the day. I didn't think twice about what I ate.
Today, I just demolished a bag of chips. After my sugars have been high all morning.
What happened?
I started my first Lupron shot last night.
Googling "Lupron" and "food cravings" didn't bring me anything definitive. While writing the infertility chapter for my book, I only got people to say that "maybe" some of the IVF drugs could affect your sugars, and maybe they wouldn't. (Though I believe progesterone is linked to higher blood sugars). Needless to say, based on my own history over the years, I would say these drugs do something to make my body crave certain foods and to make my sugars act erratically.
I'm actually always surprised when I manage to note some kind of trend that shows that, hello! It's not just me: hormones are powerful things! Craving crap and thinking certain things about my body nearly always comes the day or two before my period does. My sugars are often so much more reasonable when I'm, say, off birth control versus on it.
Why should IVF drugs be any different?
Showing posts with label Food Fabulous Food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Food Fabulous Food. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Back At It
The weeks of eating recklessly happen every two weeks now.
For two weeks of the month, I guzzle diet soda. I eat chicken sausage and don't second guess anything. Last week, I ate a ton of raw cookie dough.
I test my sugars every few hours.
And then, it stops.
I wonder if this is the month I've conceived, and my eating patterns try to fall into line.
I drink skim milk with my meals and cut out the caffeinated diet stuff altogether. I chill on the cold cuts. I eat more fruit and veggies.
I test my blood sugar an hour, two hours, three hours after a meal. And I try to get the one hour post number down.Down.DOWN.
Kind Endo told me last week that I shouldn't correct a high before three hours are up. But if there's something trying to thrive inside, I feel bad if my one hour post prandial shoots past 140.
And yet, I try not to stress about the rebound highs. Like the super high that happened this morning after I was 66 at 2am.
And there's a diet soda that's caffeine- and sugar-free that tastes so much better than flavored seltzer, but it has potassium benzoate in it, a preservative. So I try to limit it to one cup a day,
I'm sitting outside right now because a carpet cleaner is trying to eradicate the odor of Baby L vomiting on one of the rugs last week. And while the cleaner told me there's nothing harmful about what he's using to clean the rug, I immediately noticed my mouth tingling from the fumes and got up. What if there's some cluster of cells inside me? Hopefully these quick fumes won't rearrange anyone's cell structure (mine or a potential embryo's.)
(The carpet cleaner assures me he's healthy.)
Here goes another two-week wait.
For two weeks of the month, I guzzle diet soda. I eat chicken sausage and don't second guess anything. Last week, I ate a ton of raw cookie dough.
I test my sugars every few hours.
And then, it stops.
I wonder if this is the month I've conceived, and my eating patterns try to fall into line.
I drink skim milk with my meals and cut out the caffeinated diet stuff altogether. I chill on the cold cuts. I eat more fruit and veggies.
I test my blood sugar an hour, two hours, three hours after a meal. And I try to get the one hour post number down.Down.DOWN.
Kind Endo told me last week that I shouldn't correct a high before three hours are up. But if there's something trying to thrive inside, I feel bad if my one hour post prandial shoots past 140.
And yet, I try not to stress about the rebound highs. Like the super high that happened this morning after I was 66 at 2am.
And there's a diet soda that's caffeine- and sugar-free that tastes so much better than flavored seltzer, but it has potassium benzoate in it, a preservative. So I try to limit it to one cup a day,
I'm sitting outside right now because a carpet cleaner is trying to eradicate the odor of Baby L vomiting on one of the rugs last week. And while the cleaner told me there's nothing harmful about what he's using to clean the rug, I immediately noticed my mouth tingling from the fumes and got up. What if there's some cluster of cells inside me? Hopefully these quick fumes won't rearrange anyone's cell structure (mine or a potential embryo's.)
(The carpet cleaner assures me he's healthy.)
Here goes another two-week wait.
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Typical Advice? Bah!
Reading another blogger's post about what shoes she wears made me think about the ways I flout conventional diabetic advice.
1. I wear what shoes I want to, particularly open toed shoes and flip-flops, all the time in warm weather. I never wear shoes that are uncomfortable, but that's because I walk a lot and pain is annoying. It's not because of my fears of cuts healing slowly. And inside the house I am often barefoot. Outside, I am not, but that's because I stepped on a slug when I was a child (two years pre-diagnosis) and it grossed me out.
2. Along the footwear lines, I love getting pedicures. At those low-cost, there's-one-on-every-city-corner nail shops. I don't bring my own equipment. I think these shops do a better, longer-lasting job than high end salons do. And I've never gotten an infection from one. Ever.
3. I haven't changed a lancet in months. Probably close to a year.
4. I eat what I want and bolus accordingly. If my sugar is high two hours later, I bolus again to bring it down.
5. I eat Life Savers (and now juice boxes) to treat reactions instead of GlucoTabs. Those things are just nasty.
6. I've reused a pump reservoir and carry a used reservoir needle in my meter bag in case the insulin in my pump goes low and I am away from home. I'd rather just fill a reservoir with insulin quickly than have to change out the whole set while out of the house. I did that once while in a restaurant with a friend. It took forever for my tubing to fill with insulin and my friend thought I'd died in the bathroom because it took me probably ten or 15 minutes to do the whole infusion set change, along with filling a reservoir.
7. I carry a recycled insulin syringe as well, for the same reasons.
8. I can't remember when I last used an alcohol swab to clean my finger before testing my blood. And I always lick my finger afterwards.
9. I don't change my pump batteries the second they beep that they're low. I've been able to get two more days' worth of pumping out of them after the first low-battery alarm goes off.
10. I've tested my blood sugar while driving (though usually while stopped at a stop sign or a red light, and always with my eye on the road. I test my sugar blindfolded if I had to). I've also tested while standing in line to order a sandwich somewhere, while on public transportation, while on the elliptical trainer, and just about anywhere else I can carry it. And I gave myself an injection once while on the New York subway.
I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. The flip side is that I've never gotten any kind of skin infection from reusing my supplies. My A1c is admirable. I feel pretty good most of the time, and I don't resent equipment meltdowns or refilling issues when I am out doing something. And whatever bacteria is floating around is probably strengthening my immune system, since I don't usually get sick.
I think taking care of the bigger picture, by making sure glucose levels are where they should be and that nutritionally, I'm eating the things I am supposed to be eating most of the time, is a better way to live than stressing about every last iota of detail. So what if I haven't changed a lancet in months? My sugars are usually pretty good.
How do YOU flout conventional diabetic advice?
1. I wear what shoes I want to, particularly open toed shoes and flip-flops, all the time in warm weather. I never wear shoes that are uncomfortable, but that's because I walk a lot and pain is annoying. It's not because of my fears of cuts healing slowly. And inside the house I am often barefoot. Outside, I am not, but that's because I stepped on a slug when I was a child (two years pre-diagnosis) and it grossed me out.
2. Along the footwear lines, I love getting pedicures. At those low-cost, there's-one-on-every-city-corner nail shops. I don't bring my own equipment. I think these shops do a better, longer-lasting job than high end salons do. And I've never gotten an infection from one. Ever.
3. I haven't changed a lancet in months. Probably close to a year.
4. I eat what I want and bolus accordingly. If my sugar is high two hours later, I bolus again to bring it down.
5. I eat Life Savers (and now juice boxes) to treat reactions instead of GlucoTabs. Those things are just nasty.
6. I've reused a pump reservoir and carry a used reservoir needle in my meter bag in case the insulin in my pump goes low and I am away from home. I'd rather just fill a reservoir with insulin quickly than have to change out the whole set while out of the house. I did that once while in a restaurant with a friend. It took forever for my tubing to fill with insulin and my friend thought I'd died in the bathroom because it took me probably ten or 15 minutes to do the whole infusion set change, along with filling a reservoir.
7. I carry a recycled insulin syringe as well, for the same reasons.
8. I can't remember when I last used an alcohol swab to clean my finger before testing my blood. And I always lick my finger afterwards.
9. I don't change my pump batteries the second they beep that they're low. I've been able to get two more days' worth of pumping out of them after the first low-battery alarm goes off.
10. I've tested my blood sugar while driving (though usually while stopped at a stop sign or a red light, and always with my eye on the road. I test my sugar blindfolded if I had to). I've also tested while standing in line to order a sandwich somewhere, while on public transportation, while on the elliptical trainer, and just about anywhere else I can carry it. And I gave myself an injection once while on the New York subway.
I can't think of anything else off the top of my head. The flip side is that I've never gotten any kind of skin infection from reusing my supplies. My A1c is admirable. I feel pretty good most of the time, and I don't resent equipment meltdowns or refilling issues when I am out doing something. And whatever bacteria is floating around is probably strengthening my immune system, since I don't usually get sick.
I think taking care of the bigger picture, by making sure glucose levels are where they should be and that nutritionally, I'm eating the things I am supposed to be eating most of the time, is a better way to live than stressing about every last iota of detail. So what if I haven't changed a lancet in months? My sugars are usually pretty good.
How do YOU flout conventional diabetic advice?
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Facing That Coaster Again?
My son is 14 months old. He sleeps (usually) through the night. He grasps a sippy cup with ease. He eats the same breakfast I do: a flaxseed waffle and a veggie sausage. The only difference is our beverage of milk. Mine is skim and his is whole.
This week, I was asked, not for the first time, if and when I would start trying for another child. My endocrinologist asked me back when Baby L was about six months old. My mother ran into my ob-gyn nurse at the manicurist around the same time. The nurse seemed surprised she hadn't seen me back in her office, either getting my blood sugars approved before jumping back on the trying to conceive merry-go-round or being congratulated for already hopping on and clinging to one of the painted horses.
I know of at least one or two people who are pregnant again after they had their first children around the same time as me. And a woman I met in a Mommy & Me class last year, whose son was born the same week as mine, openly admitted to wanting to get pregnant as soon as possible, as she wants two children and was close to 40. She did IVF with her first child, and, not wanting to waste time, did her first round of her second IVF when her son was eight months old and is expecting her second child in September. If all goes well, she will be 40 and will have two children under age two by the year's end.
As much as my age dictates it, I am just not ready right now to try to get pregnant again this season. There's that triathlon I'm training for. The money in our bank account that we'd rather have go toward savings instead of doctor visit copays and the possibility of paying for infertility treatment again. The idea that while I am eating healthy for the tri training, I can guzzle diet Coke and not worry about the effects of the chemicals on my unborn child. The blood sugar testing only six times, rather than 16 times, a day.
Plus, it's frankly a joy to sit and watch my toddler son feed himself. Or cruise along the furniture and try to walk. Or look up, with a toothly smile, and say things that sound like "Banana!" and "Yeah!" and "'Night!" To return to the days of nursing and round-the-clock pumping and little sleep and explosive diapers seems.... like a lot of mental and physical effort right now.
To start trying for another would mean diverting a lot of that time and effort to someone else. And right now, I just want to soak my Boy in with undivided attention. And if it means that waiting another six months might mean a potentially sharp decline in my already shaky fertility, it's a chance I'm willing to take.
This week, I was asked, not for the first time, if and when I would start trying for another child. My endocrinologist asked me back when Baby L was about six months old. My mother ran into my ob-gyn nurse at the manicurist around the same time. The nurse seemed surprised she hadn't seen me back in her office, either getting my blood sugars approved before jumping back on the trying to conceive merry-go-round or being congratulated for already hopping on and clinging to one of the painted horses.
I know of at least one or two people who are pregnant again after they had their first children around the same time as me. And a woman I met in a Mommy & Me class last year, whose son was born the same week as mine, openly admitted to wanting to get pregnant as soon as possible, as she wants two children and was close to 40. She did IVF with her first child, and, not wanting to waste time, did her first round of her second IVF when her son was eight months old and is expecting her second child in September. If all goes well, she will be 40 and will have two children under age two by the year's end.
As much as my age dictates it, I am just not ready right now to try to get pregnant again this season. There's that triathlon I'm training for. The money in our bank account that we'd rather have go toward savings instead of doctor visit copays and the possibility of paying for infertility treatment again. The idea that while I am eating healthy for the tri training, I can guzzle diet Coke and not worry about the effects of the chemicals on my unborn child. The blood sugar testing only six times, rather than 16 times, a day.
Plus, it's frankly a joy to sit and watch my toddler son feed himself. Or cruise along the furniture and try to walk. Or look up, with a toothly smile, and say things that sound like "Banana!" and "Yeah!" and "'Night!" To return to the days of nursing and round-the-clock pumping and little sleep and explosive diapers seems.... like a lot of mental and physical effort right now.
To start trying for another would mean diverting a lot of that time and effort to someone else. And right now, I just want to soak my Boy in with undivided attention. And if it means that waiting another six months might mean a potentially sharp decline in my already shaky fertility, it's a chance I'm willing to take.
Monday, May 12, 2008
A Reaction to How I Treat Insulin Reactions
What has happened with LifeSavers candies?
I used to be able to buy these things in bulk, wrapped in rolls of 12 candies each. In five flavors. In a multicolored wrapper.
Four of them equals about 15 grams of carbohydrate, which any good type 1 knows is what you need to ingest when your sugar is low.Low.LOW.
A pack is portable. I can bite off what I need without fumbling with a wrapper. A pack of LIfeSavers is relatively cheap, compared to the chalky crap that is a pack of Glucose Tabs.
So, hello? WHO DECIDED TO REBRAND THESE THINGS?
Now I can only find them in packs where each candy is wrapped individually. Try opening each one of these babies, one by agonizingly slow one, to treat a blood sugar of 48 when my head is foggy, my face is sweating, and all I need is to get some damn sugar in my body.
Yeah, right. No thanks.
Individually wrapped for freshness? Feh. I need stale LifeSavers fast, all wrapped in one biteable roll.
Occasionally, I can find the rolls of candies in a drugstore like CVS. But now the wrapper is navy. And they're getting harder and harder to find. Once, I bought a round tin of something I thought were my standby LifeSavers, dressed up in fancy new duds, to treat a low. And the damn things turned out to be sugar free LifeSavers.
Now some genius came up with the idea of gummy LifeSavers, which just won't do. I need hard candies I can crunch with my molars. Not some goo that I'll have to scrape off my teeth as I wait...and...wait...for my blood sugar to rise.
I've moved on to buying juice boxes to treat insulin reactions. But they're a bit more bulky when I need to throw one or two in the purse. And they aren't as easy to find in a store when I'm out and happen to find myself low.
And again, fumbling with a straw wrapper, when my sugars are plummeting, effin' sucks. I just need the sugar in me, fast--not some Fort Knox plastic protecting my precious straw from the germy forces of evil.
Anyone know who I can complain to?
I want my old LifeSavers back.
I used to be able to buy these things in bulk, wrapped in rolls of 12 candies each. In five flavors. In a multicolored wrapper.
Four of them equals about 15 grams of carbohydrate, which any good type 1 knows is what you need to ingest when your sugar is low.Low.LOW.
A pack is portable. I can bite off what I need without fumbling with a wrapper. A pack of LIfeSavers is relatively cheap, compared to the chalky crap that is a pack of Glucose Tabs.
So, hello? WHO DECIDED TO REBRAND THESE THINGS?
Now I can only find them in packs where each candy is wrapped individually. Try opening each one of these babies, one by agonizingly slow one, to treat a blood sugar of 48 when my head is foggy, my face is sweating, and all I need is to get some damn sugar in my body.
Yeah, right. No thanks.
Individually wrapped for freshness? Feh. I need stale LifeSavers fast, all wrapped in one biteable roll.
Occasionally, I can find the rolls of candies in a drugstore like CVS. But now the wrapper is navy. And they're getting harder and harder to find. Once, I bought a round tin of something I thought were my standby LifeSavers, dressed up in fancy new duds, to treat a low. And the damn things turned out to be sugar free LifeSavers.
Now some genius came up with the idea of gummy LifeSavers, which just won't do. I need hard candies I can crunch with my molars. Not some goo that I'll have to scrape off my teeth as I wait...and...wait...for my blood sugar to rise.
I've moved on to buying juice boxes to treat insulin reactions. But they're a bit more bulky when I need to throw one or two in the purse. And they aren't as easy to find in a store when I'm out and happen to find myself low.
And again, fumbling with a straw wrapper, when my sugars are plummeting, effin' sucks. I just need the sugar in me, fast--not some Fort Knox plastic protecting my precious straw from the germy forces of evil.
Anyone know who I can complain to?
I want my old LifeSavers back.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
It's February Already?
I used to be a great blogger--back when I was in the throes of infertility and pregnancy.
But things are afoot over in the land of Lyrecha. To wit:
1. Baby L is ten months old. Where'd the time go? He crawls backwards. He's starting to tolerate solid foods. He smiles like a sunrise. He is chatty in that baby jibberish way. ("Bah bah BAH," he explains. "Guh. Khuh.")
He is super awesome.
2. My book proposal for my book about type 1 and pregnancy, written from the perspective of actual type 1 women and not medical professionals, IS FINALLY DONE.
Did you ever make a list of goals that you wanted to do in your lifetime and actually feel the exhilaration of checking one off?
That's how I felt last week when I read the thing for the last time and hit SEND.
It's literally out of my hands now. I'll keep you posted should something big transpire. In the meantime, if you want to be interviewed about type 1 and pregnancy, if the book actually becomes a reality, shoot me an email (Lyrehca AT gmail DOT com) and I'll keep your info on file.
3. After doing postpartum Weight Watchers since June, today I learned that I have officially lost ten pounds. While taking this long to lose weight is not ideal, I frankly blew it off much of that time. Since the new year, though, I've paid far more attention to eating and exercising than I have in awhile. I actually make time to walk for an hour on certain days of the week, and I can see it's paying off. Last week, when it was super grey and snowy, I got myself and Baby L over to a local mall in my town and traipsed the place for an hour. It was good... except when the Apple store beckoned. But at least I lost weight this week.
4. To celebrate my ten pounds gone, I decided to buy myself a skirt. I haven't worn a decent cute skirt since before I got pregnant. (Wearing a few maternity skirts during and post-pregnancy do not count as cute.) While it is still a larger size than I would like to be wearing, and I bought it from a department I wish I didn't have to shop in, I was pleased to find one that looked good, was simple enough to be a basic, and was on sale for a glorious twelve dollars. Down from an original price of $48.
Nice.
5. Tomorrow night, Mister Lyrehca and I are hiring a babysitter for the evening (A first! Night time help!) and going out for an early Valentine's dinner. I'm definitely wearing the skirt.
6. I've heard about a number of new and not-so-new resources for the diabetic women looking for pregnancy info. There's a new group on Tu Diabetes called Oh Baby!, a new site with a pregnancy section called Diabetes Sisters, and although it's old news already, I finally got a chance to read Kelsey's pregnancy diary and it was great. It's nice to see new resources sprouting up in the past year or two, but as my book proposal urges, more are always needed.
7. Personally, I'm not slated to see my Endo for a general diabetes checkup til April, but I am so looking forward to talking to her about going on Symlin. I'd always been told to stay away from it in the past few years when I was either trying to conceive, pregnant or pumping breast milk. Now that I'm just a plain ol' type 1 again, I'm eager to see if the stuff will help me lose weight and keep the postprandial meals spikes to a dull roar.
But things are afoot over in the land of Lyrecha. To wit:
1. Baby L is ten months old. Where'd the time go? He crawls backwards. He's starting to tolerate solid foods. He smiles like a sunrise. He is chatty in that baby jibberish way. ("Bah bah BAH," he explains. "Guh. Khuh.")
He is super awesome.
2. My book proposal for my book about type 1 and pregnancy, written from the perspective of actual type 1 women and not medical professionals, IS FINALLY DONE.
Did you ever make a list of goals that you wanted to do in your lifetime and actually feel the exhilaration of checking one off?
That's how I felt last week when I read the thing for the last time and hit SEND.
It's literally out of my hands now. I'll keep you posted should something big transpire. In the meantime, if you want to be interviewed about type 1 and pregnancy, if the book actually becomes a reality, shoot me an email (Lyrehca AT gmail DOT com) and I'll keep your info on file.
3. After doing postpartum Weight Watchers since June, today I learned that I have officially lost ten pounds. While taking this long to lose weight is not ideal, I frankly blew it off much of that time. Since the new year, though, I've paid far more attention to eating and exercising than I have in awhile. I actually make time to walk for an hour on certain days of the week, and I can see it's paying off. Last week, when it was super grey and snowy, I got myself and Baby L over to a local mall in my town and traipsed the place for an hour. It was good... except when the Apple store beckoned. But at least I lost weight this week.
4. To celebrate my ten pounds gone, I decided to buy myself a skirt. I haven't worn a decent cute skirt since before I got pregnant. (Wearing a few maternity skirts during and post-pregnancy do not count as cute.) While it is still a larger size than I would like to be wearing, and I bought it from a department I wish I didn't have to shop in, I was pleased to find one that looked good, was simple enough to be a basic, and was on sale for a glorious twelve dollars. Down from an original price of $48.
Nice.
5. Tomorrow night, Mister Lyrehca and I are hiring a babysitter for the evening (A first! Night time help!) and going out for an early Valentine's dinner. I'm definitely wearing the skirt.
6. I've heard about a number of new and not-so-new resources for the diabetic women looking for pregnancy info. There's a new group on Tu Diabetes called Oh Baby!, a new site with a pregnancy section called Diabetes Sisters, and although it's old news already, I finally got a chance to read Kelsey's pregnancy diary and it was great. It's nice to see new resources sprouting up in the past year or two, but as my book proposal urges, more are always needed.
7. Personally, I'm not slated to see my Endo for a general diabetes checkup til April, but I am so looking forward to talking to her about going on Symlin. I'd always been told to stay away from it in the past few years when I was either trying to conceive, pregnant or pumping breast milk. Now that I'm just a plain ol' type 1 again, I'm eager to see if the stuff will help me lose weight and keep the postprandial meals spikes to a dull roar.
Wednesday, January 02, 2008
I'm Still Around
Many times I've wondered if I should keep blogging. Infertility and pregnancy tinged with diabetes provided a great momentum and I always had sufficient material.
Motherhood has given me another batch of experiences, but I haven't wanted to chronicle them in the same public way.
I'm still working on my proposal for my book about type 1 and pregnancy, which was the original reason I started blogging -- to build a platform.
I miss the feedback from people who looked to my blog for information about pregnancy, about diabetes, or just for whatever it is they found when they stopped by.
So here I am after several months of quiet here at Managing the Sweetness Within.
Baby L is doing great. So great that I always feel like knocking wood, crossing my fingers and wondering when the shoe is going to drop. Yet, it's that fear of what could go wrong that makes me appreciate how terrific my son is. He'll be nine months next week.
I've thought about what it would be like if he were diagnosed with diabetes. And while I wouldn't be happy, I keep telling myself that if he were, he'd have me as an advocate, someone who could relate to how it feels to prick one's finger, to inject oneself daily, to constantly count carbs and figure out insulin ratios. We'd be in it together. And while I honestly hope that never happens, I do feel at least I can honestly understand what he'd go through if it ever does.
After 8.5 months, I finally gave up pumping breast milk. Early on, I was committed to giving him as much as I could because of my (exaggerated? maybe) fears that any formula would eventually give him diabetes and make him less intelligent. But low supply, despite doing everything I could to jack it up, meant my kid's been eating (predigested) formula from early on. At the high point, he probably ate about half breast milk, half formula, and in the final days, he was lucky to get a bottle a week. And this is despite daily regular pump sessions with whatever herbs, drugs, water, or whatever I could do to up the ante.
I've come to realize that my kid eating a lot of formula has been fine for him. He's only had a few runny noses since birth, hasn't been really sick, and is now chowing down organic stage 2 foods by the spoonful. He seems bright and smart, and seriously, after reading this post by a blogger who's perspective I find refreshing, I'm more pleased that he's super sociable. I mean, he'll certainly do well in life being social, friendly and well-liked, just in case he's not the kid with the highest IQ.
Diabetes-wise, the numbers have been up and down, and my weight has continued to be about 40 pounds away from Yummy Mummy. I've started talking to a therapist who deals with diabetic issues to find out what my deal is about food. As in, why I can't seem to just eat smaller portions and be happy with them. Instead, I eat a lot of what I like, then cover for it with more insulin, and the weight never peels off. It's the opposite of the diabulimia trend I keep reading about. I'd never do that--I value my eyesight and kidney function far more than looking thin. Instead, I just keep eating and bolusing, and the weight doesn't budge. It's not rocket science--and I'm trying to figure out if it's just basic diabetes resentment about being told what and how much to eat, or something else.
I had a trigger thumb release about a week ago. Basically, my right thumb has been frozen since the summer, along with some other major wrist pain I chalked up to picking up a baby all the time. A trip to a hand surgeon brought me a few cortisone shots, which helped some, but my thumb didn't ever move. It was basically frozen straight, so I had what the doc called a minor outpatient procedure at my local hospital (where Baby L was born) to cut into the thumb and release a part of the thumb that helps the tendons move properly. I've had other diabetic pals have every single finger done, and my surgeon brother told me he'd have the procedure done himself in a second if it was happening to him, so I had no hesitation about having it done.
I still have stitches in my thumb that will come out next week, and taking a novocaine shot in the thumb definitely hurt, but I can now move my thumb again and am glad it's behind me. Chalk up yet another surgical procedure for a treatable, likely-related-to-diabetes-but-who-knows, issue. I'm just glad it was actually treatable.
In fact, when the nurse was taking my information before the procedure, the answers to the questions about drinking, smoking, and doing drugs were quick. When she asked about prior surgeries, I was like, you might want to sit down for this one.
I guess I don't mind having such a weird list of surgeries and other medical procedures (c-section, eyes lasered, thryoid removed, odd sarcoma removed from my abdomen) so long as they've all resulted in good things. I mean, the sarcoma was found to be mostly benign and hasn't returned. My vision was unaffected by the laser treatment. My thumb works fine now. And my fabulous napping son was worth any procedure (and there were certainly plenty of them) to get to this point.
Motherhood has given me another batch of experiences, but I haven't wanted to chronicle them in the same public way.
I'm still working on my proposal for my book about type 1 and pregnancy, which was the original reason I started blogging -- to build a platform.
I miss the feedback from people who looked to my blog for information about pregnancy, about diabetes, or just for whatever it is they found when they stopped by.
So here I am after several months of quiet here at Managing the Sweetness Within.
Baby L is doing great. So great that I always feel like knocking wood, crossing my fingers and wondering when the shoe is going to drop. Yet, it's that fear of what could go wrong that makes me appreciate how terrific my son is. He'll be nine months next week.
I've thought about what it would be like if he were diagnosed with diabetes. And while I wouldn't be happy, I keep telling myself that if he were, he'd have me as an advocate, someone who could relate to how it feels to prick one's finger, to inject oneself daily, to constantly count carbs and figure out insulin ratios. We'd be in it together. And while I honestly hope that never happens, I do feel at least I can honestly understand what he'd go through if it ever does.
After 8.5 months, I finally gave up pumping breast milk. Early on, I was committed to giving him as much as I could because of my (exaggerated? maybe) fears that any formula would eventually give him diabetes and make him less intelligent. But low supply, despite doing everything I could to jack it up, meant my kid's been eating (predigested) formula from early on. At the high point, he probably ate about half breast milk, half formula, and in the final days, he was lucky to get a bottle a week. And this is despite daily regular pump sessions with whatever herbs, drugs, water, or whatever I could do to up the ante.
I've come to realize that my kid eating a lot of formula has been fine for him. He's only had a few runny noses since birth, hasn't been really sick, and is now chowing down organic stage 2 foods by the spoonful. He seems bright and smart, and seriously, after reading this post by a blogger who's perspective I find refreshing, I'm more pleased that he's super sociable. I mean, he'll certainly do well in life being social, friendly and well-liked, just in case he's not the kid with the highest IQ.
Diabetes-wise, the numbers have been up and down, and my weight has continued to be about 40 pounds away from Yummy Mummy. I've started talking to a therapist who deals with diabetic issues to find out what my deal is about food. As in, why I can't seem to just eat smaller portions and be happy with them. Instead, I eat a lot of what I like, then cover for it with more insulin, and the weight never peels off. It's the opposite of the diabulimia trend I keep reading about. I'd never do that--I value my eyesight and kidney function far more than looking thin. Instead, I just keep eating and bolusing, and the weight doesn't budge. It's not rocket science--and I'm trying to figure out if it's just basic diabetes resentment about being told what and how much to eat, or something else.
I had a trigger thumb release about a week ago. Basically, my right thumb has been frozen since the summer, along with some other major wrist pain I chalked up to picking up a baby all the time. A trip to a hand surgeon brought me a few cortisone shots, which helped some, but my thumb didn't ever move. It was basically frozen straight, so I had what the doc called a minor outpatient procedure at my local hospital (where Baby L was born) to cut into the thumb and release a part of the thumb that helps the tendons move properly. I've had other diabetic pals have every single finger done, and my surgeon brother told me he'd have the procedure done himself in a second if it was happening to him, so I had no hesitation about having it done.
I still have stitches in my thumb that will come out next week, and taking a novocaine shot in the thumb definitely hurt, but I can now move my thumb again and am glad it's behind me. Chalk up yet another surgical procedure for a treatable, likely-related-to-diabetes-but-who-knows, issue. I'm just glad it was actually treatable.
In fact, when the nurse was taking my information before the procedure, the answers to the questions about drinking, smoking, and doing drugs were quick. When she asked about prior surgeries, I was like, you might want to sit down for this one.
I guess I don't mind having such a weird list of surgeries and other medical procedures (c-section, eyes lasered, thryoid removed, odd sarcoma removed from my abdomen) so long as they've all resulted in good things. I mean, the sarcoma was found to be mostly benign and hasn't returned. My vision was unaffected by the laser treatment. My thumb works fine now. And my fabulous napping son was worth any procedure (and there were certainly plenty of them) to get to this point.
Friday, October 05, 2007
An Endo Visit and Fitness Concerns
I had a regular endocrinologist appointment yesterday, my first since trying to conceive.
See, Endo also oversees the diabetes and pregnancy program at my local hospital, so for the past two-plus years, I saw her as either a trying-to-conceive patient or one who was actually pregnant.
Yesterday, I was merely a patient with diabetes.
There have been some changes in the clinic where she sees her non-pregnant patients. I was able to find out my A1C within 15 minutes, instead of receiving the info a week later.
Much to my surprise, my A1c was 6.7. I figured it would be deep in the sevens, considering some of the highs I've had. I also test far less than I ever did during pregnancy, maybe four or five times a day instead of ten-plus.
Also, Endo asked me, as I entertained Baby L in his stroller while reporting what my basal rates were, when I was ready to start trying for Number Two.
Not coincidentally, I've actually been asked this by a few other people in the past week or two. Endo told me that since I'm the age I am, with the infertility history I have, six months post-first-baby is when the questions start up again.
The Mister and I are not ready to get back on the infertility/IVF/pregnancy bandwagon. I have no expectations of anything happening naturally. We have frozen embryos in storage and when the time is right, we'll call up the clinic and talk about unfreezing them and seeing what transpires.
We also talked about my post-dinner highs, which are an ongoing battle, and my need for more regular exercise. Now that I'm not commuting for my job, a daily walk to and from public transportation doesn't happen regularly.
I actually like working out at the gym. Unfortunately, I am leery of leaving Baby L with the babysitters there, since they're down a long hallway and the babysitting room is so big, and the Baby himself is still quite little. (Does anyone have advice on this? I know I'm neurotic about many things, but how can I feel comfortable about leaving my kid with people I don't know?)
I tried this boot camp fitness class for new moms, which was great. They had onsite babysitting, so I could keep an eye on my kid while I did push-ups and jogged and huffed and puffed. The flip side is that I have a heel with plantar fasciitis, so it kills me to run, despite ongoing stretches and such. I stopped taking the class.
"Walk 60 minutes a day," the Endo urged. And I can do that. I just don't feel like I'm getting a major weight-loss workout when I walk around the neighborhood pushing my kid in his stroller. I tend to think that, unless I am sweating on an elliptical trainer or pounding it out in a Spin class, my exercise efforts aren't doing much.
I mean, I know the exercise is good for the blood sugars. I have that pretty much under control. It's the excess weight I'm more concerned about.
I joined Weight Watchers earlier in the summer, and have lost a small amount so far. On one hand, I know the whole idea is about portion control, which I understand. On the other hand, I never want to write down everything I eat, and figure out points, since I'm already playing with numbers with carb counting and blood sugars. So I go to meetings and try to keep an eye on what I'm eating (more salads=good), I haven't been tracking points all that religiously.
And while I've lost about 30 pounds from my highest pregnancy point, I'm about 10 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight, and another 40 away from Yummy Mummy.
At least my A1C is good.
Weirdly, my 508 pump started alarming in the middle of the appointment. My pump is about seven years old, a good three years out of warranty, but I haven't gotten around to updating it because I like it and it continues to work. During the alarm (A37, if anyone cares), Endo was worried she'd have to prescribe Lantus for me and I thought it would be ironic if my old pump died at the Endo's office. A quick call to Medtronic confirmed that the alarm was minor (a discrepancy between my pump's internal and external clocks; why that happened I don't know) and that after a quick reset, the pump was as good as new.
As an update from my last post, two months ago, I did not take the full-time job I was interviewing for earlier this summer. The main reason is because I wasn't hired for it (the search is ongoing), but I also thought it was just too early to return to a full time job if I didn't have to. The company has since sent me freelance work, and I continue to do work for two other magazines, so workwise, I'm still in the game.
Parenthoodwise, Baby L keeps me pretty busy. But that's another post altogether.
See, Endo also oversees the diabetes and pregnancy program at my local hospital, so for the past two-plus years, I saw her as either a trying-to-conceive patient or one who was actually pregnant.
Yesterday, I was merely a patient with diabetes.
There have been some changes in the clinic where she sees her non-pregnant patients. I was able to find out my A1C within 15 minutes, instead of receiving the info a week later.
Much to my surprise, my A1c was 6.7. I figured it would be deep in the sevens, considering some of the highs I've had. I also test far less than I ever did during pregnancy, maybe four or five times a day instead of ten-plus.
Also, Endo asked me, as I entertained Baby L in his stroller while reporting what my basal rates were, when I was ready to start trying for Number Two.
Not coincidentally, I've actually been asked this by a few other people in the past week or two. Endo told me that since I'm the age I am, with the infertility history I have, six months post-first-baby is when the questions start up again.
The Mister and I are not ready to get back on the infertility/IVF/pregnancy bandwagon. I have no expectations of anything happening naturally. We have frozen embryos in storage and when the time is right, we'll call up the clinic and talk about unfreezing them and seeing what transpires.
We also talked about my post-dinner highs, which are an ongoing battle, and my need for more regular exercise. Now that I'm not commuting for my job, a daily walk to and from public transportation doesn't happen regularly.
I actually like working out at the gym. Unfortunately, I am leery of leaving Baby L with the babysitters there, since they're down a long hallway and the babysitting room is so big, and the Baby himself is still quite little. (Does anyone have advice on this? I know I'm neurotic about many things, but how can I feel comfortable about leaving my kid with people I don't know?)
I tried this boot camp fitness class for new moms, which was great. They had onsite babysitting, so I could keep an eye on my kid while I did push-ups and jogged and huffed and puffed. The flip side is that I have a heel with plantar fasciitis, so it kills me to run, despite ongoing stretches and such. I stopped taking the class.
"Walk 60 minutes a day," the Endo urged. And I can do that. I just don't feel like I'm getting a major weight-loss workout when I walk around the neighborhood pushing my kid in his stroller. I tend to think that, unless I am sweating on an elliptical trainer or pounding it out in a Spin class, my exercise efforts aren't doing much.
I mean, I know the exercise is good for the blood sugars. I have that pretty much under control. It's the excess weight I'm more concerned about.
I joined Weight Watchers earlier in the summer, and have lost a small amount so far. On one hand, I know the whole idea is about portion control, which I understand. On the other hand, I never want to write down everything I eat, and figure out points, since I'm already playing with numbers with carb counting and blood sugars. So I go to meetings and try to keep an eye on what I'm eating (more salads=good), I haven't been tracking points all that religiously.
And while I've lost about 30 pounds from my highest pregnancy point, I'm about 10 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight, and another 40 away from Yummy Mummy.
At least my A1C is good.
Weirdly, my 508 pump started alarming in the middle of the appointment. My pump is about seven years old, a good three years out of warranty, but I haven't gotten around to updating it because I like it and it continues to work. During the alarm (A37, if anyone cares), Endo was worried she'd have to prescribe Lantus for me and I thought it would be ironic if my old pump died at the Endo's office. A quick call to Medtronic confirmed that the alarm was minor (a discrepancy between my pump's internal and external clocks; why that happened I don't know) and that after a quick reset, the pump was as good as new.
As an update from my last post, two months ago, I did not take the full-time job I was interviewing for earlier this summer. The main reason is because I wasn't hired for it (the search is ongoing), but I also thought it was just too early to return to a full time job if I didn't have to. The company has since sent me freelance work, and I continue to do work for two other magazines, so workwise, I'm still in the game.
Parenthoodwise, Baby L keeps me pretty busy. But that's another post altogether.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
Week 37: 37 Thoughts
1. The women in my office had a shower-like lunch for me yesterday. It was low-key, but they bought the baby some duck-themed books and bath stuff. Seeing as I haven't had a shower at all, I was touched by it.
2. The Mister came to work the other day and helped me clean out my desk. I have a lot of books and personal items on my desk that I wanted to bring home.
3. Am trying to get some work done (I'm actually leaving the office just before the next busy period) and float between trying to be productive so I can get through the day, and cleaning out years of old emails and files on my computer to make sure I can access what I need after I'm no longer working at that computer/desk every day.
4. Yesterday, after the nice shower, I got a few go-Lyrehca emails. One was from a former freelancer I trained and who left my publication to move to New York and picked up a lot of freelance work right away. She told me that working for me was like being in a Master's program and that she quickly got promoted because of the quality of her work.
5. The second was from one of the magazines I freelance for and recently told I was going on a hiatus to have the kid. The magazine has a new section editor who was told by the editor I had worked for that I was a great worker, and that whenever I was ready to get back into freelancing for them after the baby's arrival, to please get in touch.
6. I love getting emails or getting praise like that.
7. At work itself, one of my coworkers told me she was going to really miss me while I was out, since she considered me the glue of the magazine.
8. Honestly, I don't hear a lot of stuff like that, particularly from the top boss at the place. Our priorities (mine and the top boss's) are pretty far apart, and as a result, we don't interact all that much. Plus, I sense that our styles are pretty different.
9. Beyond work glory, I've determined, perhaps weeks or months later than most, that pregnancy can be really hard on the body. Particularly in the final weeks.
10. As Mr. Lyrehca pointed out, some women vomit for three months straight, and I didn't have any of that.
11. But in the last week alone, my ankles and legs have gotten bigger, I've dealt with the sheer annoyance and pain of a hemorrhoid, and two days ago, my left kneecap developed this sharp arthritis-like pain (I suspect this is what arthritis feels like).
12. It hurts to go up and down stairs, and it's only on one knee, in the front. (Knee pain in the back would indicate a scary blood clot, and I'm told this isn't a clot).
13. One the first day, two Tylenol did nothing for the knee pain, but yesterday and today, it seems to have lessened in intensity a bit.
14. Due to Passover, I've eaten more of carb-heavy foods over the past few days.
15. My blood sugars have reflected this, despite my efforts to take more boluses to cover them.
16. I fear this is packing weight on the kid for the last week in utero.
17. Sigh.
18. Today I've scheduled the last of my prenatal massages at lunchtime. I'm deeply looking forward to this.
19. Friday is my last day at work.
20. We still need to buy a bassinet mattress for next week.
21. My home office is still cluttered, and it's hard to get motivated to declutter it before next week.
22. I've been up for a few hours (it's nearly 6am) even though my blood sugar was 89 when I went to bed and 94 when I awoke around 4ish.
23. It took several days, after weeks of prodding from Mr. L., but I finally pulled together a huge list of email addresses for everyone we want to announce our baby news to next week.
24. I try not to think about what we'll do should something (knock wood) not go anything but well.
25. I wonder what the baby is going to look like.
26. I wonder if I'll ever feel well-rested again over the next year.
26. I wonder if my assorted health complaints will somehow disappear next week, or if I'm living with cankles, hemorrhoids and left knee pain for the duration.
27. I have thought that despite all my worrying about the baby's potential for health problems (diabetes! autism! ADHD! Something else I haven't thought of yet), that having the baby in utero has kept things limited. Once the baby is here, the reality will be staring me (crying, hungry, tired, in need of a diaper change) straight in the face.
28. It was snowing here yesterday. On April 4.
29. All the clothes I've bought for Baby L. aren't snow-ready.
30. Once the baby arrives, I suspect my mother will go into baby overload and buy the kid whatever cold-weather gear it may still need by the second week in April.
31. I lay in bed earlier tonight and noted the lack of abdominal pain I was feeling, to try to remember how it feels next week when I'm recovering from another abdominal scar and more pain.
32. I totally forgot about this and this deserves a post of its own, but Laurie at A Chronic Dose mentioned me on her blog last week as someone who always makes her think. I need to write more about this at length, particuarly because this post isn't much more than a brain dump, but thanks (again!) to Laurie.
33. I turned 37 last week. It was sort of a low-key birthday in light of where I am in the pregnancy.
34. I just felt the baby kick.
35. It's very reassuring when this happens.
36. I have another hour before I need to start readying for work.
37. I think I'll head back to bed while I still can.
2. The Mister came to work the other day and helped me clean out my desk. I have a lot of books and personal items on my desk that I wanted to bring home.
3. Am trying to get some work done (I'm actually leaving the office just before the next busy period) and float between trying to be productive so I can get through the day, and cleaning out years of old emails and files on my computer to make sure I can access what I need after I'm no longer working at that computer/desk every day.
4. Yesterday, after the nice shower, I got a few go-Lyrehca emails. One was from a former freelancer I trained and who left my publication to move to New York and picked up a lot of freelance work right away. She told me that working for me was like being in a Master's program and that she quickly got promoted because of the quality of her work.
5. The second was from one of the magazines I freelance for and recently told I was going on a hiatus to have the kid. The magazine has a new section editor who was told by the editor I had worked for that I was a great worker, and that whenever I was ready to get back into freelancing for them after the baby's arrival, to please get in touch.
6. I love getting emails or getting praise like that.
7. At work itself, one of my coworkers told me she was going to really miss me while I was out, since she considered me the glue of the magazine.
8. Honestly, I don't hear a lot of stuff like that, particularly from the top boss at the place. Our priorities (mine and the top boss's) are pretty far apart, and as a result, we don't interact all that much. Plus, I sense that our styles are pretty different.
9. Beyond work glory, I've determined, perhaps weeks or months later than most, that pregnancy can be really hard on the body. Particularly in the final weeks.
10. As Mr. Lyrehca pointed out, some women vomit for three months straight, and I didn't have any of that.
11. But in the last week alone, my ankles and legs have gotten bigger, I've dealt with the sheer annoyance and pain of a hemorrhoid, and two days ago, my left kneecap developed this sharp arthritis-like pain (I suspect this is what arthritis feels like).
12. It hurts to go up and down stairs, and it's only on one knee, in the front. (Knee pain in the back would indicate a scary blood clot, and I'm told this isn't a clot).
13. One the first day, two Tylenol did nothing for the knee pain, but yesterday and today, it seems to have lessened in intensity a bit.
14. Due to Passover, I've eaten more of carb-heavy foods over the past few days.
15. My blood sugars have reflected this, despite my efforts to take more boluses to cover them.
16. I fear this is packing weight on the kid for the last week in utero.
17. Sigh.
18. Today I've scheduled the last of my prenatal massages at lunchtime. I'm deeply looking forward to this.
19. Friday is my last day at work.
20. We still need to buy a bassinet mattress for next week.
21. My home office is still cluttered, and it's hard to get motivated to declutter it before next week.
22. I've been up for a few hours (it's nearly 6am) even though my blood sugar was 89 when I went to bed and 94 when I awoke around 4ish.
23. It took several days, after weeks of prodding from Mr. L., but I finally pulled together a huge list of email addresses for everyone we want to announce our baby news to next week.
24. I try not to think about what we'll do should something (knock wood) not go anything but well.
25. I wonder what the baby is going to look like.
26. I wonder if I'll ever feel well-rested again over the next year.
26. I wonder if my assorted health complaints will somehow disappear next week, or if I'm living with cankles, hemorrhoids and left knee pain for the duration.
27. I have thought that despite all my worrying about the baby's potential for health problems (diabetes! autism! ADHD! Something else I haven't thought of yet), that having the baby in utero has kept things limited. Once the baby is here, the reality will be staring me (crying, hungry, tired, in need of a diaper change) straight in the face.
28. It was snowing here yesterday. On April 4.
29. All the clothes I've bought for Baby L. aren't snow-ready.
30. Once the baby arrives, I suspect my mother will go into baby overload and buy the kid whatever cold-weather gear it may still need by the second week in April.
31. I lay in bed earlier tonight and noted the lack of abdominal pain I was feeling, to try to remember how it feels next week when I'm recovering from another abdominal scar and more pain.
32. I totally forgot about this and this deserves a post of its own, but Laurie at A Chronic Dose mentioned me on her blog last week as someone who always makes her think. I need to write more about this at length, particuarly because this post isn't much more than a brain dump, but thanks (again!) to Laurie.
33. I turned 37 last week. It was sort of a low-key birthday in light of where I am in the pregnancy.
34. I just felt the baby kick.
35. It's very reassuring when this happens.
36. I have another hour before I need to start readying for work.
37. I think I'll head back to bed while I still can.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Week 32: 32 Things
1. I never seem to have time to post anymore. Today's 32 weeks of being pregnant. Hard to believe.
2. Went to New York City last weekend for a last hurrah as a woman with baby in utero, because who knows when I'll get back there again?
3. Stayed with my single girl pal and saw a bunch of friends; interestingly, most of them are still single or are dating and are in far different places in their lives than I am.
4. Met with one friend who is type 1, married, expecting, and due just a few days after me. She's not a close friend, but I wanted to chat and find out how the pregnancy has been going.
5. Interestingly, we obsess over different things: I haven't drunk diet Coke or eaten bacon for months, while she has both but gets up every hour, she says, to test her blood sugar in the middle of the night.
6. We were both the same blood sugar when we met for an early brunch on Sunday (she was 108, I was 110). She worried that her high-protein meal the night before was still affecting her sugar, while I pointed out that I'd drunk two glasses of skim milk an hour before I met her, and felt like my reading was nothing to worry about. (Pre-meals, the pregnancy magic numbers are supposed to be 60-99 before a meal).
7. I also had lunch with Violet of Pumplandia; it was great to meet a blogger IRL (in real life), plus, she schlepped across the city to meet me closer to the neighborhood I was staying in.
8. I walked so much more than I ever do at home, and my bloods reflected that.
9. Cankles require me to wear only one of two pairs of shoes (either sneakers or these patent leather black loafers I've owned for years), so when I walked a lot, I noticed my back and feet got more tired than they ever have pre-pregnancy.
10. While I will always love NYC, staying in my friend's tiny apartment and walking around everywhere made me appreciate the (relatively) spacious house I live in, the car I drive and park in the driveway (as opposed to the time I spent searching for a space on the streets of Manhattan, or the money I spent on parking in garages).
11. Also met with an editor friend who gives me a lot of freelance work. As a mom of three herself (and we're the same age), she told me not to take on any freelance work for at least the first 12 weeks, but promised me she'd always have work to give me when I wanted it. Very reassuring.
12. Unrelated to the NYC trip, I've spoken to two groups of journalism students at two nearby colleges (in Boston) within the last week. The teacher for the first group, a class on magazine writing, told me I really connected with the students, how engaged they were during the presentation, and that perhaps teaching was in my future. Interesting. I always like doing talks about careers in journalism, and wonder if I'll get to do them any more once I am a mom.
13. Back at work, I'm heading into the last stretch of deadlines for the last magazine issue before I go on pregnancy leave. When I allow myself to think about this , I wonder if I should feel more sad about leaving my job for at least 12 weeks, and likely permanently. (The hours, commute, and lack of high pay tilt the scale toward a permanent leave). On one hand, I completely see I'm about to enter a new chapter in my life. On the other hand, there are times when I really think I'm ready to leave this office behind without regrets. Back on the first hand, though, I worry about whether I'll ever find a magazine staff job ever again, as it was what I dreamed about doing when I was in college. On the other hand, knowing that I don't live in the city where the magazines I really like are actually based, is it time to give up the idea of being a magazine editor in favor of full time freelancing and new motherhood? And will I ever make enough money to feel really secure about what I do as a freelancer with a child?
14. On this tangent, when will I ever have time to finish my own book projects, since no one is paying me to write them until after they're written and sold to a publisher by an agent?
15. Clearly, I think more about my career than I do about being a new mother.
16. People asked me if the Mister and I are excited to be new parents. I think we're taking things day by day and while I think about how the months ahead will be filled with new experiences and challenges, and that when I'm up at 4 in the morning, it will likely be with the baby as my companion rather than the laptop, I'm not necessarily excited. Intrigued by what's to come, yes, but aware that I have no idea what it will be like.
17. To that extent, my mother has told me more than once that I have no idea how tired I'm going to be and that the Mister and I have no idea what's about to hit us.
18. I responded that we have a sense that it will be hard, and that there's a reason we didn't have children when we were in our 20s, (one of which is that we didn't know each other then, but I digress...) but that we're about to move forward and to stop thinking like it'll be all negative.
19. I'm now going to the hospital weekly for one visit or another. I have weekly ultrasounds at the ATU (antepartum testing unit) and Endo or High Risk OB visits every two weeks. By March's end, they become weekly.
20. Blood sugars are what they are. Not super tight every minute of the day, but not crazy, either.
21. I get another fetal measurement this Friday, but the measurement three weeks ago showed the kid was within normal ranges and not gaining extra weight because of anything diabetic-related.
22. Someone asked in my comments last post if my insulin requirements had increased. Oh yes. I now take about three times as much insulin a day as I did pre-pregnancy. My skinny sister in law asked if I could stop this by eating less, and I pointed out that her non-diabetic body did the same thing as mine, but since she didn't inject or pump insulin, she had no idea what her insulin needs are. It's quite normal to have insulin needs increase in the latter half of pregnancy.
23. As a result, I've taken to refilling just the reservoir of insulin in my pump, rather than change the infusion set, every time the pump runs low on insulin. I used to change both the set and fill the pump at the same time.
24. Just signed up for a new baby-new mom group that starts in May. A mom friend of mine urged me to sign up, as getting out of the house the first few weeks are crucial. It felt weird to sign up for it yesterday, but I wanted to get in before the class filled up. It starts May 9, when the kid should be five weeks old.
25. Our baby furniture, which we ordered weeks ago and were told would take 12 weeks to arrive, came in after four weeks. I told the store that we're superstitious Jews, and that as soon as the baby arrives and is healthy, my husband will come in, pay off the balance, and have the furniture delivered. In the meantime, just keep it in storage.
26. I've commented about this elsewhere, but typically, us Jews don't do anything to openly prepare for having a baby. It's seen as tempting fate. That means no baby showers, no preparing a nursery, no buying baby clothes on sale, until the kid is actually here and healthy. I've only been to one baby shower that I can remember, and quite tragically, that baby turned out to be stillborn.
27. As a result, while we've been told to register and have actually done so, I've been pretty quiet about the details. And while other relatives have passed on a few baby items, they're either stashed in my car trunk or in the basement of our house.
28. We're hiring a painter this week to paint the baby's room, but I just want to close the door and not do anything else until after the baby arrives.
29. I haven't ordered crib bedding yet. Or curtains. Or any of that stuff. I finally called yesterday and learned that the day care we're going to go with has two openings for the time we want, and that we need to enroll this week if we want a spot. I've also been slow in lining up a baby nurse, which everyone tells me is crucial to do.
30. I apologize it's taken me so long to get to this point (and I already emailed her my thanks), but Serenity sent me a very cute gift yesterday as the winner of her "Name my IVF cycle title" on her blog. (I suggested "Now with More Uterus," which is very appropriate for her particular medical issue.) She ordered a onesie and cap from this store, a place I've always liked (and I again wonder if I'm tempting fate by even writing about it here. The Jewish guilt/schtick runs deep.)
31. I've suffered from an annoying cold over the past week and a half, ranging from copious sneezing and nasal goop to raspy coughing, to my current dry sore throat and larynigitis half the time. I'm often bored when people write how sick they are with a cold, but I'm totally done with being sick. Really just want this thing to move on already.
32. Hopefully I'll find time to post before another two weeks fly by.
2. Went to New York City last weekend for a last hurrah as a woman with baby in utero, because who knows when I'll get back there again?
3. Stayed with my single girl pal and saw a bunch of friends; interestingly, most of them are still single or are dating and are in far different places in their lives than I am.
4. Met with one friend who is type 1, married, expecting, and due just a few days after me. She's not a close friend, but I wanted to chat and find out how the pregnancy has been going.
5. Interestingly, we obsess over different things: I haven't drunk diet Coke or eaten bacon for months, while she has both but gets up every hour, she says, to test her blood sugar in the middle of the night.
6. We were both the same blood sugar when we met for an early brunch on Sunday (she was 108, I was 110). She worried that her high-protein meal the night before was still affecting her sugar, while I pointed out that I'd drunk two glasses of skim milk an hour before I met her, and felt like my reading was nothing to worry about. (Pre-meals, the pregnancy magic numbers are supposed to be 60-99 before a meal).
7. I also had lunch with Violet of Pumplandia; it was great to meet a blogger IRL (in real life), plus, she schlepped across the city to meet me closer to the neighborhood I was staying in.
8. I walked so much more than I ever do at home, and my bloods reflected that.
9. Cankles require me to wear only one of two pairs of shoes (either sneakers or these patent leather black loafers I've owned for years), so when I walked a lot, I noticed my back and feet got more tired than they ever have pre-pregnancy.
10. While I will always love NYC, staying in my friend's tiny apartment and walking around everywhere made me appreciate the (relatively) spacious house I live in, the car I drive and park in the driveway (as opposed to the time I spent searching for a space on the streets of Manhattan, or the money I spent on parking in garages).
11. Also met with an editor friend who gives me a lot of freelance work. As a mom of three herself (and we're the same age), she told me not to take on any freelance work for at least the first 12 weeks, but promised me she'd always have work to give me when I wanted it. Very reassuring.
12. Unrelated to the NYC trip, I've spoken to two groups of journalism students at two nearby colleges (in Boston) within the last week. The teacher for the first group, a class on magazine writing, told me I really connected with the students, how engaged they were during the presentation, and that perhaps teaching was in my future. Interesting. I always like doing talks about careers in journalism, and wonder if I'll get to do them any more once I am a mom.
13. Back at work, I'm heading into the last stretch of deadlines for the last magazine issue before I go on pregnancy leave. When I allow myself to think about this , I wonder if I should feel more sad about leaving my job for at least 12 weeks, and likely permanently. (The hours, commute, and lack of high pay tilt the scale toward a permanent leave). On one hand, I completely see I'm about to enter a new chapter in my life. On the other hand, there are times when I really think I'm ready to leave this office behind without regrets. Back on the first hand, though, I worry about whether I'll ever find a magazine staff job ever again, as it was what I dreamed about doing when I was in college. On the other hand, knowing that I don't live in the city where the magazines I really like are actually based, is it time to give up the idea of being a magazine editor in favor of full time freelancing and new motherhood? And will I ever make enough money to feel really secure about what I do as a freelancer with a child?
14. On this tangent, when will I ever have time to finish my own book projects, since no one is paying me to write them until after they're written and sold to a publisher by an agent?
15. Clearly, I think more about my career than I do about being a new mother.
16. People asked me if the Mister and I are excited to be new parents. I think we're taking things day by day and while I think about how the months ahead will be filled with new experiences and challenges, and that when I'm up at 4 in the morning, it will likely be with the baby as my companion rather than the laptop, I'm not necessarily excited. Intrigued by what's to come, yes, but aware that I have no idea what it will be like.
17. To that extent, my mother has told me more than once that I have no idea how tired I'm going to be and that the Mister and I have no idea what's about to hit us.
18. I responded that we have a sense that it will be hard, and that there's a reason we didn't have children when we were in our 20s, (one of which is that we didn't know each other then, but I digress...) but that we're about to move forward and to stop thinking like it'll be all negative.
19. I'm now going to the hospital weekly for one visit or another. I have weekly ultrasounds at the ATU (antepartum testing unit) and Endo or High Risk OB visits every two weeks. By March's end, they become weekly.
20. Blood sugars are what they are. Not super tight every minute of the day, but not crazy, either.
21. I get another fetal measurement this Friday, but the measurement three weeks ago showed the kid was within normal ranges and not gaining extra weight because of anything diabetic-related.
22. Someone asked in my comments last post if my insulin requirements had increased. Oh yes. I now take about three times as much insulin a day as I did pre-pregnancy. My skinny sister in law asked if I could stop this by eating less, and I pointed out that her non-diabetic body did the same thing as mine, but since she didn't inject or pump insulin, she had no idea what her insulin needs are. It's quite normal to have insulin needs increase in the latter half of pregnancy.
23. As a result, I've taken to refilling just the reservoir of insulin in my pump, rather than change the infusion set, every time the pump runs low on insulin. I used to change both the set and fill the pump at the same time.
24. Just signed up for a new baby-new mom group that starts in May. A mom friend of mine urged me to sign up, as getting out of the house the first few weeks are crucial. It felt weird to sign up for it yesterday, but I wanted to get in before the class filled up. It starts May 9, when the kid should be five weeks old.
25. Our baby furniture, which we ordered weeks ago and were told would take 12 weeks to arrive, came in after four weeks. I told the store that we're superstitious Jews, and that as soon as the baby arrives and is healthy, my husband will come in, pay off the balance, and have the furniture delivered. In the meantime, just keep it in storage.
26. I've commented about this elsewhere, but typically, us Jews don't do anything to openly prepare for having a baby. It's seen as tempting fate. That means no baby showers, no preparing a nursery, no buying baby clothes on sale, until the kid is actually here and healthy. I've only been to one baby shower that I can remember, and quite tragically, that baby turned out to be stillborn.
27. As a result, while we've been told to register and have actually done so, I've been pretty quiet about the details. And while other relatives have passed on a few baby items, they're either stashed in my car trunk or in the basement of our house.
28. We're hiring a painter this week to paint the baby's room, but I just want to close the door and not do anything else until after the baby arrives.
29. I haven't ordered crib bedding yet. Or curtains. Or any of that stuff. I finally called yesterday and learned that the day care we're going to go with has two openings for the time we want, and that we need to enroll this week if we want a spot. I've also been slow in lining up a baby nurse, which everyone tells me is crucial to do.
30. I apologize it's taken me so long to get to this point (and I already emailed her my thanks), but Serenity sent me a very cute gift yesterday as the winner of her "Name my IVF cycle title" on her blog. (I suggested "Now with More Uterus," which is very appropriate for her particular medical issue.) She ordered a onesie and cap from this store, a place I've always liked (and I again wonder if I'm tempting fate by even writing about it here. The Jewish guilt/schtick runs deep.)
31. I've suffered from an annoying cold over the past week and a half, ranging from copious sneezing and nasal goop to raspy coughing, to my current dry sore throat and larynigitis half the time. I'm often bored when people write how sick they are with a cold, but I'm totally done with being sick. Really just want this thing to move on already.
32. Hopefully I'll find time to post before another two weeks fly by.
Sunday, January 07, 2007
Week 24 Close: The Single Life, Cankles and New Insurance
Look at that--three posts in a week. I'm getting prolific!
Big news here is that Mister Lyrehca went out of town for a week for a work conference. My mother and father in law and others have been like, "How could he leave his pregnant wife?" and my mother has suggested I move in with her and my father this week so that I'm not alone AND because I'll have late work nights all this week and my parents live closer to my office than I do.
To be honest, I'm fine with the Mister going out of town. He left yesterday, and all day yesterday and today, I've done only things that I want to do. It's like being single again: I got up early enough and didn't have anyone in bed to keep me from going to a prenatal yoga class this morning. I went shopping in stores that the Mister has no interest in. I drove my own car. (The Mister is a control freak about driving and insists on driving when we go anywhere together, even if we decide to drive my [nicer, newer, cleaner] car. We disagree about radio station music: I like it loud and head-banging, he likes softer stuff and always thinks I'm going deaf. [I'm so not.] As I drove home yesterday from a nice shopping day out, complete with store visits and long stretches in two different bookstores [another Mister no-no; he finds bookstores boring, while I could live in one and never leave], the Killers' song, Jenny Was A Friend of Mine came on. I turned up the tunes, told the baby to rock out, and had a great time. Felt movement and everything. Perhaps Baby L. will be a future rock star. Without the drinking and drugs and groupie sex.)
But I digress.
More weird pregnancy symptoms are popping up this week. Saturday night I woke up to test my blood sugar and pee around 6ish, and felt this major knot of pain in my right calf. WTF? I stumbled off to the bathroom, where I keep a copy of "What to Expect When You're Expecting" for easy reading. Leg cramps apparently are common as pregnancy progresses, and if stretching didn't alleviate the pain, I shouldn't massage or heat the area, as it could be a blood clot and need immediate attention.
Uh, great.
I stretched a bit, then went back to bed. A few hours later, after I'd driven Mr. L. to the airport shuttle, I walked around a bunch and noticed, mid-morning, that the pain was gone. So that was good.
More persistent has been the appearance of super swollen ankles. Like, total cankles (calf-ankles). I first noticed them last week after I came home from work, devoured two half-sour pickles as an appetizer, then had a frankly unhealthy dinner of veggie chips (which are essentially potato chips) and egg salad. Honestly, I found it delicious, and figure I eat nutritiously most of the time. Right after dinner, however, I looked down and noticed total fat pads where I'd normally see two rare slim body parts. The tops of my feet looked pillowy, too.
Oy.
It was around 9:30 at night, so I thought paging a doc on call would be a good idea to do sooner rather than later. This was after I looked up swollen ankles in the aforementioned pregnancy book, saw that it's another common side effect of pregnancy, but that it could lead to pre-eclampsia, a pregnancy horror show, if it continued.
I paged my OB's office and a doctor on call returned the call within 15 minutes. Yes, despite my eating salt-filled foods in the past and not suffering any detrimental blood pressure or other ill effects, nowadays the pregnancy can cause bloat around the lower regions. I slept with my feet elevated on pillows and the next day, they looked better. I wore boots to work and they were a bit tight, but felt fine as the day progressed.
Again, last night (after a pesto chicken meal out with the parents, high-fat and yes, salty, but Oy! so delicious), I came home to find more ankle bloat. I even measured my ankle circumference, then went to bed with feet raised.
Today, things looked better, and I lost an inch of bloat when I measured my ankle again. (As I type this, I figure, "Jeez, who measures their ankles?" But if you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you already know this sort of thing doesn't faze me in the least. I mean, who out there has measured her bloated ankles before? Anyone?)
But after lunch, the ankles looked big again, so I paged the OB's office and talked to another doc on call, who assured me that ankle bloat is common, and that lacking any other symptoms like a splitting headache, rib pain, or some other thing I definitely didn't have, it's likely I don't have pre-eclampsia and that I should be fine until Friday, when I next have an OB/Endo visit. He did suggest I lay off the pickles and pesto chicken, if I wanted my ankles to stay small.
Diabetes-wise, I actually got it together to send my Endo some daily readings. For some reason, I read about how people download their meters and their pumps and all that into their Palm Pilots and Blackberries and just email the results to their docs. I have all the technology (or at least I think I do), but still, it seems the only way to get every detail down is to write down my blood sugars, my basal and bolus rates, the exact carb amounts of what I eat, and whatever other stuff worth noting, like a set change, on a good ol' slip of paper. I download daily logs from Minimed's website, but writing all that stuff down is so darn tedious, it kills me. It's worse when I try to do several days at once, because while my meter will go back for 90 days of readings, my pump only goes back a day and a half. And do YOU remember specifically what you had for dinner four days ago? Plus, since I eat mostly the breakfast and lunch day to day, and my A1c has been great (the last one was 5.4, a new personal low), the doc hasn't been on my case about sending them regularly.
But the insulin resistance has kicked in hard, and I'd noticed my weekly average going up to about 140, which is higher than it's been this whole pregnancy, so I called the doc and she wanted to see the data. Of course, the few days I wrote stuff down, there were only a few unexplained highs mostly in the morning, and they were unresponsive to correction boluses for a few hours. The rest of the numbers looked pretty good.
The Endo called me on Friday and upped a few basal rates, and increased my morning carb ratios. Now I eat something like 1 unit of insulin for every 3.5 grams of carbs in the morning, and 1:6 at night. For you diabetics reading, it translates to taking about 30 units of insulin a day when I was a New Yorker, walking all day, to about 45 units when I moved to Mass. and became more sedentary, to currently 75-80 units a day now that I'm a second-trimester pregnant lady. Correction factors are now 1:25, down from 1:40 or so before. It's all normal for pregnancy, and it'll likely only get worse as things move on, but Oy! I'm zipping through insulin so much quicker these days. I regularly refill my pump and change out my infusion set at work--I do it every other day now, too. (Yes, I have an old pump that only holds about 160 units at a time, but until the damn thing breaks, I'm going to hold off on upgrading til I have to. I mean, I'm dealing with enough daily changes with the cankles and the baby moving. I can handle a few extra set changes a week.)
And in a final bit of medical news, my new husband-provided-for health insurance kicks in this week, a change from having my own insurance through my own job. We got our new cards last week and I was annoyed that MY card has MR. LYREHCA's name on it, since he is the primary carrier. Oy. Plus, it wasn't effective until today, since that's when his new pay period started. This means, technically, that my insurance ran out on 12/31, and I was uninsured for seven days. I called to complain about both the name indignity and the lack of coverage and was told that's just the way this plan worked. While there was a split moment with that leg pain that I thought, "What if I have to see a doctor because I have a blood clot the week I'm between insurances?" thankfully that didn't turn out to be a problem.
Hopefully I'm now covered under the Mister's plan and I hope it won't be a hassle learning how the new system works and there won't be any surprises about what the written plan says it covers and what happens when bills actually get processed. I know some people have issues with things getting covered, due to "pre-existing conditions" when they have a break in insurance coverage, but I read specifically that pregnancy isn't considered a pre-existing condition, and that specifcally, this hasn't been an honest break in coverage. I'm hoping my obsessive thinking about health issues will, in this case, turn out to be unwarranted.
Big news here is that Mister Lyrehca went out of town for a week for a work conference. My mother and father in law and others have been like, "How could he leave his pregnant wife?" and my mother has suggested I move in with her and my father this week so that I'm not alone AND because I'll have late work nights all this week and my parents live closer to my office than I do.
To be honest, I'm fine with the Mister going out of town. He left yesterday, and all day yesterday and today, I've done only things that I want to do. It's like being single again: I got up early enough and didn't have anyone in bed to keep me from going to a prenatal yoga class this morning. I went shopping in stores that the Mister has no interest in. I drove my own car. (The Mister is a control freak about driving and insists on driving when we go anywhere together, even if we decide to drive my [nicer, newer, cleaner] car. We disagree about radio station music: I like it loud and head-banging, he likes softer stuff and always thinks I'm going deaf. [I'm so not.] As I drove home yesterday from a nice shopping day out, complete with store visits and long stretches in two different bookstores [another Mister no-no; he finds bookstores boring, while I could live in one and never leave], the Killers' song, Jenny Was A Friend of Mine came on. I turned up the tunes, told the baby to rock out, and had a great time. Felt movement and everything. Perhaps Baby L. will be a future rock star. Without the drinking and drugs and groupie sex.)
But I digress.
More weird pregnancy symptoms are popping up this week. Saturday night I woke up to test my blood sugar and pee around 6ish, and felt this major knot of pain in my right calf. WTF? I stumbled off to the bathroom, where I keep a copy of "What to Expect When You're Expecting" for easy reading. Leg cramps apparently are common as pregnancy progresses, and if stretching didn't alleviate the pain, I shouldn't massage or heat the area, as it could be a blood clot and need immediate attention.
Uh, great.
I stretched a bit, then went back to bed. A few hours later, after I'd driven Mr. L. to the airport shuttle, I walked around a bunch and noticed, mid-morning, that the pain was gone. So that was good.
More persistent has been the appearance of super swollen ankles. Like, total cankles (calf-ankles). I first noticed them last week after I came home from work, devoured two half-sour pickles as an appetizer, then had a frankly unhealthy dinner of veggie chips (which are essentially potato chips) and egg salad. Honestly, I found it delicious, and figure I eat nutritiously most of the time. Right after dinner, however, I looked down and noticed total fat pads where I'd normally see two rare slim body parts. The tops of my feet looked pillowy, too.
Oy.
It was around 9:30 at night, so I thought paging a doc on call would be a good idea to do sooner rather than later. This was after I looked up swollen ankles in the aforementioned pregnancy book, saw that it's another common side effect of pregnancy, but that it could lead to pre-eclampsia, a pregnancy horror show, if it continued.
I paged my OB's office and a doctor on call returned the call within 15 minutes. Yes, despite my eating salt-filled foods in the past and not suffering any detrimental blood pressure or other ill effects, nowadays the pregnancy can cause bloat around the lower regions. I slept with my feet elevated on pillows and the next day, they looked better. I wore boots to work and they were a bit tight, but felt fine as the day progressed.
Again, last night (after a pesto chicken meal out with the parents, high-fat and yes, salty, but Oy! so delicious), I came home to find more ankle bloat. I even measured my ankle circumference, then went to bed with feet raised.
Today, things looked better, and I lost an inch of bloat when I measured my ankle again. (As I type this, I figure, "Jeez, who measures their ankles?" But if you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you already know this sort of thing doesn't faze me in the least. I mean, who out there has measured her bloated ankles before? Anyone?)
But after lunch, the ankles looked big again, so I paged the OB's office and talked to another doc on call, who assured me that ankle bloat is common, and that lacking any other symptoms like a splitting headache, rib pain, or some other thing I definitely didn't have, it's likely I don't have pre-eclampsia and that I should be fine until Friday, when I next have an OB/Endo visit. He did suggest I lay off the pickles and pesto chicken, if I wanted my ankles to stay small.
Diabetes-wise, I actually got it together to send my Endo some daily readings. For some reason, I read about how people download their meters and their pumps and all that into their Palm Pilots and Blackberries and just email the results to their docs. I have all the technology (or at least I think I do), but still, it seems the only way to get every detail down is to write down my blood sugars, my basal and bolus rates, the exact carb amounts of what I eat, and whatever other stuff worth noting, like a set change, on a good ol' slip of paper. I download daily logs from Minimed's website, but writing all that stuff down is so darn tedious, it kills me. It's worse when I try to do several days at once, because while my meter will go back for 90 days of readings, my pump only goes back a day and a half. And do YOU remember specifically what you had for dinner four days ago? Plus, since I eat mostly the breakfast and lunch day to day, and my A1c has been great (the last one was 5.4, a new personal low), the doc hasn't been on my case about sending them regularly.
But the insulin resistance has kicked in hard, and I'd noticed my weekly average going up to about 140, which is higher than it's been this whole pregnancy, so I called the doc and she wanted to see the data. Of course, the few days I wrote stuff down, there were only a few unexplained highs mostly in the morning, and they were unresponsive to correction boluses for a few hours. The rest of the numbers looked pretty good.
The Endo called me on Friday and upped a few basal rates, and increased my morning carb ratios. Now I eat something like 1 unit of insulin for every 3.5 grams of carbs in the morning, and 1:6 at night. For you diabetics reading, it translates to taking about 30 units of insulin a day when I was a New Yorker, walking all day, to about 45 units when I moved to Mass. and became more sedentary, to currently 75-80 units a day now that I'm a second-trimester pregnant lady. Correction factors are now 1:25, down from 1:40 or so before. It's all normal for pregnancy, and it'll likely only get worse as things move on, but Oy! I'm zipping through insulin so much quicker these days. I regularly refill my pump and change out my infusion set at work--I do it every other day now, too. (Yes, I have an old pump that only holds about 160 units at a time, but until the damn thing breaks, I'm going to hold off on upgrading til I have to. I mean, I'm dealing with enough daily changes with the cankles and the baby moving. I can handle a few extra set changes a week.)
And in a final bit of medical news, my new husband-provided-for health insurance kicks in this week, a change from having my own insurance through my own job. We got our new cards last week and I was annoyed that MY card has MR. LYREHCA's name on it, since he is the primary carrier. Oy. Plus, it wasn't effective until today, since that's when his new pay period started. This means, technically, that my insurance ran out on 12/31, and I was uninsured for seven days. I called to complain about both the name indignity and the lack of coverage and was told that's just the way this plan worked. While there was a split moment with that leg pain that I thought, "What if I have to see a doctor because I have a blood clot the week I'm between insurances?" thankfully that didn't turn out to be a problem.
Hopefully I'm now covered under the Mister's plan and I hope it won't be a hassle learning how the new system works and there won't be any surprises about what the written plan says it covers and what happens when bills actually get processed. I know some people have issues with things getting covered, due to "pre-existing conditions" when they have a break in insurance coverage, but I read specifically that pregnancy isn't considered a pre-existing condition, and that specifcally, this hasn't been an honest break in coverage. I'm hoping my obsessive thinking about health issues will, in this case, turn out to be unwarranted.
Tuesday, January 02, 2007
Happy 2007: YOB
So now the insomnia happens when I wake up lying on my back, and the baby's weight is pressing on my diaphragm and I feel like something's crushing my chest and I can't get a good deep breath.
Nice, huh?
No doubt this pregnancy is moving along in one way or another. Twenty-four weeks pregnant today, and the belly's definitely prominent. On one hand, we went to a new year's brunch yesterday where we didn't know anyone except the hosts. Kids and infants galore. One woman told me I didn't look like I was showing much at all, and everyone wished us good luck. (I did tell Mr. L. that if I was still having trouble getting pregnant, this party would have really depressed me, with all the little children about. Instead, I was able to just relax and take it all in. Well, take most of it in--the delicious-looking lox and tuna salad are on hiatus until post-pregnancy.)
Of course, the night before I hung out with my parents, brother and sister in law for a New Year's Eve meal. My brother, who is three years younger than me but a foot taller, and I often exchange smartass comments. "Damn, look at that belly," he said. "Dude, I'm six months pregnant," I retorted. "It's supposed to be there." "Yeah, but are you having twins?"
My brother has a cute young son who is nearly two, and is a general handful. He's mischievious, and likes things his own way. The son flipped out on Friday when he was out to lunch with his parents. My sister in law ripped a big piece of pizza crust in half for the little boy to better fit it into his mouth. The son watched this happen and got royally pissed off. He then squealed and yelled and tried his hardest to put the two pieces of pizza crust back together. I figure my brother has enough headaches with his own headstrong kid. I'm not going to let my brother's twin comment, smartassed and misguided as it is, bother me.
Because none of us are night owls, we all went out for an early dinner New Year's Eve, then went back to my parents' house for dessert, and Mr. L. and I were home by about 10ish and tucked in bed to watch the ball drop at midnight.
"Happy New Year," we wished each other, kissing and turning off the TV.
"This is YOB," the Mister said. "1993 was my YOG, year of graduation, and 2007 is YOB, year of baby."
We both got teary.
"Knock wood, all goes well," I said,
Happy 2007, YOB.
Update; Just found out my year-end post is now featured on this week's Grand Rounds, along with a few other d-bloggers. Thanks!
Nice, huh?
No doubt this pregnancy is moving along in one way or another. Twenty-four weeks pregnant today, and the belly's definitely prominent. On one hand, we went to a new year's brunch yesterday where we didn't know anyone except the hosts. Kids and infants galore. One woman told me I didn't look like I was showing much at all, and everyone wished us good luck. (I did tell Mr. L. that if I was still having trouble getting pregnant, this party would have really depressed me, with all the little children about. Instead, I was able to just relax and take it all in. Well, take most of it in--the delicious-looking lox and tuna salad are on hiatus until post-pregnancy.)
Of course, the night before I hung out with my parents, brother and sister in law for a New Year's Eve meal. My brother, who is three years younger than me but a foot taller, and I often exchange smartass comments. "Damn, look at that belly," he said. "Dude, I'm six months pregnant," I retorted. "It's supposed to be there." "Yeah, but are you having twins?"
My brother has a cute young son who is nearly two, and is a general handful. He's mischievious, and likes things his own way. The son flipped out on Friday when he was out to lunch with his parents. My sister in law ripped a big piece of pizza crust in half for the little boy to better fit it into his mouth. The son watched this happen and got royally pissed off. He then squealed and yelled and tried his hardest to put the two pieces of pizza crust back together. I figure my brother has enough headaches with his own headstrong kid. I'm not going to let my brother's twin comment, smartassed and misguided as it is, bother me.
Because none of us are night owls, we all went out for an early dinner New Year's Eve, then went back to my parents' house for dessert, and Mr. L. and I were home by about 10ish and tucked in bed to watch the ball drop at midnight.
"Happy New Year," we wished each other, kissing and turning off the TV.
"This is YOB," the Mister said. "1993 was my YOG, year of graduation, and 2007 is YOB, year of baby."
We both got teary.
"Knock wood, all goes well," I said,
Happy 2007, YOB.
Update; Just found out my year-end post is now featured on this week's Grand Rounds, along with a few other d-bloggers. Thanks!
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Week Twenty-One Update
Over on Violet’s (password protected) blog, I was writing about what I plan to eat post-pregnancy: a pound of pepperoni. A pound of corned beef. A pound of Brie. A pound of sushi. And a two-liter bottle of diet Coke to wash it all down with.
Who says I’m not obsessive?
Actually, I’ve been surprised to notice that I haven’t done badly with the food restrictions of pregnancy. I’ve had maybe three sips, tops, of diet Coke over the past six months or so, no soft cheeses or pepperoni, and only two deli sandwiches, both Reubens, which consist of grilled pastrami so they’ve been OK.
Which is just as well, because insulin resistance has arrived, right on schedule between 19 and 20 weeks. This means the carefully calculated dose of insulin for my oatmeal-and-peanut-butter breakfast fiesta has jumped up a lot. As in, my breakfast ration used to be 1 unit of insulin to 9 grams of carb and now 1:3 is working pretty well. Lunch, too, has dropped down from 1 to 8 to about 1 to 5.5. Dinner is still being fine-tuned.
As usual, I’m correcting often and frankly, seeing higher numbers than before, though my meter averages still correlate to an average of between 125 and 129. Back in week 12, though, I actually saw an average of 112 to 119 and couldn’t believe it.
I’m pleased to note that my insomnia seems to have slipped away. Not sure why, though I’m still up at odd hours one or two nights a week. Generally, though, when I get up in the wee hours to test, I’m up for a few hours, which means recently, I’m not up every night testing in the middle of the night. However, I seem to come in upon waking within the 70-99 range, so I don’t worry so much.
On one hand, I could argue that I worry all the time. I still say things like “Knock wood, if all goes well, the kid’s coming out sometime in April.” On the other hand, when I see a super high because of insulin resistance or a carb miscalculation, I just correct and move on. I can’t stress about sugar already spilled, I can only test and correct.
And since I’m testing every hour sometimes, I feel OK about catching the highs when they happen and not letting them manifest.
And it being the time of year it is, the Mister and I had to sit down and figure out our insurance plans for 2007. That’s a whole ‘nother post, but between the diabetes, the pregnancy, the kid’s arrival, and the variable of whether I’ll return to work or not post-kid, it’s like taking another exam. But we made our decision and will have to let the chips, and the checks paying deductibles, fall where they may.
Who says I’m not obsessive?
Actually, I’ve been surprised to notice that I haven’t done badly with the food restrictions of pregnancy. I’ve had maybe three sips, tops, of diet Coke over the past six months or so, no soft cheeses or pepperoni, and only two deli sandwiches, both Reubens, which consist of grilled pastrami so they’ve been OK.
Which is just as well, because insulin resistance has arrived, right on schedule between 19 and 20 weeks. This means the carefully calculated dose of insulin for my oatmeal-and-peanut-butter breakfast fiesta has jumped up a lot. As in, my breakfast ration used to be 1 unit of insulin to 9 grams of carb and now 1:3 is working pretty well. Lunch, too, has dropped down from 1 to 8 to about 1 to 5.5. Dinner is still being fine-tuned.
As usual, I’m correcting often and frankly, seeing higher numbers than before, though my meter averages still correlate to an average of between 125 and 129. Back in week 12, though, I actually saw an average of 112 to 119 and couldn’t believe it.
I’m pleased to note that my insomnia seems to have slipped away. Not sure why, though I’m still up at odd hours one or two nights a week. Generally, though, when I get up in the wee hours to test, I’m up for a few hours, which means recently, I’m not up every night testing in the middle of the night. However, I seem to come in upon waking within the 70-99 range, so I don’t worry so much.
On one hand, I could argue that I worry all the time. I still say things like “Knock wood, if all goes well, the kid’s coming out sometime in April.” On the other hand, when I see a super high because of insulin resistance or a carb miscalculation, I just correct and move on. I can’t stress about sugar already spilled, I can only test and correct.
And since I’m testing every hour sometimes, I feel OK about catching the highs when they happen and not letting them manifest.
And it being the time of year it is, the Mister and I had to sit down and figure out our insurance plans for 2007. That’s a whole ‘nother post, but between the diabetes, the pregnancy, the kid’s arrival, and the variable of whether I’ll return to work or not post-kid, it’s like taking another exam. But we made our decision and will have to let the chips, and the checks paying deductibles, fall where they may.
Monday, November 06, 2006
Tag Results: Pickles, Life Coaches, Mah Jong, Swimming, 1984
Thanks, Sarah, for tagging me.
Five things about me you (perhaps) don’t already know:
1. I loved them before I was pregnant, but damn, I crave half-sour pickles like nobody’s business. I buy them six- or eight-at-a-time at a local grocery store that’s a bit pricier than the nearby Stop-and-Shop, but no one else seems to carry these beauties. I’m talking about the fat green pickles sold at the deli counter, not the jarred pickles sold in the refrigerated section.
2. I’ve talked to two life coaches in the past year to try to figure out why I’m not moving forward on different writing projects. Both told me they thought I was motivated and had done a lot of groundwork on both of them, but that I just needed to make finishing them a priority. Sort of like scheduling a date night with your husband so that you can actually have fun, pleasurable sex, I need to set deadlines so I can move these projects ahead. On one hand, I think the concept of having a life coach is sort of cool, just like an athletic coach inspires athletes to do their best. On the other hand, I wonder why I can’t just get motivated enough to finish these damn things on my own. Insight, anyone?
3. I play Mah Jong, an Asian game played with these cool ivory tiles, in a weekly game with a bunch of friends. At first, I wondered if I was turning into my mother, who always played Mah Jong, or like others who have a weekly Bridge or Poker or Canasta game. But since I’ve learned the ropes, I’m hooked. It’s actually fun even though we never play for money. I’m told it’s a lot like playing Gin with cards, though I’ve never played Gin.
4. I swam on my high school (and earlier, my town) swim teams for a few years. This was in the mid-1980s, pre-pump, and I rarely tested my blood sugars. I don't really remember having insulin reactions, but remember eating big snacks before I went to afternoon practices. It’s odd, that I don’t remember having major insulin reactions, but again, this was in the days of long-action (NPH and regular) insulin and my average blood sugars were probably pretty high those days. At the same time, I wasn’t particularly fast or much of a finessed swimmer, so I wonder if my performance was because I wasn’t built to swim for speed, or if my blood sugar control just wasn’t that tight. Probably a combination of both.
5. I won a town-wide eighth-grade speech contest back in 1984. I competed in the “original oratory” category, and wrote an original speech about how the (then) present-day 1984 was similar to the book 1984. I won a plaque and a blue ribbon and performed the speech in front of a big audience (about 40 other eighth graders competed that day). I never did anything quite like that again (no high school debate team for me), but today, I don’t have any trouble speaking before a crowd.
A lot of the d-bloggers I read have already been tagged, so I'll stretch out to some of the Cyclesistas I now read. Tags mean you write a post about five things about yourself. Tags out to:
Violet at Pumplandia
Serenity at Serenity Now!
Gary at My Diabetes CGMS
Heather at Big P and Me
Watson at My Dear Watson
Five things about me you (perhaps) don’t already know:
1. I loved them before I was pregnant, but damn, I crave half-sour pickles like nobody’s business. I buy them six- or eight-at-a-time at a local grocery store that’s a bit pricier than the nearby Stop-and-Shop, but no one else seems to carry these beauties. I’m talking about the fat green pickles sold at the deli counter, not the jarred pickles sold in the refrigerated section.
2. I’ve talked to two life coaches in the past year to try to figure out why I’m not moving forward on different writing projects. Both told me they thought I was motivated and had done a lot of groundwork on both of them, but that I just needed to make finishing them a priority. Sort of like scheduling a date night with your husband so that you can actually have fun, pleasurable sex, I need to set deadlines so I can move these projects ahead. On one hand, I think the concept of having a life coach is sort of cool, just like an athletic coach inspires athletes to do their best. On the other hand, I wonder why I can’t just get motivated enough to finish these damn things on my own. Insight, anyone?
3. I play Mah Jong, an Asian game played with these cool ivory tiles, in a weekly game with a bunch of friends. At first, I wondered if I was turning into my mother, who always played Mah Jong, or like others who have a weekly Bridge or Poker or Canasta game. But since I’ve learned the ropes, I’m hooked. It’s actually fun even though we never play for money. I’m told it’s a lot like playing Gin with cards, though I’ve never played Gin.
4. I swam on my high school (and earlier, my town) swim teams for a few years. This was in the mid-1980s, pre-pump, and I rarely tested my blood sugars. I don't really remember having insulin reactions, but remember eating big snacks before I went to afternoon practices. It’s odd, that I don’t remember having major insulin reactions, but again, this was in the days of long-action (NPH and regular) insulin and my average blood sugars were probably pretty high those days. At the same time, I wasn’t particularly fast or much of a finessed swimmer, so I wonder if my performance was because I wasn’t built to swim for speed, or if my blood sugar control just wasn’t that tight. Probably a combination of both.
5. I won a town-wide eighth-grade speech contest back in 1984. I competed in the “original oratory” category, and wrote an original speech about how the (then) present-day 1984 was similar to the book 1984. I won a plaque and a blue ribbon and performed the speech in front of a big audience (about 40 other eighth graders competed that day). I never did anything quite like that again (no high school debate team for me), but today, I don’t have any trouble speaking before a crowd.
A lot of the d-bloggers I read have already been tagged, so I'll stretch out to some of the Cyclesistas I now read. Tags mean you write a post about five things about yourself. Tags out to:
Violet at Pumplandia
Serenity at Serenity Now!
Gary at My Diabetes CGMS
Heather at Big P and Me
Watson at My Dear Watson
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Week Thirteen Brain Dump
Some updates:
Baby L/Hod
1. Mr. Lyrehca and I went to see High Risk Ob today to have another ultrasound and bloodwork to see if Hod appears to be at risk for having Down Syndrome and a few other chromosomal problems.
2. This test measured the back of Hod's neck for something called nuchal translucency, or the thickness in the area behind the neck.
3. Hod's measurement was 1.4, and all I remember is that a reading more than 2.5 is more worrisome.
4. The test is done in conjunction with blood fingersticks to determine the rate of having chromosomal problems.
5. On either Friday night or Monday evening, the doc will call with the risk assessment.
6. It's measured in terms of chances, as in 1 baby out of a certain number, based on the nuchal reading, my bloodwork, and my age, will be born with Down Syndrome or one of these other chromosomal problems called Trisomy.
7. During the ultrasound, Hod had her/his hand up by her/his head.
8. "Look, the kid looks like it's on the phone," I pointed out.
9. High Risk Ob thought this was funny.
10. Hod definitely looks more like a human being this week: we saw a spine, the skull, and a black dot in the middle of the torso.
11. "That's the stomach sac," High Risk Ob told us.
12. "Does the poor kid have gas?" I asked. "Why's the stomach black?"
13. Black on an ultrasound means fluid, which in this case, is normal.
All good for today, we left High Risk Ob. After lunch, Mr. L. returned to work. I had a nutritionist appointment scheduled for an hour later in the same office, so I went to the maternity ward to visit a friend who happened to have a scheduled c-section yesterday in this same hospital.
Other Baby News
As it turns out, this friend is a type 1 and sees the same Endo and High Risk Doc I do. In fact, I ran into her in the office around week 10, and blurted out that I was pregnant, but swore her to secrecy.
Today, visiting her, her husband, and her cute one-day-old daughter, her husband looked at me and apologized for asking, then asked if I was pregnant.
I came out of the closet.
I swore him to secrecy for another week, until we find out the results of today's tests.
However, it was awfully refreshing to be able to talk about being diabetic and pregnant, to dish about our doctors, and to be honest about what I've been thinking about for so long: the hassles of testing all day long and of obsessing about what I eat all the time, to what it's like to be pregnant, to having to skip out of work so frequently for doctor's appointments. I didn't mention the infertility stuff in detail, but I did say once or twice that it took Mr. L. and I a long time to get to this point, so maybe the couple could read between the lines.
Then again, as my female friend pointed out, she's got a newborn to take care of and a c-section to heal from. My issues are likely long out of her head already.
In other baby news, my sister in law (Mr. L's sister) is scheduled to have her second child tomorrow.
1. She was scheduled to have a c-section next week, but instead has been having contractions, so she went to the hospital yesterday.
2. She was monitored for pre-eclampsia, and was sent home, but told to return to the hospital tonight.
3. The latest is that she's spilling a bit of protein, which is a sign of pre-e, and is now scheduled to have the baby by c-section tomorrow.
4. My sister in law had gestational diabetes with her first son, who is now two and healthy, and had an unexplained full-term stillborn daughter before her son. That experience was truly awful, and I do hope everything goes smoothly and healthily tomorrow with my future neice-phew. (They aren't divulging the baby's gender until after its born).
Nutritionist Visit
I dragged my feet to the nutritionist visit, thinking that my Endo skedded me to see her because Endo thought I was a willful (i.e., non-compliant) diabetic who didn't know how to eat.
Happily, I learned this wasn't the case: all pregnant patients meet with the nutritionist just to stay posted. Once I took the chip off my shoulder, I was able to talk about my new love of Whole Foods' clam chowder for lunch, my fear of eating too many LifeSavers to treat reactions, and whether I should really skip diet Coke for the entire pregnancy.
Nutritionist said it was OK to eat clam chowder for lunch (although excessive weight gain may keep that new habit in check), that the LifeSavers I'm eating aren't negatively affecting the fetus, and that if I really wanted to, I should find Splenda-sweetened non-caffeinated diet Coke to drink. (I'm not sure this combo exists, though. Anyone know?)
Other odds and ends
1. My arms, neck, back and hands all ache in various stages. Specifically, my arms and hands sometimes feel as if I did a big weight training session the day before and now my muscles are sore and recovering. But I haven't lifted weights in months now. Tylenol sometimes helps, and when I first noticed the arm pain, my Endo had me take a stress test to make sure my heart was working fine, which it was. So what could this arm/hand muscle pain be? Anyone?
2. Neck and back also go through aches and soreness every so often. It's like they lock up and twice now, I haven't been able to turn my head left because my neck was so sore. Again, any ideas? Am I having some kind of horrible problem and I just don't know it?
3. Totally unrelated topic, but my blog had its 10,000th visitor recently. I am super excited by this. Thanks to everyone for reading!
Baby L/Hod
1. Mr. Lyrehca and I went to see High Risk Ob today to have another ultrasound and bloodwork to see if Hod appears to be at risk for having Down Syndrome and a few other chromosomal problems.
2. This test measured the back of Hod's neck for something called nuchal translucency, or the thickness in the area behind the neck.
3. Hod's measurement was 1.4, and all I remember is that a reading more than 2.5 is more worrisome.
4. The test is done in conjunction with blood fingersticks to determine the rate of having chromosomal problems.
5. On either Friday night or Monday evening, the doc will call with the risk assessment.
6. It's measured in terms of chances, as in 1 baby out of a certain number, based on the nuchal reading, my bloodwork, and my age, will be born with Down Syndrome or one of these other chromosomal problems called Trisomy.
7. During the ultrasound, Hod had her/his hand up by her/his head.
8. "Look, the kid looks like it's on the phone," I pointed out.
9. High Risk Ob thought this was funny.
10. Hod definitely looks more like a human being this week: we saw a spine, the skull, and a black dot in the middle of the torso.
11. "That's the stomach sac," High Risk Ob told us.
12. "Does the poor kid have gas?" I asked. "Why's the stomach black?"
13. Black on an ultrasound means fluid, which in this case, is normal.
All good for today, we left High Risk Ob. After lunch, Mr. L. returned to work. I had a nutritionist appointment scheduled for an hour later in the same office, so I went to the maternity ward to visit a friend who happened to have a scheduled c-section yesterday in this same hospital.
Other Baby News
As it turns out, this friend is a type 1 and sees the same Endo and High Risk Doc I do. In fact, I ran into her in the office around week 10, and blurted out that I was pregnant, but swore her to secrecy.
Today, visiting her, her husband, and her cute one-day-old daughter, her husband looked at me and apologized for asking, then asked if I was pregnant.
I came out of the closet.
I swore him to secrecy for another week, until we find out the results of today's tests.
However, it was awfully refreshing to be able to talk about being diabetic and pregnant, to dish about our doctors, and to be honest about what I've been thinking about for so long: the hassles of testing all day long and of obsessing about what I eat all the time, to what it's like to be pregnant, to having to skip out of work so frequently for doctor's appointments. I didn't mention the infertility stuff in detail, but I did say once or twice that it took Mr. L. and I a long time to get to this point, so maybe the couple could read between the lines.
Then again, as my female friend pointed out, she's got a newborn to take care of and a c-section to heal from. My issues are likely long out of her head already.
In other baby news, my sister in law (Mr. L's sister) is scheduled to have her second child tomorrow.
1. She was scheduled to have a c-section next week, but instead has been having contractions, so she went to the hospital yesterday.
2. She was monitored for pre-eclampsia, and was sent home, but told to return to the hospital tonight.
3. The latest is that she's spilling a bit of protein, which is a sign of pre-e, and is now scheduled to have the baby by c-section tomorrow.
4. My sister in law had gestational diabetes with her first son, who is now two and healthy, and had an unexplained full-term stillborn daughter before her son. That experience was truly awful, and I do hope everything goes smoothly and healthily tomorrow with my future neice-phew. (They aren't divulging the baby's gender until after its born).
Nutritionist Visit
I dragged my feet to the nutritionist visit, thinking that my Endo skedded me to see her because Endo thought I was a willful (i.e., non-compliant) diabetic who didn't know how to eat.
Happily, I learned this wasn't the case: all pregnant patients meet with the nutritionist just to stay posted. Once I took the chip off my shoulder, I was able to talk about my new love of Whole Foods' clam chowder for lunch, my fear of eating too many LifeSavers to treat reactions, and whether I should really skip diet Coke for the entire pregnancy.
Nutritionist said it was OK to eat clam chowder for lunch (although excessive weight gain may keep that new habit in check), that the LifeSavers I'm eating aren't negatively affecting the fetus, and that if I really wanted to, I should find Splenda-sweetened non-caffeinated diet Coke to drink. (I'm not sure this combo exists, though. Anyone know?)
Other odds and ends
1. My arms, neck, back and hands all ache in various stages. Specifically, my arms and hands sometimes feel as if I did a big weight training session the day before and now my muscles are sore and recovering. But I haven't lifted weights in months now. Tylenol sometimes helps, and when I first noticed the arm pain, my Endo had me take a stress test to make sure my heart was working fine, which it was. So what could this arm/hand muscle pain be? Anyone?
2. Neck and back also go through aches and soreness every so often. It's like they lock up and twice now, I haven't been able to turn my head left because my neck was so sore. Again, any ideas? Am I having some kind of horrible problem and I just don't know it?
3. Totally unrelated topic, but my blog had its 10,000th visitor recently. I am super excited by this. Thanks to everyone for reading!
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Just Plodding Along
This past week has been a conglomeration of unusual events. I'm working from home today, a rarity. I went to a mandated company outing yesterday which was OK, but being the sober person among many drunk people is never my idea of fun. Mr. L. is incapacitated. And I had another unbelievably normal doctor's appointment last Thursday.
I'm at home because of the incapacitated Mr. Lyrehca. While this is my blog, not his, suffice it to say that my boy has had excruciating sciatica pain (running from ass to ankle) for the past few days. He was in a few car accidents SIX years ago, which caused back and leg nerve problems, but this latest crisis developed over the weekend appropos of nothing.
We went to the local ER on Saturday night because he was in agony, and I couldn't find much online to give him help. The ER gave him Percoset, he had an MRI the next day, and he was pretty much sent on his way. Yesterday, I came home from the company outing to find him in agony, commanded him to take more Percoset, and left a cranky message with a doc's office telling them he needed an appointment ASAP.
Which brings me again to why I am home today: the appointment's in the midafternoon, and since he's been dutifully taking the drugs every four hours so they don't wear off and cause him to utter disturbing things, he's too doped up to drive.
I must say it's a pleasure working from home. My boss (another person on the company outing who resents the implication of enforced fun and doesn't drink like she's still in college) sent me work to do, and I've been getting it done in the quiet privacy of my own home. No overbearing coworkers discussing their hangovers the next cube over. No intrusions. It's glorious.
Now if I could only figure out how to do it full time.
I went for another fertility clinic checkup last week, at the eight-week mark. Once again, we met with SuperAwesome Nurse, who again told me I was progressing along beautifully and that I had an A-plus ranking from her. The heartbeat measured at 160 beats (although I honestly couldn't see it on the screen the way I did at six weeks), and the growth was supposedly right on schedule "even perhaps a bit bigger than eight weeks, one day," SAN said.
"Is that bad? I'm a type 1 diabetic and I'm trying to eat well."
"Oh, don't worry," she said. "At this stage, you're doing just fine. You have enough to worry about with your own diabetes care and what you're eating is not affecting the baby in that way at this time."
I asked about the handful of M&Ms I'd been eating at work everyday, the ones I bolus for and don't seem to have high blood sugars from. The ones I crave because I've given up eating or drinking diet Coke/cold deli meat/delicious soft runny moldy cheeses/pepperoni/bacon/sausage/hot dogs/tuna fish (which I never particularly craved before and now I'd like to get a sandwich now and again/salty lox atop a fat sesame bagel. How I've never smoked/drank coffee/drank any kind of alcohol/used any recreational drugs. How food is really the vice of choice, and I eat oatmeal every morning and organic veggie sandwiches nearly every day when I'm working.
"It sounds like you're doing really well, and if you're only eating a handful of M&Ms and not a full bag, and you're keeping your sugars under control, I think the M&Ms are fine," said Blessed SuperAwesome Nurse.
And with that we were released from the fertility clinic to meet with a high-risk ob/gyn in two weeks for the next round of ultrasounds. You know, among the rest of the pregnant folk who likely didn't use shots and drugs to get that way.
The appointment's just more than a week away.
But I must admit I don't feel anything. Still no nausea, no sickness. I still get up to pee at night (with blood sugars well under 100. In fact, I've had reactions in the 40s and 50s and well-look-at-that, no real symptoms. The constipation (hey, what's TMI if you've read down this far already?) sort of waxes and wanes. Yep, the pants still need artful layering to hide the fat, and yeah, the boobs are bigger, I suppose.
But what if something's gone wrong?
Sadly, I read a lot of bad news on the infertility and trying to conceive blogs I read, and I just read about another blogger who was doing infertility treatments around the same I was and was a week ahead of me with her pregnancy. Amy just found out that there was no heartbeat at her latest ultrasound and has a d&c scheduled later this week. Unfortunately, her post hit close. Please send her your sympathies.
I'm at home because of the incapacitated Mr. Lyrehca. While this is my blog, not his, suffice it to say that my boy has had excruciating sciatica pain (running from ass to ankle) for the past few days. He was in a few car accidents SIX years ago, which caused back and leg nerve problems, but this latest crisis developed over the weekend appropos of nothing.
We went to the local ER on Saturday night because he was in agony, and I couldn't find much online to give him help. The ER gave him Percoset, he had an MRI the next day, and he was pretty much sent on his way. Yesterday, I came home from the company outing to find him in agony, commanded him to take more Percoset, and left a cranky message with a doc's office telling them he needed an appointment ASAP.
Which brings me again to why I am home today: the appointment's in the midafternoon, and since he's been dutifully taking the drugs every four hours so they don't wear off and cause him to utter disturbing things, he's too doped up to drive.
I must say it's a pleasure working from home. My boss (another person on the company outing who resents the implication of enforced fun and doesn't drink like she's still in college) sent me work to do, and I've been getting it done in the quiet privacy of my own home. No overbearing coworkers discussing their hangovers the next cube over. No intrusions. It's glorious.
Now if I could only figure out how to do it full time.
I went for another fertility clinic checkup last week, at the eight-week mark. Once again, we met with SuperAwesome Nurse, who again told me I was progressing along beautifully and that I had an A-plus ranking from her. The heartbeat measured at 160 beats (although I honestly couldn't see it on the screen the way I did at six weeks), and the growth was supposedly right on schedule "even perhaps a bit bigger than eight weeks, one day," SAN said.
"Is that bad? I'm a type 1 diabetic and I'm trying to eat well."
"Oh, don't worry," she said. "At this stage, you're doing just fine. You have enough to worry about with your own diabetes care and what you're eating is not affecting the baby in that way at this time."
I asked about the handful of M&Ms I'd been eating at work everyday, the ones I bolus for and don't seem to have high blood sugars from. The ones I crave because I've given up eating or drinking diet Coke/cold deli meat/delicious soft runny moldy cheeses/pepperoni/bacon/sausage/hot dogs/tuna fish (which I never particularly craved before and now I'd like to get a sandwich now and again/salty lox atop a fat sesame bagel. How I've never smoked/drank coffee/drank any kind of alcohol/used any recreational drugs. How food is really the vice of choice, and I eat oatmeal every morning and organic veggie sandwiches nearly every day when I'm working.
"It sounds like you're doing really well, and if you're only eating a handful of M&Ms and not a full bag, and you're keeping your sugars under control, I think the M&Ms are fine," said Blessed SuperAwesome Nurse.
And with that we were released from the fertility clinic to meet with a high-risk ob/gyn in two weeks for the next round of ultrasounds. You know, among the rest of the pregnant folk who likely didn't use shots and drugs to get that way.
The appointment's just more than a week away.
But I must admit I don't feel anything. Still no nausea, no sickness. I still get up to pee at night (with blood sugars well under 100. In fact, I've had reactions in the 40s and 50s and well-look-at-that, no real symptoms. The constipation (hey, what's TMI if you've read down this far already?) sort of waxes and wanes. Yep, the pants still need artful layering to hide the fat, and yeah, the boobs are bigger, I suppose.
But what if something's gone wrong?
Sadly, I read a lot of bad news on the infertility and trying to conceive blogs I read, and I just read about another blogger who was doing infertility treatments around the same I was and was a week ahead of me with her pregnancy. Amy just found out that there was no heartbeat at her latest ultrasound and has a d&c scheduled later this week. Unfortunately, her post hit close. Please send her your sympathies.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
A New Food (and Nail Polish) Order
I'm trying to figure out all the new eating and lifestyle issues that are no longer theoretical.
Since the whole IVF egg retrieval and transfer, I was told not to exercise strenuously, not to color my hair, not to swim or sunbathe.
To prep for it, I darkened my hair a few weeks back so I wouldn't have to touch it up for awhile, cut back all gym visits to strictly walking, skipped a social beach outing last week, and, for the two procedures, took off my toenail polish. The idea is that the retrieval is surgery (I was under anesthesia), and the docs want to be able to see if you're getting enough oxygen. Your nails will look different, maybe turn blue, if you aren't, and polish gets in the way.
I love having brightly colored toenails, hadn't seen my unpainted toes in years, and taking the color off proved why. My toenails are pretty unattractive without a decent pedicure. The dark pinks and reds and metallic blues I prefer leave a lot of yellowing behind. No wonder I keep covering them up.
So yesterday, my fertility doc nurse confirmed I could paint my nails. I'm aware that there are arguments that cosmetics have chemicals in them, and I'm vaguely thinking of stories where pregnant women didn't do anything cosmetic during their pregnancies. But Dr. Google and Fertility Nurse both said that pedicures during pregnancy are A-OK.
(Of course, Dr. Google pointed out that in later pregnancy, one's belly gets too big to be able to cut one's own toenails, so the pampering of a pedicure is pretty much a necessity. While my belly is as flabby as usual, and I can certainly still see my toes today, I seized on the pampering part and walked into my local nail salon.)
So now my toenails are a beautiful crimson. I'm pleased to wear my open-toed shoes once again and I no longer cringe looking footward.
But the food requirements are a whole new way of thinking. While I've been eating this way for two weeks a month for a year since trying to get pregnant, now there's no upcoming two-week break. Or at least, I'm hoping there's not.
In a way, eating while pregnant is a bit like being diagnosed with diabetes again, except the food categories are different. Cold cuts (the kind I typically devour at lunch) like packaged turkey or ham are OUT. Soft cheeses like Brie and gorgonzola (also favorites) are OUT. They can all carry listeria, which is OK for the adult immune system to fight off, but not at all good for the defenseless developing embryo. Yes, you can heat these things up and supposedly kill the bacteria, but it's probably better just to avoid them.
No sushi, no rare or undercooked meat, no uncooked eggs (like in a Caesar salad drssing or, um, cookie dough ice cream, or in my favorite use of the product, raw dough eaten directly from the package).
Avoid nitrates like those found in hot dogs. No pepperoni. For some reason, the nurse said thouroughly cooked bacon and sausage are OK, but I keep thinking "they have nitrates, how could those be good?"
Even cooked fish has restrictions: no swordfish, no other thick fish (too much mercury), and only thoroughly cooked shellfish like scallops and mussels (both of which I love and tend to order out. Does that mean I should worry that my restaurant meals might somehow be undercooked?) And finally, only one can of tuna a week (and heck, I'd typically mix it with mayo which is full of fat, so why bother with the extra fat calories and artery-clogging mess anyway?) and only 12 ounces of wild caught salmon instead of farm raised salmon. Farmed salmon apparently has more PCBs (I can't remember what they do, but it's nothing good) and is more likely to be the kind the Mister and I buy at our local BJs (such good prices on seafood, but I know it's not organic) or supermarket. So now I'll probably be shopping at Whole Foods more often, where the food looks beautiful and healthy, but just isn't easy on the pocketbook.
(Oh, and no more smoked salmon, either. Farewell, beautifully-dresed bagels.)
So yeah, more food restrictions, and unfortunately, they're mostly proteins, which as a diabetic I tend to like because they don't futz with the blood sugars as much as the carbs and the fat.
Oh wait, there's more. I'm avoiding diet Coke, the liquid that carried me through my diabetic teens and adulthood. (Hey, no sugar! It's a free food! Let me drink it by the liter.), because there's nothing in it that would be considered good for a growing embryo. I don't drink coffee or tea much, which is good, because you're supposed to limit caffeine intake. Chocolate, which I've actually figured out how to bolus for (most of the time), should probably be restricted to stay within that daily caffeine limit (150-300 milligrams), and finally, Splenda and NutraSweet, also the saviors of my diabetic eating habits. They're probably OK, but enough (non-diabetic) women I know restrict or avoid them entirely, so I've taken to sprinkling a teaspoon of actual white sugar on my oatmeal. I feel like a diabetic blaspheme doing this, but I just up my bolus for the meal and have so far been OK.
I peed on another stick last night just to make sure it was still positive. I know it's very early, and I know the HCG/beta test I had on Tuesday was strong, but I just don't feel all that different. Boobs: unsore. Nausea: haven't felt it. Food aversions: good God, no. I'd still eat the refrigerator if I could. The only thing I feel is the very occasional abdominal twinge. I'm aware that I may be slammed with morning sickness and may be thinking back on this time as when I felt blissful (when I am not worrying about high blood sugars), but I wanted a little reassurance last night.
And yep, two more pink lines. I still can't believe it.
Since the whole IVF egg retrieval and transfer, I was told not to exercise strenuously, not to color my hair, not to swim or sunbathe.
To prep for it, I darkened my hair a few weeks back so I wouldn't have to touch it up for awhile, cut back all gym visits to strictly walking, skipped a social beach outing last week, and, for the two procedures, took off my toenail polish. The idea is that the retrieval is surgery (I was under anesthesia), and the docs want to be able to see if you're getting enough oxygen. Your nails will look different, maybe turn blue, if you aren't, and polish gets in the way.
I love having brightly colored toenails, hadn't seen my unpainted toes in years, and taking the color off proved why. My toenails are pretty unattractive without a decent pedicure. The dark pinks and reds and metallic blues I prefer leave a lot of yellowing behind. No wonder I keep covering them up.
So yesterday, my fertility doc nurse confirmed I could paint my nails. I'm aware that there are arguments that cosmetics have chemicals in them, and I'm vaguely thinking of stories where pregnant women didn't do anything cosmetic during their pregnancies. But Dr. Google and Fertility Nurse both said that pedicures during pregnancy are A-OK.
(Of course, Dr. Google pointed out that in later pregnancy, one's belly gets too big to be able to cut one's own toenails, so the pampering of a pedicure is pretty much a necessity. While my belly is as flabby as usual, and I can certainly still see my toes today, I seized on the pampering part and walked into my local nail salon.)
So now my toenails are a beautiful crimson. I'm pleased to wear my open-toed shoes once again and I no longer cringe looking footward.
But the food requirements are a whole new way of thinking. While I've been eating this way for two weeks a month for a year since trying to get pregnant, now there's no upcoming two-week break. Or at least, I'm hoping there's not.
In a way, eating while pregnant is a bit like being diagnosed with diabetes again, except the food categories are different. Cold cuts (the kind I typically devour at lunch) like packaged turkey or ham are OUT. Soft cheeses like Brie and gorgonzola (also favorites) are OUT. They can all carry listeria, which is OK for the adult immune system to fight off, but not at all good for the defenseless developing embryo. Yes, you can heat these things up and supposedly kill the bacteria, but it's probably better just to avoid them.
No sushi, no rare or undercooked meat, no uncooked eggs (like in a Caesar salad drssing or, um, cookie dough ice cream, or in my favorite use of the product, raw dough eaten directly from the package).
Avoid nitrates like those found in hot dogs. No pepperoni. For some reason, the nurse said thouroughly cooked bacon and sausage are OK, but I keep thinking "they have nitrates, how could those be good?"
Even cooked fish has restrictions: no swordfish, no other thick fish (too much mercury), and only thoroughly cooked shellfish like scallops and mussels (both of which I love and tend to order out. Does that mean I should worry that my restaurant meals might somehow be undercooked?) And finally, only one can of tuna a week (and heck, I'd typically mix it with mayo which is full of fat, so why bother with the extra fat calories and artery-clogging mess anyway?) and only 12 ounces of wild caught salmon instead of farm raised salmon. Farmed salmon apparently has more PCBs (I can't remember what they do, but it's nothing good) and is more likely to be the kind the Mister and I buy at our local BJs (such good prices on seafood, but I know it's not organic) or supermarket. So now I'll probably be shopping at Whole Foods more often, where the food looks beautiful and healthy, but just isn't easy on the pocketbook.
(Oh, and no more smoked salmon, either. Farewell, beautifully-dresed bagels.)
So yeah, more food restrictions, and unfortunately, they're mostly proteins, which as a diabetic I tend to like because they don't futz with the blood sugars as much as the carbs and the fat.
Oh wait, there's more. I'm avoiding diet Coke, the liquid that carried me through my diabetic teens and adulthood. (Hey, no sugar! It's a free food! Let me drink it by the liter.), because there's nothing in it that would be considered good for a growing embryo. I don't drink coffee or tea much, which is good, because you're supposed to limit caffeine intake. Chocolate, which I've actually figured out how to bolus for (most of the time), should probably be restricted to stay within that daily caffeine limit (150-300 milligrams), and finally, Splenda and NutraSweet, also the saviors of my diabetic eating habits. They're probably OK, but enough (non-diabetic) women I know restrict or avoid them entirely, so I've taken to sprinkling a teaspoon of actual white sugar on my oatmeal. I feel like a diabetic blaspheme doing this, but I just up my bolus for the meal and have so far been OK.
I peed on another stick last night just to make sure it was still positive. I know it's very early, and I know the HCG/beta test I had on Tuesday was strong, but I just don't feel all that different. Boobs: unsore. Nausea: haven't felt it. Food aversions: good God, no. I'd still eat the refrigerator if I could. The only thing I feel is the very occasional abdominal twinge. I'm aware that I may be slammed with morning sickness and may be thinking back on this time as when I felt blissful (when I am not worrying about high blood sugars), but I wanted a little reassurance last night.
And yep, two more pink lines. I still can't believe it.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Two Shots A Day? Check
I envy the people who blog more than once a week. My slacker self can only get it together to post weekly.
Thanks, Nicole, for asking if I'm OK. I'm OK. The IVF shots have increased to two times a day, and now I'm going for blood and ultrasounds every few days to measure how well I'm responding to them.
After about a week of Lupron shots, I added Gonal F to the mix, which is the stimulation drug. Not sure if I mentioned this before, but the needles on the Gonal F shots are so much sharper than the Lupron needles. They just sink right into my skin without a push, while the Lupron shots, well, need a little more force: "Get in there, you surly Lupron shot. Don't make me get up and smack you. Why can't you be more like your sister Gonal F?"
Side effects have been minimal, although they included a day of abdominal cramps like a period. It was reassuring to think the drugs were actually working. I also noticed a weird numbness on the back of my left calf. This immediately made me think "neuropathy has finally reared its ugly head," and sent me straight to Google to determine why a diabetic complication would choose this week to show up. Dr. Google noted that numbness is a Gonal F side effect, so I called the fertility doc's office to report this. The nurse said to watch it and to call if things got worse. The next day, it was gone and thankfully it hasn't appeared since.
(Who are these women that are like, "I didn't know I was pregnant until the baby popped out of me nine months later"? I can document every bodily twitch and ache down to the hour.)
After five days of shooting Gonal F and Lupron, I went to my fertility doc's office (at 8:30 am, considered a late appointment) for ultrasounds and blood work. Mr. Lyrehca called me at work later that morning to ask how the ultrasound went, "and did it make those wwuah-wwuah sounds like it does when they ultrasound a pregnant woman on TV," he asked.
"Um, the ultrasound wasn't quite like that," I said. "It was internal."
Pause.
"Oh, eeyah!" he groaned.
Yep, checking the follicles of your ovaries requires a vaginal ultrasound. This is akin to having a giant tampon pushed up downstairs. For me, this is actually less of an issue than having a duck-bill speculum inside one's orifice, but the first time is pretty, hmmm, I'd say unpleasant, but there have been more traumatic experiences in that area than this. Suffice it to say the first ultrasound had me staring at the plaster in the ceiling. You'd think they'd put something colorful to look at up there. A mobile, maybe.
The first ultrasound tech was sort of close-lipped, but did say I was responding to the stimulation drugs and that I should wait for an afternoon call from my nurse to get the specific results.
IVF basically stimulates your ovary follicles to grow big so that eggs can be manually extracted. As of a few days ago, I had one follicle that was big enough to be seen (greater than 12 millimeters), and several that were just under 12 that were likely to get bigger. This was happening on day 5 of my cycle, which is early in the game.
Yesterday, at the sunshine-happy time of 7:30 am (oy!), I had another blood and ultrasound experience. (The blood is measuring estradiol results, which are supposed to increase in tandem with the follicle growth). Yesterday I had three follicles on each side (left and right ovaries) that were measuring up well, and my Gonal F was actually reduced last night so that things don't grow too fast. And today, in an hour and a half, I am returning to the clinic on a Saturday to get another ultrasound. If things are growing accordingly, the nurse told me yesterday, the retrieval could happen early next week.
The retrival is outpatient surgery, so I definitely have to take the day off from work. I'm thinking that'll be more of a break in my routine than the multiple daily injections ("Heck, I'm diabetic. Taking shots is so old school.") or even the early morning fertility doc's appointments ("Multiple doctor's appointments? I'm diabetic. Been there, done that."
And yeah, in diabeticland, my blood sugars have been pretty good these days. I haven't noticed any specific changes based on the new drugs swimming through my body, but I have made a few food changes that seem to be making a difference.
One, I stopped buying peanut butter a few weeks ago. While I actually prefer eating natural peanut butter that has had most of the peanut oil poured out once I open the jar, the high fat content of peanut butter typically does a job on my overnight blood sugars, particularly when I spoon it straight from the jar at bedtime. My overnight blood sugars have evened out nicely.
Two, I've defected from my lunchtime sandwich of choice. Now, instead of a grilled chicken and Swiss with onions and cucumbers on seven grain bread with a dab of herb mayo, I'm now going to Whole Paycheck Whole Foods at lunch and creating my own veggie wrap. It's cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, onions and avocado with either Muenster or Monterey Jack cheese rolled into a whole wheat wrap. I'm still working out the carb count, as I've been going low in the afternoons, but it's fewer carbs than my chicken creation AND I feel good about eating a so many veggies at one meal.
And three, I made a slight adjustment to my 3am and 6am basal rate a week ago when a perfectly healthy grilled-chicken and salad dinner kept my blood sugars stable all night until 4am, when I woke up at 180, and things jumped to 228 three hours later. I upped both basal rates by a tenth. And since then, my waking blood sugars have all been within range. I'm pleased about that, since I have woken up with 200 blood sugars for years now. Overnights have always been my downfall.
Oh, this week a writer friend had lunch with her agent and told her about my diabetes and pregnancy book, which is still percolating along even when I don't blog about it. The agent told her that while a book like this is probably needed, she wouldn't represent it because the market is too small, and she thinks there are a glut of diabetes books on the market that aren't selling. There ARE a bunch of books on the market (and that's a future post I keep meaning to write), but I know I'm reading most of them. And honestly, there's a need for a patient-written type 1 pregnancy-only book. I just need to connect with the publisher or agent who agrees with me.
Thanks, Nicole, for asking if I'm OK. I'm OK. The IVF shots have increased to two times a day, and now I'm going for blood and ultrasounds every few days to measure how well I'm responding to them.
After about a week of Lupron shots, I added Gonal F to the mix, which is the stimulation drug. Not sure if I mentioned this before, but the needles on the Gonal F shots are so much sharper than the Lupron needles. They just sink right into my skin without a push, while the Lupron shots, well, need a little more force: "Get in there, you surly Lupron shot. Don't make me get up and smack you. Why can't you be more like your sister Gonal F?"
Side effects have been minimal, although they included a day of abdominal cramps like a period. It was reassuring to think the drugs were actually working. I also noticed a weird numbness on the back of my left calf. This immediately made me think "neuropathy has finally reared its ugly head," and sent me straight to Google to determine why a diabetic complication would choose this week to show up. Dr. Google noted that numbness is a Gonal F side effect, so I called the fertility doc's office to report this. The nurse said to watch it and to call if things got worse. The next day, it was gone and thankfully it hasn't appeared since.
(Who are these women that are like, "I didn't know I was pregnant until the baby popped out of me nine months later"? I can document every bodily twitch and ache down to the hour.)
After five days of shooting Gonal F and Lupron, I went to my fertility doc's office (at 8:30 am, considered a late appointment) for ultrasounds and blood work. Mr. Lyrehca called me at work later that morning to ask how the ultrasound went, "and did it make those wwuah-wwuah sounds like it does when they ultrasound a pregnant woman on TV," he asked.
"Um, the ultrasound wasn't quite like that," I said. "It was internal."
Pause.
"Oh, eeyah!" he groaned.
Yep, checking the follicles of your ovaries requires a vaginal ultrasound. This is akin to having a giant tampon pushed up downstairs. For me, this is actually less of an issue than having a duck-bill speculum inside one's orifice, but the first time is pretty, hmmm, I'd say unpleasant, but there have been more traumatic experiences in that area than this. Suffice it to say the first ultrasound had me staring at the plaster in the ceiling. You'd think they'd put something colorful to look at up there. A mobile, maybe.
The first ultrasound tech was sort of close-lipped, but did say I was responding to the stimulation drugs and that I should wait for an afternoon call from my nurse to get the specific results.
IVF basically stimulates your ovary follicles to grow big so that eggs can be manually extracted. As of a few days ago, I had one follicle that was big enough to be seen (greater than 12 millimeters), and several that were just under 12 that were likely to get bigger. This was happening on day 5 of my cycle, which is early in the game.
Yesterday, at the sunshine-happy time of 7:30 am (oy!), I had another blood and ultrasound experience. (The blood is measuring estradiol results, which are supposed to increase in tandem with the follicle growth). Yesterday I had three follicles on each side (left and right ovaries) that were measuring up well, and my Gonal F was actually reduced last night so that things don't grow too fast. And today, in an hour and a half, I am returning to the clinic on a Saturday to get another ultrasound. If things are growing accordingly, the nurse told me yesterday, the retrieval could happen early next week.
The retrival is outpatient surgery, so I definitely have to take the day off from work. I'm thinking that'll be more of a break in my routine than the multiple daily injections ("Heck, I'm diabetic. Taking shots is so old school.") or even the early morning fertility doc's appointments ("Multiple doctor's appointments? I'm diabetic. Been there, done that."
And yeah, in diabeticland, my blood sugars have been pretty good these days. I haven't noticed any specific changes based on the new drugs swimming through my body, but I have made a few food changes that seem to be making a difference.
One, I stopped buying peanut butter a few weeks ago. While I actually prefer eating natural peanut butter that has had most of the peanut oil poured out once I open the jar, the high fat content of peanut butter typically does a job on my overnight blood sugars, particularly when I spoon it straight from the jar at bedtime. My overnight blood sugars have evened out nicely.
Two, I've defected from my lunchtime sandwich of choice. Now, instead of a grilled chicken and Swiss with onions and cucumbers on seven grain bread with a dab of herb mayo, I'm now going to Whole Paycheck Whole Foods at lunch and creating my own veggie wrap. It's cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, onions and avocado with either Muenster or Monterey Jack cheese rolled into a whole wheat wrap. I'm still working out the carb count, as I've been going low in the afternoons, but it's fewer carbs than my chicken creation AND I feel good about eating a so many veggies at one meal.
And three, I made a slight adjustment to my 3am and 6am basal rate a week ago when a perfectly healthy grilled-chicken and salad dinner kept my blood sugars stable all night until 4am, when I woke up at 180, and things jumped to 228 three hours later. I upped both basal rates by a tenth. And since then, my waking blood sugars have all been within range. I'm pleased about that, since I have woken up with 200 blood sugars for years now. Overnights have always been my downfall.
Oh, this week a writer friend had lunch with her agent and told her about my diabetes and pregnancy book, which is still percolating along even when I don't blog about it. The agent told her that while a book like this is probably needed, she wouldn't represent it because the market is too small, and she thinks there are a glut of diabetes books on the market that aren't selling. There ARE a bunch of books on the market (and that's a future post I keep meaning to write), but I know I'm reading most of them. And honestly, there's a need for a patient-written type 1 pregnancy-only book. I just need to connect with the publisher or agent who agrees with me.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
The Weighty Problem
Does anyone else out there feel like weight loss is really a secondary concern when maintaining tight blood sugars?
Turns out that while my A1Cs rock, I've also put on seven pounds since September, when I first started correcting my sugars to keep them as close to 70-160 as possible. This is definitely because of the small hits of insulin I'm taking all day long, particularly after meals.
My endo said she wasn't sure why, if I'm not eating more than usual, why I shouldn't be able to maintain or even lose weight and still take the right amount of insulin. Personally, I just don't feel like I have the energy to try to lose weight. I'm spending all my time checking blood sugars and if I'm low (which happens), treating them with my new favorite phrase, "unfortunate eating incidents," (a twist from Art-Sweet's post), because honestly, most of the time when I'm low, I just feel low and I don't particularly want to eat something that'll just become extra calories I don't want. (Is there a way somehow to treat a reaction and not ingest calories? Seems like a zero-sum game.)
I've usually used Life Savers to treat reactions, since they're very portable and available everywhere. But it irks me when I have to eat a whole pack because my sugar doesn't come up with just three or four of them. (There are about 11 in a regular-sized pack).
I also have inbred the years of being diagnosed as a child in the late 1970s, when exchange diets were strict and there was no such thing as really fast-acting insulin or pumps. I ate what my mother said I could, and really no more under her watch. It's therefore no surprise that whenever I went to a friend's birthday party where candy was plentiful, I'd eat whatever I could. Years later, when I lived alone, I definitely played fast and loose with food (a box of chocolate chip cookies for dinner, eating several bagels with cream cheese all day as my Sunday meals, etc.) Often, it was because I'd been told for years, "you can't eat that," that I rebelled and did just that. (And even though by then I was able to test my blood sugars and take extra insulin through my pump, that still didn't mean I wasn't carrying extra weight, or dealing with the initial high of a blood sugar immediately after eating all that white simple carb, even if the sugar went down a few hours later).
The irony is that today I'm eating as healthily as I can (I now worry that eating non-organic fruit might be damaging me somehow, and actually love most vegetables and try to eat them as often as I can), but figure that eating a roll at dinner (or in my case last night, two pieces of cornbread along with my grilled bluefish), *still* causes me to go high immediately after a meal, even though in two or four hours I'll be where I want to be.
I wish I could try Symilin, but my doc won't prescribe it because it hasn't been tested in women trying to get, or those who already are, pregnant.
I also feel like, on one hand, if I'd stuck with Weight Watchers back in December, I'd be thirty pounds lighter today and wouldn't have to buy larger shorts. But on the other hand, I could be pregnant right now, which means a plan like Weight Watchers is forbidden, so I'm only going to gain weight for the next possible nine months anyway, so don't worry about the size of the fabric stretching across my ass. (Then again, this bigger size is so comfortable that I almost don't care how big it is.... until I see clothes from two summers ago in my closet that I wish I could wear comfortably.)
And the flip side is that I try to exercise every day, and walk a good 30 minutes during the workday just to get to my office from the train station. But I then have a solid commute each way that takes up good time where I'd rather be at the gym. And on days I get home late, I'm often too tired for the gym. And now I'm reading that some docs think vigorous exercise might hinder getting pregnant (although truly, being underweight is NOT my problem and I wonder if the docs who suggest cutting down exercise when trying to conceive are talking to the super skinny types who are prone to amenorrhea), I wonder if going to my gym isn't a good thing until I know whether I'm pregnant or not.
And so that leaves walking, which I try to do. But is walking, as I did on Friday, a good 45 minutes to a store somewhat near my office to buy a Father's Day gift for my dad, really a workout? I wore comfy sandals and walked comfortably, but I wasn't sweating and huffing and puffing. I'd like to think I wasn't just strolling, either. Did that really do anything for me? I even took less insulin at lunch, which I ate just before my walk, but when I got back to the office, I was still 190, so I took more insulin and several hours later had to eat a pack of Life Savers because I was low before dinner.
What also irks me is having a reaction, say, an hour before dinner, but knowing that I was planning to eat a lot at dinner anyway. So again, the calories ingested just an hour before my big meal are just excess. And fuck if I'm going to eat less at that meal simply because I had to treat a reaction an hour before. Is it this sort of defiance that just keeps me gaining weight? I mean, it's not like I *wanted* to treat a reaction at the time I had to.
Some days I figure I'm just destined to be the size I am with the diabetes I have. And other days I think that I've gained two pounds a year for the past ten years and I'd like to reverse the trend. I read about people training for marathons or being athletes and I think, "that sounds like something I'd like to do." But then I think, "well, I'm trying to get pregnant and I can't start a big exercise push at this time."
Where does this leave me? Anyone got any insight? If I got a pump with an insulin on board feature, would it help me keep the weight down (I'm still using a Minimed 508, though it's out of warranty, because I like it and love the clip it has. Is this just being silly? I figure if it breaks I'll order a new pump and just use Lantus for the days I wait for the new pump to arrive.)?
Turns out that while my A1Cs rock, I've also put on seven pounds since September, when I first started correcting my sugars to keep them as close to 70-160 as possible. This is definitely because of the small hits of insulin I'm taking all day long, particularly after meals.
My endo said she wasn't sure why, if I'm not eating more than usual, why I shouldn't be able to maintain or even lose weight and still take the right amount of insulin. Personally, I just don't feel like I have the energy to try to lose weight. I'm spending all my time checking blood sugars and if I'm low (which happens), treating them with my new favorite phrase, "unfortunate eating incidents," (a twist from Art-Sweet's post), because honestly, most of the time when I'm low, I just feel low and I don't particularly want to eat something that'll just become extra calories I don't want. (Is there a way somehow to treat a reaction and not ingest calories? Seems like a zero-sum game.)
I've usually used Life Savers to treat reactions, since they're very portable and available everywhere. But it irks me when I have to eat a whole pack because my sugar doesn't come up with just three or four of them. (There are about 11 in a regular-sized pack).
I also have inbred the years of being diagnosed as a child in the late 1970s, when exchange diets were strict and there was no such thing as really fast-acting insulin or pumps. I ate what my mother said I could, and really no more under her watch. It's therefore no surprise that whenever I went to a friend's birthday party where candy was plentiful, I'd eat whatever I could. Years later, when I lived alone, I definitely played fast and loose with food (a box of chocolate chip cookies for dinner, eating several bagels with cream cheese all day as my Sunday meals, etc.) Often, it was because I'd been told for years, "you can't eat that," that I rebelled and did just that. (And even though by then I was able to test my blood sugars and take extra insulin through my pump, that still didn't mean I wasn't carrying extra weight, or dealing with the initial high of a blood sugar immediately after eating all that white simple carb, even if the sugar went down a few hours later).
The irony is that today I'm eating as healthily as I can (I now worry that eating non-organic fruit might be damaging me somehow, and actually love most vegetables and try to eat them as often as I can), but figure that eating a roll at dinner (or in my case last night, two pieces of cornbread along with my grilled bluefish), *still* causes me to go high immediately after a meal, even though in two or four hours I'll be where I want to be.
I wish I could try Symilin, but my doc won't prescribe it because it hasn't been tested in women trying to get, or those who already are, pregnant.
I also feel like, on one hand, if I'd stuck with Weight Watchers back in December, I'd be thirty pounds lighter today and wouldn't have to buy larger shorts. But on the other hand, I could be pregnant right now, which means a plan like Weight Watchers is forbidden, so I'm only going to gain weight for the next possible nine months anyway, so don't worry about the size of the fabric stretching across my ass. (Then again, this bigger size is so comfortable that I almost don't care how big it is.... until I see clothes from two summers ago in my closet that I wish I could wear comfortably.)
And the flip side is that I try to exercise every day, and walk a good 30 minutes during the workday just to get to my office from the train station. But I then have a solid commute each way that takes up good time where I'd rather be at the gym. And on days I get home late, I'm often too tired for the gym. And now I'm reading that some docs think vigorous exercise might hinder getting pregnant (although truly, being underweight is NOT my problem and I wonder if the docs who suggest cutting down exercise when trying to conceive are talking to the super skinny types who are prone to amenorrhea), I wonder if going to my gym isn't a good thing until I know whether I'm pregnant or not.
And so that leaves walking, which I try to do. But is walking, as I did on Friday, a good 45 minutes to a store somewhat near my office to buy a Father's Day gift for my dad, really a workout? I wore comfy sandals and walked comfortably, but I wasn't sweating and huffing and puffing. I'd like to think I wasn't just strolling, either. Did that really do anything for me? I even took less insulin at lunch, which I ate just before my walk, but when I got back to the office, I was still 190, so I took more insulin and several hours later had to eat a pack of Life Savers because I was low before dinner.
What also irks me is having a reaction, say, an hour before dinner, but knowing that I was planning to eat a lot at dinner anyway. So again, the calories ingested just an hour before my big meal are just excess. And fuck if I'm going to eat less at that meal simply because I had to treat a reaction an hour before. Is it this sort of defiance that just keeps me gaining weight? I mean, it's not like I *wanted* to treat a reaction at the time I had to.
Some days I figure I'm just destined to be the size I am with the diabetes I have. And other days I think that I've gained two pounds a year for the past ten years and I'd like to reverse the trend. I read about people training for marathons or being athletes and I think, "that sounds like something I'd like to do." But then I think, "well, I'm trying to get pregnant and I can't start a big exercise push at this time."
Where does this leave me? Anyone got any insight? If I got a pump with an insulin on board feature, would it help me keep the weight down (I'm still using a Minimed 508, though it's out of warranty, because I like it and love the clip it has. Is this just being silly? I figure if it breaks I'll order a new pump and just use Lantus for the days I wait for the new pump to arrive.)?
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Wow, Thanks For All The Woo!
I appreciate everyone's positive comments and karma from my last post. All the woo seems to be woo-rking. (Sorry, couldn't resist).
I went on Clomid, which thankfully had none of the side effects you read about (crankiness, grumpiness, headaches, ovary aches). Before the pills, I took another day three blood test, which this month showed my estradiol was actually lower than previous months (which is good. The grandma ovaries apparently wax and wane with the aging, and a lower number means it's more of a Botox month: things look good when the estradiol is low.) My FSH numbers always seem to be in good shape, too.
After swallowing Clomid for five days, I had another round of blood tests this morning to see if the Clomid actually worked. On day ten of the cycle, this bloodwork measures the estradiol levels again, as well as the FSH levels. My FSH levels stayed the same, which means they aren't working overtime to produce an egg (this is a good thing, as FSH overtime means your body is working too hard and you may be closer to menopause.) But the best news is that my estradiol level soared. This means that the Clomid worked, and that my ovaries (woo! woo!) are actually gearing up the egg production.
Now I start peeing on sticks once a day to see when I ovulate, then rush to the doctor's office the next day for some mechanical mating, the IUI procedure.
And to bring this on topic to diabetes, I noticed this week that I was craving bad food. One day, I bought two Hershey bars and a bag of M&Ms from the office vending machine, and I haven't done that in years. Another day I ate a white-flour wrap for lunch and was high all afternoon. Typically I eat pretty healthily, high fiber and veggies and all, but damn, this week it was like, bring on the crap. Not sure what that's all about, and I've seen a few blood sugars these week that look like bad SAT scores, but I expect that's over with if the IUI happens in the next week or so.
I went on Clomid, which thankfully had none of the side effects you read about (crankiness, grumpiness, headaches, ovary aches). Before the pills, I took another day three blood test, which this month showed my estradiol was actually lower than previous months (which is good. The grandma ovaries apparently wax and wane with the aging, and a lower number means it's more of a Botox month: things look good when the estradiol is low.) My FSH numbers always seem to be in good shape, too.
After swallowing Clomid for five days, I had another round of blood tests this morning to see if the Clomid actually worked. On day ten of the cycle, this bloodwork measures the estradiol levels again, as well as the FSH levels. My FSH levels stayed the same, which means they aren't working overtime to produce an egg (this is a good thing, as FSH overtime means your body is working too hard and you may be closer to menopause.) But the best news is that my estradiol level soared. This means that the Clomid worked, and that my ovaries (woo! woo!) are actually gearing up the egg production.
Now I start peeing on sticks once a day to see when I ovulate, then rush to the doctor's office the next day for some mechanical mating, the IUI procedure.
And to bring this on topic to diabetes, I noticed this week that I was craving bad food. One day, I bought two Hershey bars and a bag of M&Ms from the office vending machine, and I haven't done that in years. Another day I ate a white-flour wrap for lunch and was high all afternoon. Typically I eat pretty healthily, high fiber and veggies and all, but damn, this week it was like, bring on the crap. Not sure what that's all about, and I've seen a few blood sugars these week that look like bad SAT scores, but I expect that's over with if the IUI happens in the next week or so.
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