Due to ongoing leakage and my Awesome OB's conscientiousness, I'm going into the hospital tomorrow for one last test to see if what's been leaking for weeks is not merely urine, but somehow amniotic fluid that has sneakily eluded several past tests.
I'll be 37 weeks and 2 days, just two weeks shy of my scheduled c-section, and also full term.
Tomorrow's test includes an amnio, where they'll inject blue dye into my uterus (awesome--not), I'll put in a tampon and walk around for an hour, then pull out the tampon to see if it turns blue. The amnio will also determine if the baby's lungs are fully developed. All past ultrasounds (I get them twice-weekly now) have all shown the baby is doing great--active, kicky, breathing, and all things good.
So we'll see how it goes. My next post might be as a mother of two. Or not.
UPDATED ON MONDAY, 11/22: Yep, the kid is coming today; baby looks good, but apparently, I AM leaking fluid (and they figured this out before the amnio, thankfully.) Stay tuned for some news!
Showing posts with label Type 1 Tales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Type 1 Tales. Show all posts
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Monday, November 01, 2010
Week 34 Update
I've been terrible about blogging this pregnancy.
The truth is, my existing kid has kept me busy. The whole pregnancy has been sort of back burner as the 3.5 year old has demanded attention.
Without getting into details, Preschooler L has required a lot of focus this summer and fall, and as a result, I was pretty preoccupied getting him what he needed and needs. Now that things have calmed down with him (and the weather has cooled down), he has actually started asking about when the new baby is coming, and how he is excited to play with him/her.
In the meantime, my scheduled c-section date is for Dec. 6, just five mere weeks away from today.
Not that that means anything--I had a bit of a scare this past Friday night when I thought my water broke, prematurely, at 34 weeks and 6 days. I went to the hospital and after several tests, was told that no, my amniotic fluid was intact.
I was just (continuing to) pee on myself.
Awesome.
Urinary incontinence has been a hallmark of this pregnancy, along with some other common but frankly totally annoying below the belt issues. "It's what happens when you have a basketball sitting on your nether regions," was a paraphrase of the insight from my SuperAwesome OB.
While I did NOT want to welcome a newborn just before 34 weeks, and while I hope this kid will remain in place until the c-section at week 39, I will say that I cannot wait to have my bladder and other parts back where they belong and functioning properly (as is, within my control.)
Speaking of control, the diabetes numbers have been up and down. I'm told this is common with a subsequent pregnancy, and that it's just that much harder to reach target numbers when you are also telling someone for the umpteenth time to get his shoes on and to say "excuse me" instead of giggle when he passes gas.
But my A1cs have all been stellar, and since I'm now up to weekly fetal monitoring (hello, week 34!), I am told repeatedly that the baby looks fine, measures fine, and that for whatever reason, my daily highs haven't seemed to pack weight on to the baby's frame.
Of course, I am now mainlining insulin, but that's all par for the course.
In the beginning months, I sweated every high number, and overtreated lows, and just worried more. Now, I feel like, it is what it is. I've done the best I can. I've eaten the best I could. My older kid can put his own shoes on now, my bladder leaks every so often, and the next kid is on its way.
All I can do is wait for the arrival.
The truth is, my existing kid has kept me busy. The whole pregnancy has been sort of back burner as the 3.5 year old has demanded attention.
Without getting into details, Preschooler L has required a lot of focus this summer and fall, and as a result, I was pretty preoccupied getting him what he needed and needs. Now that things have calmed down with him (and the weather has cooled down), he has actually started asking about when the new baby is coming, and how he is excited to play with him/her.
In the meantime, my scheduled c-section date is for Dec. 6, just five mere weeks away from today.
Not that that means anything--I had a bit of a scare this past Friday night when I thought my water broke, prematurely, at 34 weeks and 6 days. I went to the hospital and after several tests, was told that no, my amniotic fluid was intact.
I was just (continuing to) pee on myself.
Awesome.
Urinary incontinence has been a hallmark of this pregnancy, along with some other common but frankly totally annoying below the belt issues. "It's what happens when you have a basketball sitting on your nether regions," was a paraphrase of the insight from my SuperAwesome OB.
While I did NOT want to welcome a newborn just before 34 weeks, and while I hope this kid will remain in place until the c-section at week 39, I will say that I cannot wait to have my bladder and other parts back where they belong and functioning properly (as is, within my control.)
Speaking of control, the diabetes numbers have been up and down. I'm told this is common with a subsequent pregnancy, and that it's just that much harder to reach target numbers when you are also telling someone for the umpteenth time to get his shoes on and to say "excuse me" instead of giggle when he passes gas.
But my A1cs have all been stellar, and since I'm now up to weekly fetal monitoring (hello, week 34!), I am told repeatedly that the baby looks fine, measures fine, and that for whatever reason, my daily highs haven't seemed to pack weight on to the baby's frame.
Of course, I am now mainlining insulin, but that's all par for the course.
In the beginning months, I sweated every high number, and overtreated lows, and just worried more. Now, I feel like, it is what it is. I've done the best I can. I've eaten the best I could. My older kid can put his own shoes on now, my bladder leaks every so often, and the next kid is on its way.
All I can do is wait for the arrival.
Thursday, September 30, 2010
The Big Reveal
June 22
We told our families this weekend about the pregnancy.
Mister L. wanted to wait ‘til after all the test results were in: the CVS, the nuchal fold, the first major ultrasound. I am 15 weeks this week, a bit later than when we told them with the first pregnancy.
The final CVS results came back and they were all negative: no increased risk for a variety of chromosomal problems and rare but terrible-sounding diseases that we Jews are more likely to carry. (The best question I was asked before giving blood for these tests: “Is there any way you and your husband are related?” I guffawed and said a hearty No.)
We told Preschooler L on the morning of a Father’s Day barbecue we hosted. I thought it was important to tell him first, before we told everyone else, because his reaction was more important than anyone’s. He came into bed with us early that morning, snuggled between us, and we told him that like his cousins (who each are two-sibling families), he was going to be a big brother. We’d have a new baby for the family, that the baby would be his baby, and that we’d be very excited for our new addition.
He sort of got it, said he was excited (this is a new phrase for him, telling us sometimes that he’s “so excited” to go to a birthday party, or to go swimming), but it was sort of in one ear and out the other. He is three, after all.
Later that afternoon, we had my parents, Mr. L’s father and wife, our siblings and their families over for Father’s Day. Mr. L. had this idea about printing up a photo of a cute baby from off the Internet, telling everyone I had an early Father’s Day gift for him, but that he’d have to wait for the delivery, and then showing the picture to everyone. I’d just thought we could have Preschooler L tell people brightly, “I’m going to be a big brother!”
So the Mister told everyone his story, and held up the picture wordlessly to the crowd.
“Is that (Preschooler L)?” one person asked.
“No! It’s the baby on the cover of your book, right?”
Finally one person was like, “Lyrehca is pregnant!”
After much coaxing, I then prompted Preschooler L to say “I’m going to be a big brother!”
I pointed out that I thought it was obvious, as I have very few maternity clothes for warm weather this time. I borrowed a lot of clothes the last time around, which I’ve since passed on to other people, and I was showing in the colder months last time. So I have plenty of maternity heavy sweaters and winter pants, but maybe one maternity tank top. I have a number of oversized non-maternity tops and elastic waist shorts (fat: it is my reality), but those haven’t been fooling some people over the past few weeks.
As mentioned earlier, my mom’s friend noticed my expanding ass way back around week five and asked if I was pregnant.
Around week 11, a little boy on the playground pointed to my oversize (non-maternity) sleeveless top and asked if I had a baby in there. “No, it’s just fat,” I told him. In the last week or two, close friends have either asked Mister L. out of my hearing if I was pregnant, or have revealed that they suspected it. I’m a good ten pounds heavier than I was before pregnancy, thanks to ongoing juice box consumption to treat low blood sugars, and to me it’s obvious I’m fleshier than usual. My own mother told me last week that, when she saw me in an empire-waisted-but-not-maternity-dress, that she couldn’t tell if I was pregnant or not, but that I was definitely putting on weight.
(Though in a nice twist for me, at my last doctor’s appointment on Friday, the day before when we announced our news, I learned I’d dropped three pounds in three weeks. Apparently, my weight gain is slowing down. Or perhaps I’m retaining less fluid. Either way, I still have plenty of weight on me, so there’s nothing to worry about, pregnancy-wise. The heft continues.)
Being out of the closet, finally, my mother insisted on taking me maternity clothes shopping for summer clothes. We went to one store and I tried on some stuff, but honestly, just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean I want to look lame.
One dress was a floor-length sundress totally open on the top so my top half heaved out. “It’s the style to have your bra straps showing these days,” my mother said. “It’s not the style if I feel like I belong in a trailer park,” I retorted. I bought one dress that I hope to wear to my book reading this week, but it’s got three-quarter-length sleeves, so if it’s hot that evening, I’ll have to pray for intense air conditioning. I’m hitting a few other stores today, without my mother but with Preschooler L, so we’ll see how successful today’s efforts turn out to be.
We told our families this weekend about the pregnancy.
Mister L. wanted to wait ‘til after all the test results were in: the CVS, the nuchal fold, the first major ultrasound. I am 15 weeks this week, a bit later than when we told them with the first pregnancy.
The final CVS results came back and they were all negative: no increased risk for a variety of chromosomal problems and rare but terrible-sounding diseases that we Jews are more likely to carry. (The best question I was asked before giving blood for these tests: “Is there any way you and your husband are related?” I guffawed and said a hearty No.)
We told Preschooler L on the morning of a Father’s Day barbecue we hosted. I thought it was important to tell him first, before we told everyone else, because his reaction was more important than anyone’s. He came into bed with us early that morning, snuggled between us, and we told him that like his cousins (who each are two-sibling families), he was going to be a big brother. We’d have a new baby for the family, that the baby would be his baby, and that we’d be very excited for our new addition.
He sort of got it, said he was excited (this is a new phrase for him, telling us sometimes that he’s “so excited” to go to a birthday party, or to go swimming), but it was sort of in one ear and out the other. He is three, after all.
Later that afternoon, we had my parents, Mr. L’s father and wife, our siblings and their families over for Father’s Day. Mr. L. had this idea about printing up a photo of a cute baby from off the Internet, telling everyone I had an early Father’s Day gift for him, but that he’d have to wait for the delivery, and then showing the picture to everyone. I’d just thought we could have Preschooler L tell people brightly, “I’m going to be a big brother!”
So the Mister told everyone his story, and held up the picture wordlessly to the crowd.
“Is that (Preschooler L)?” one person asked.
“No! It’s the baby on the cover of your book, right?”
Finally one person was like, “Lyrehca is pregnant!”
After much coaxing, I then prompted Preschooler L to say “I’m going to be a big brother!”
I pointed out that I thought it was obvious, as I have very few maternity clothes for warm weather this time. I borrowed a lot of clothes the last time around, which I’ve since passed on to other people, and I was showing in the colder months last time. So I have plenty of maternity heavy sweaters and winter pants, but maybe one maternity tank top. I have a number of oversized non-maternity tops and elastic waist shorts (fat: it is my reality), but those haven’t been fooling some people over the past few weeks.
As mentioned earlier, my mom’s friend noticed my expanding ass way back around week five and asked if I was pregnant.
Around week 11, a little boy on the playground pointed to my oversize (non-maternity) sleeveless top and asked if I had a baby in there. “No, it’s just fat,” I told him. In the last week or two, close friends have either asked Mister L. out of my hearing if I was pregnant, or have revealed that they suspected it. I’m a good ten pounds heavier than I was before pregnancy, thanks to ongoing juice box consumption to treat low blood sugars, and to me it’s obvious I’m fleshier than usual. My own mother told me last week that, when she saw me in an empire-waisted-but-not-maternity-dress, that she couldn’t tell if I was pregnant or not, but that I was definitely putting on weight.
(Though in a nice twist for me, at my last doctor’s appointment on Friday, the day before when we announced our news, I learned I’d dropped three pounds in three weeks. Apparently, my weight gain is slowing down. Or perhaps I’m retaining less fluid. Either way, I still have plenty of weight on me, so there’s nothing to worry about, pregnancy-wise. The heft continues.)
Being out of the closet, finally, my mother insisted on taking me maternity clothes shopping for summer clothes. We went to one store and I tried on some stuff, but honestly, just because I’m pregnant doesn’t mean I want to look lame.
One dress was a floor-length sundress totally open on the top so my top half heaved out. “It’s the style to have your bra straps showing these days,” my mother said. “It’s not the style if I feel like I belong in a trailer park,” I retorted. I bought one dress that I hope to wear to my book reading this week, but it’s got three-quarter-length sleeves, so if it’s hot that evening, I’ll have to pray for intense air conditioning. I’m hitting a few other stores today, without my mother but with Preschooler L, so we’ll see how successful today’s efforts turn out to be.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Genetic Test Results
June 9, 2010
The last batch of doc visits have been different from what I did the first time I was pregnant. This time, the bloodwork and nuchal fold test, a screen that measures the amount of a certain hormone in the blood along with the measurement of the back of the fetus’ neck, came back not so great.
These tests show the risk of having a baby with Down’s Syndrome or two other chromosomal defects called trisomy 13 or trisomy 18. My risk, as a 40 year old, is 1 in 75 for Down’s. The baby neck measurement came back within a non-risky range, but combined with the low hormones in my blood and again, my age, my risk decreased a bit to 1 in 72 for Down’s.
“I know this is disappointing, Mister L.,” said our awesome OB. “You asked for everything to be the same as when you were pregnant with Toddler L, and this isn’t.”
When I had that test before, the same doc congratulated me when she got the results, saying my risks were the same as a 20 year old’s. That is to say, miniscule.
With this higher result, we decided to do an earlier invasive test that would definitively tell us if the fetus has Down’s Syndrome or one of these trisomies (which I had a very low risk for developing). If I wanted to wait a few more weeks, I could have had an amniocentesis, which takes a bit of amniotic fluid from the uterus through a needle in the belly.
But since we wanted to know right away, I ended up having a Chorionic Villus Sampling, or a CVS, which takes a piece of tissue from the placenta. The options are to take it through the cervix, or through the abdomen if the placenta is in an area that can’t easily be reached.
We were told the Down’s risk on a Friday, and by the following Thursday, I was in to have the CVS. Throughout the week, Mr. L and I would say “good thoughts” and we do this ritual where we rub a clay and ceramic painted pomegranate in our bedroom (a symbol of fertility) and say “Woo, woo, Go Lima.” (This is leftover from our first round of IVF, where we bought the pomegranate at an art fair because, hey, why not?)
(Our working name for the fetus right now is Lima, as in, it’s the size of a lima bean. Mr. L. sometimes calls it Lima, as in the capital of Peru. “It’s not Peruvian, unless there’s something you haven’t told me,” I’ve said.”)
We’ve done a lot of pomegranate rubbing recently.
The day of the test, Preschooler L was at school early and the Mister and I went to the hospital. There’s no anesthesia, but I took a couple of extra strength Tylenol as a pre-emptive measure. (Some past vaginal tests have been excruciating.) At the same time, being an infertility vet, I told the doc about my tipped uterus, my raised cervix, the advice past IVF docs have told us about “going in at 7 o’clock,” and my plea to please use the smallest speculum possible, as again, past experience has been excruciating.
The doc did as directed, and was pretty nice about our type A explanations and questions. This doc happens to do a lot of these CVS procedures, which means his experience hopefully will translate into no miscarriage. (The rate of miscarriage following a CVS is about 1 percent, something weighing heavily on our minds. But the truth boiled down to that if the fetus was found to have a chromosomal problem, we’d be much more inclined to terminate, as tough and painful as that would be, and it’s easier to do that at 13-15 weeks with the results of a CVS versus a 18-20 weeks if we’d waited until the right time to do an amnio (which has a lower miscarriage rate, but again, can be tougher to terminate after your belly is swelling a bit more and you are more likely to feel movement.
Shockingly for me, the speculum was the toughest part of the procedure. Once that was in, the doc somehow got where he needed to go past my cervix and got the right amount of tissue from the right place… without me feeling a thing. At the same time, I was breathing deeply and staring at the ceiling (at these ceiling tiles that had the texture, of ice cream, of all things) and clutching Mr. L’s hand.
A day later, I got a call from a genetics counselor (which, I’d forgotten, I’d met an hour before the CVS. She had explained all the details of the test and when we’d get the results.). Initial results come about a day or two later, but the full chromosomal analysis is done in two weeks. From what the genetics counselor told us, the initial results are about 95 percent accurate, and are 100 percent accurate with the full result report. Of course, there could still be some chromosomal problem that the test doesn’t measure, but the results, when good, seemed as reassuring as they could be.
The initial results were… all normal for Down’s and for the trisomies, thank God. We’re still waiting for the final results, which should come right before Father’s Day, and once we know they look good, we plan to tell our families as they are having a meal at our house in honor of Father’s Day.
Hopefully things will go well.
I actually went back to the OB’s office where a nurse practitioner did a heartbeat check. They did one immediately after the CVS and confirmed the heartbeat was good and strong, and the heartbeat check yesterday (five days later) also showed a strong heartbeat. So thankfully, I did not miscarry as a result of the CVS.
The NP asked how the pregnancy was going, and the truth is, I’m so focused on my blood sugars and which was my Dexcom is trending that I sometimes feel like the actual pregnancy is on the back burner. It isn’t, of course, but I’ve thought about my diabetes and my current kid a lot more than I’m thinking about the progeny of this pregnancy. Pregnancy the second time around, for me, has been more worries about high blood sugar excursions despite my admirable and recommended-for-pregnancy A1cs. I haven’t even glanced at one of those “what is your fetus doing this week” emails or websites. All I care about is if my sugars are in range and if I’m eating relatively properly.
So far, the rest is taking care of itself.
The last batch of doc visits have been different from what I did the first time I was pregnant. This time, the bloodwork and nuchal fold test, a screen that measures the amount of a certain hormone in the blood along with the measurement of the back of the fetus’ neck, came back not so great.
These tests show the risk of having a baby with Down’s Syndrome or two other chromosomal defects called trisomy 13 or trisomy 18. My risk, as a 40 year old, is 1 in 75 for Down’s. The baby neck measurement came back within a non-risky range, but combined with the low hormones in my blood and again, my age, my risk decreased a bit to 1 in 72 for Down’s.
“I know this is disappointing, Mister L.,” said our awesome OB. “You asked for everything to be the same as when you were pregnant with Toddler L, and this isn’t.”
When I had that test before, the same doc congratulated me when she got the results, saying my risks were the same as a 20 year old’s. That is to say, miniscule.
With this higher result, we decided to do an earlier invasive test that would definitively tell us if the fetus has Down’s Syndrome or one of these trisomies (which I had a very low risk for developing). If I wanted to wait a few more weeks, I could have had an amniocentesis, which takes a bit of amniotic fluid from the uterus through a needle in the belly.
But since we wanted to know right away, I ended up having a Chorionic Villus Sampling, or a CVS, which takes a piece of tissue from the placenta. The options are to take it through the cervix, or through the abdomen if the placenta is in an area that can’t easily be reached.
We were told the Down’s risk on a Friday, and by the following Thursday, I was in to have the CVS. Throughout the week, Mr. L and I would say “good thoughts” and we do this ritual where we rub a clay and ceramic painted pomegranate in our bedroom (a symbol of fertility) and say “Woo, woo, Go Lima.” (This is leftover from our first round of IVF, where we bought the pomegranate at an art fair because, hey, why not?)
(Our working name for the fetus right now is Lima, as in, it’s the size of a lima bean. Mr. L. sometimes calls it Lima, as in the capital of Peru. “It’s not Peruvian, unless there’s something you haven’t told me,” I’ve said.”)
We’ve done a lot of pomegranate rubbing recently.
The day of the test, Preschooler L was at school early and the Mister and I went to the hospital. There’s no anesthesia, but I took a couple of extra strength Tylenol as a pre-emptive measure. (Some past vaginal tests have been excruciating.) At the same time, being an infertility vet, I told the doc about my tipped uterus, my raised cervix, the advice past IVF docs have told us about “going in at 7 o’clock,” and my plea to please use the smallest speculum possible, as again, past experience has been excruciating.
The doc did as directed, and was pretty nice about our type A explanations and questions. This doc happens to do a lot of these CVS procedures, which means his experience hopefully will translate into no miscarriage. (The rate of miscarriage following a CVS is about 1 percent, something weighing heavily on our minds. But the truth boiled down to that if the fetus was found to have a chromosomal problem, we’d be much more inclined to terminate, as tough and painful as that would be, and it’s easier to do that at 13-15 weeks with the results of a CVS versus a 18-20 weeks if we’d waited until the right time to do an amnio (which has a lower miscarriage rate, but again, can be tougher to terminate after your belly is swelling a bit more and you are more likely to feel movement.
Shockingly for me, the speculum was the toughest part of the procedure. Once that was in, the doc somehow got where he needed to go past my cervix and got the right amount of tissue from the right place… without me feeling a thing. At the same time, I was breathing deeply and staring at the ceiling (at these ceiling tiles that had the texture, of ice cream, of all things) and clutching Mr. L’s hand.
A day later, I got a call from a genetics counselor (which, I’d forgotten, I’d met an hour before the CVS. She had explained all the details of the test and when we’d get the results.). Initial results come about a day or two later, but the full chromosomal analysis is done in two weeks. From what the genetics counselor told us, the initial results are about 95 percent accurate, and are 100 percent accurate with the full result report. Of course, there could still be some chromosomal problem that the test doesn’t measure, but the results, when good, seemed as reassuring as they could be.
The initial results were… all normal for Down’s and for the trisomies, thank God. We’re still waiting for the final results, which should come right before Father’s Day, and once we know they look good, we plan to tell our families as they are having a meal at our house in honor of Father’s Day.
Hopefully things will go well.
I actually went back to the OB’s office where a nurse practitioner did a heartbeat check. They did one immediately after the CVS and confirmed the heartbeat was good and strong, and the heartbeat check yesterday (five days later) also showed a strong heartbeat. So thankfully, I did not miscarry as a result of the CVS.
The NP asked how the pregnancy was going, and the truth is, I’m so focused on my blood sugars and which was my Dexcom is trending that I sometimes feel like the actual pregnancy is on the back burner. It isn’t, of course, but I’ve thought about my diabetes and my current kid a lot more than I’m thinking about the progeny of this pregnancy. Pregnancy the second time around, for me, has been more worries about high blood sugar excursions despite my admirable and recommended-for-pregnancy A1cs. I haven’t even glanced at one of those “what is your fetus doing this week” emails or websites. All I care about is if my sugars are in range and if I’m eating relatively properly.
So far, the rest is taking care of itself.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Pupils: Waiting to Dilate
May 26
So I have my first eye appointment of this pregnancy, though it’s not the first time I’ve had to call the Eye Doc. Back around week 5 or so, my right eye (and only the right eye) began tearing up. It was annoying. Particularly so because of the pregnancy, I was advised not to take a standard antihistimine because of the potential pregnancy interaction. So my eye doc recommended artificial tears. Which seemed to be beside the point; I mean, my eye was *already tearing*, so why add more tears to the mix?
Regardless, thankfully the eye thing cleared up after three days, but my eye doc insisted, several times, that I needed to see her within six weeks. I’d already had an appointment scheduled for today prior, so I just kept my appointment (at 6 weeks), and here I am.
The front of the eye was unremarkable, as usual. The optometrist, a short woman with towering heels who I’ve seen before, but she clearly didn’t remember me, was pleasant asking me questions about my son based on the notes in my file. I told her I was pregnant, so that yielded a number of other questions about medications and how far along I am and all that. Otherwise, my eyes—the visit itself, the pressure as a glaucoma check, wavy lines, peripheral vision—it all came back fine.
Amd here I am, sitting in the dilation waiting area, annoyed as always that there’s no Internet access here, and I can’t text because I need to really see the keys I’m pressing to type on my phone and I just can’t see well enough. There was some high school girl here with her mom, wearing the same pump as me, who said she wants to be a “diabetes endocrinologist” when she grows up. Good for her. I told her to stick with it, as type 1 endocrinologists are so much better than those who don’t know what they’re talking about. I would have liked to have talked to her more, but neither she nor her mother were all that chatty.
Mister Lyrehca has called and texted a few times to tell me to call him if I need him to drive me home, which I am sure is not going to be the case. Even if my doc tells me she needs to do laser right away, I’ll tell her that I’ll come back next week or whenever, when I don’t have to drive myself home. So we’ll see.
The irony is that my blood glucose meter’s averages, this morning, were crazy impressive. Like, my average over the past 7 days was 90. I have never seen that kind of number as an average before. I think it’s skewed, though, because my CGM clearly shows spikes, and I don’t test every hour because of the CGM, so I suspect there are more lows factored into that average than not. I’ll be interested to see what my next A1c is, though.
But beyond all that….well, I feel like there’s not much else to report about this pregnancy beyond what my blood sugars are and how my eyes are. Honestly, why would I focus beyond that? I have had no morning sickness, haven’t felt bad at all, have noticed my stomach getting bigger and my bras getting a little tighter, and again, weight gain has happened.
I’ve also had… I don’t know if I can call them cravings because, are they? But I’ve bought and devoured big chunks of (Pasterurized! Not moldy! Perfectly acceptable for pregnancy!) cheese: fontina, gouda (unsmoked) and havarti, and devoured them. I mean, really, is that a craving? I’d devour big blocks of cheese anytime, but most of the time prior to this pregnancy, I’ve refrained. I figure that’s what’s helped my belly to balloon. I’ve also eaten, throughout the last week or so, big bags of chips and, at one point, a bunch of homemade chocolate chip cookies. The irony is that I can take giant (and when I saw giant, I needed to increase the upper limit of the amount of insulin I could take at one time) and sometimes, my sugars are really just fine. Other times, I eat the shell of a whole wheat bagel (with all the soft inner parts ripped out) and butter, bolus a good 60 grams worth of insulin, and see myself soar up to 300 and I get pissed. Last week, I thought to myself that it would be a miracle if this baby was born without any health problems. And then, my meter is telling me my last week’s readings average was 90 and that my A1c is going down.
So you can understand why I’m pissed and hardly think of pregnancy as something magical. I thnk it’ll be a real neat trick if this baby is born healthy and happy.
Wow, I just got myself into a cynical and cranky state.
Where is my damn eye doctor????
To top it all off, my sugar was lounging in the low 70s and 60s for a good half hour, and I dutifully treated with ten grams of carbs (doctor office packets of graham crackers) three times in a row… with the blood sugar not budging. And yes, I both watched my CGM and tested my blood sugar three times. Now, 45 minutes later, my CGM tells me I’m shooting upward at 104, with my arrow going straight up. Who knows how high that’ll climb to? Plus, my pump battery is low, and while I’ve been a rebel and gone up to a day or two and ignoring the battery alarm to see how long it would last, I’d rather change it out right now , but don’t have the right kind of battery on me.
Finally! My name was just called and into the retinology doc's office I go!
So I have my first eye appointment of this pregnancy, though it’s not the first time I’ve had to call the Eye Doc. Back around week 5 or so, my right eye (and only the right eye) began tearing up. It was annoying. Particularly so because of the pregnancy, I was advised not to take a standard antihistimine because of the potential pregnancy interaction. So my eye doc recommended artificial tears. Which seemed to be beside the point; I mean, my eye was *already tearing*, so why add more tears to the mix?
Regardless, thankfully the eye thing cleared up after three days, but my eye doc insisted, several times, that I needed to see her within six weeks. I’d already had an appointment scheduled for today prior, so I just kept my appointment (at 6 weeks), and here I am.
The front of the eye was unremarkable, as usual. The optometrist, a short woman with towering heels who I’ve seen before, but she clearly didn’t remember me, was pleasant asking me questions about my son based on the notes in my file. I told her I was pregnant, so that yielded a number of other questions about medications and how far along I am and all that. Otherwise, my eyes—the visit itself, the pressure as a glaucoma check, wavy lines, peripheral vision—it all came back fine.
Amd here I am, sitting in the dilation waiting area, annoyed as always that there’s no Internet access here, and I can’t text because I need to really see the keys I’m pressing to type on my phone and I just can’t see well enough. There was some high school girl here with her mom, wearing the same pump as me, who said she wants to be a “diabetes endocrinologist” when she grows up. Good for her. I told her to stick with it, as type 1 endocrinologists are so much better than those who don’t know what they’re talking about. I would have liked to have talked to her more, but neither she nor her mother were all that chatty.
Mister Lyrehca has called and texted a few times to tell me to call him if I need him to drive me home, which I am sure is not going to be the case. Even if my doc tells me she needs to do laser right away, I’ll tell her that I’ll come back next week or whenever, when I don’t have to drive myself home. So we’ll see.
The irony is that my blood glucose meter’s averages, this morning, were crazy impressive. Like, my average over the past 7 days was 90. I have never seen that kind of number as an average before. I think it’s skewed, though, because my CGM clearly shows spikes, and I don’t test every hour because of the CGM, so I suspect there are more lows factored into that average than not. I’ll be interested to see what my next A1c is, though.
But beyond all that….well, I feel like there’s not much else to report about this pregnancy beyond what my blood sugars are and how my eyes are. Honestly, why would I focus beyond that? I have had no morning sickness, haven’t felt bad at all, have noticed my stomach getting bigger and my bras getting a little tighter, and again, weight gain has happened.
I’ve also had… I don’t know if I can call them cravings because, are they? But I’ve bought and devoured big chunks of (Pasterurized! Not moldy! Perfectly acceptable for pregnancy!) cheese: fontina, gouda (unsmoked) and havarti, and devoured them. I mean, really, is that a craving? I’d devour big blocks of cheese anytime, but most of the time prior to this pregnancy, I’ve refrained. I figure that’s what’s helped my belly to balloon. I’ve also eaten, throughout the last week or so, big bags of chips and, at one point, a bunch of homemade chocolate chip cookies. The irony is that I can take giant (and when I saw giant, I needed to increase the upper limit of the amount of insulin I could take at one time) and sometimes, my sugars are really just fine. Other times, I eat the shell of a whole wheat bagel (with all the soft inner parts ripped out) and butter, bolus a good 60 grams worth of insulin, and see myself soar up to 300 and I get pissed. Last week, I thought to myself that it would be a miracle if this baby was born without any health problems. And then, my meter is telling me my last week’s readings average was 90 and that my A1c is going down.
So you can understand why I’m pissed and hardly think of pregnancy as something magical. I thnk it’ll be a real neat trick if this baby is born healthy and happy.
Wow, I just got myself into a cynical and cranky state.
Where is my damn eye doctor????
To top it all off, my sugar was lounging in the low 70s and 60s for a good half hour, and I dutifully treated with ten grams of carbs (doctor office packets of graham crackers) three times in a row… with the blood sugar not budging. And yes, I both watched my CGM and tested my blood sugar three times. Now, 45 minutes later, my CGM tells me I’m shooting upward at 104, with my arrow going straight up. Who knows how high that’ll climb to? Plus, my pump battery is low, and while I’ve been a rebel and gone up to a day or two and ignoring the battery alarm to see how long it would last, I’d rather change it out right now , but don’t have the right kind of battery on me.
Finally! My name was just called and into the retinology doc's office I go!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Pregnancy and Chronic Illness: Discuss.
Late July
Pregnancy and Chronic Illness Webinar August 2
Laurie Edwards, of the excellent blog A Chronic Dose and terrific book Life Disrupted, and I will host a webinar on Pregnancy and Chronic Illness at WEGO Health next Monday night, August 2, from 8-9 pm eastern time. Thinking at all about pregnancy with a chronic condition like diabetes, or heck, anything else, and want to hear more perspectives than just mine? Definitely RSVP and check us out!
May 18
Weight, Weight--Don't Tell Me
I met with my endo and the nurse practitioner who works with my high risk OB on Friday.
Two weeks after my last appointment.
The NP was someone I’d never met before, though I suspect I will get to know her very well over the rest of this pregnancy. The first thing I learned, going in to see her, was that I’d gained three pounds in the last two weeks. Bringing this pregnancy’s total to five pounds in ten weeks.
Is that some kind of new record?
I’ll admit that last week, I ate a bunch, and covered for it with ginormous amounts of insulin. I’ve also started eating a LOT of cheese. In part, because cheese doesn’t really wreck my sugars the way many other foods can. I also treat at least one, if not more, insulin reactions a day, with some amount of juice.
So the weight gain isn’t really surprising.
I pointed this out to the NP, and she was all, “are you concerned about your weight?” I replied that it seemed like a lot, and that while I’d lost all my pregnancy weight the first time, I’d put on a good ten pounds or more since starting with actively trying to conceive and taking copious amounts of infertility drugs a few times over the past year. I told her I’d gained 40 pounds with the first pregnancy.
“So do you want to gain 30 this time?” she asked.
“I want to deliver a baby that’s healthy, happy and alive,” I responded. “If I put on more weight, so be it. I need to do what I can to maintain my blood sugars.”
She said she sympathized, that type 1 pregnancies were so hard. Yep. Weight gain is really the least of it.
No one even blinked when I stepped on the scale anytime during my first pregnancy, and that was from a starting point of about 30 pounds over where a height-weight chart says I should be.
The rest of the NP visit was uneventful, because she tried to listen to the baby’s heartbeat through my stomach. I was nine weeks six days that day, and she told me she typically doesn’t hear a heartbeat until 12 weeks. Nothing happened, so she sent me to my endo appointment and told me to return to her office after the endo visit, where she’d do a regular ultrasound to check on things.
You Say 90, I Say 80
I then saw my fabulous Kind Endo, who was pleased that I’d actually brought not just weekly and daily Dexcom readings, but actual logs of insulin rates and boluses and carb counts written out for a few days. Looking at the Dexcom readings, particularly the weekly ones, have scared me. I see a lot of peaks and some valleys, but the valleys don’t freak me out the way the peaks do.
Kind Endo was nonplussed, telling me that I need to just let the insulin do its job and not to worry about short bursts of high blood sugars. She thought I was overcorrecting, and worried that I was running too low at times.
“But I feel fine at 60. And I work from home, so it’s not like I’m driving much with such lows. And I always treat them.”
We have also battled about the target blood sugar I should set on my pump to correct to. I have set it to 80, with the reasoning that you’re suggested to be between 60-99 before a meal, so 80 is in the middle. She argues that’s too low, and that she typically tells people to correct to 100, but that I should correct to 90. We went back and forth on this point.
“Surely I’m not the only patient who fights you on this, right?” I asked. (I end up saying something like this to a lot of people)
“Well," she conceded. "You're a journalist.”
The Downside of Writing A Book
Because my A1c dropped recently, from 6.1 to 5.7, Kind Endo really thinks I’m doing fine, despite the highs I see more frequently due to the CGM. “You really don’t think this baby is going to be deformed because of these highs?” I asked.
“Absolutely not,” she said.
I feel like I overthink everything these days. Mr. Lyrehca, who is just now reading my book, will quote it back to me when I tell him I’m worried. “The book says …. That highs will happen. The book says… that you need to take care of yourself,” he reads.
Whoever thought my published words would be used to taunt?
The irony is that Mr. Lyrehca rarely reads for fun, so he’s s-l-o-w-l-y making his way through the book itself. Which gives him all the more time to find sentences to read back, sometimes citing page numbers as well.
I also think maybe the Dexcom CGM is adding to my fears. Before, I tested regularly, sometimes every hour, but not always. Now, the Dexcom shows me a sharp incline immediately after some meals. Sometimes I can counteract the climb by immediately hopping on the elliptical and doing a 20-30 minute workout, but I can’t always exercise within the hour after a meal. Sometimes I have to work. Or drive. Or do something that makes exercise impractical. And while I can and sometimes do bolus a hit of insulin, the damn stuff doesn’t start working for an hour or two. It is beyond frustrating to see my sugar spiraling upUpUP and know I can’t do anything but sulk and wait for the insulin to kick in and then I watch the spiral reverse and come back down.
Moving Forward
So after Kind Endo, I went back to the NP, who tried to do an abdominal ultrasound (cold gel on my belly), but again didn’t find a great view of the uterine activity. “Would a vaginal ultrasound do it?” I asked. It would, so once again, the Tam Cam did its job and voila! There’s finally a clear shot of what’s going on, and hold-my-breath… all is good.
The NP found the gestational sac, the fetal pole, and look at that--the heartbeat. “It’s in the 150s, 160s,” NP said. “Totally normal.”
The funniest thing was that both she and I could see things moving, as tiny as they are.
“The arms and legs are waving, see?”
And what do you know—I could see tiny limbs all akimbo, dancing around.
Unbelievable.
Afterward, I went to have blood work drawn so that we can learn some early chances of whether this baby has higher chances of carrying some chromosomal concerns. Three years ago, the nuchal fold test was done on the same day as the blood draw, so the full results came after a week or so after the blood was analyzed. This time, they draw the blood first, then we go back in two weeks and see the nuchal fold test. This is where they measure the fold of the back of the fetus’s neck to see if its chances of having Down’s Syndrome are high. Last time, the result came back great, but this time, I’m three years older and officially an old lady being pregnant at 40.
I hope it’ll be all good.
Despite the highs.
Pregnancy and Chronic Illness Webinar August 2
Laurie Edwards, of the excellent blog A Chronic Dose and terrific book Life Disrupted, and I will host a webinar on Pregnancy and Chronic Illness at WEGO Health next Monday night, August 2, from 8-9 pm eastern time. Thinking at all about pregnancy with a chronic condition like diabetes, or heck, anything else, and want to hear more perspectives than just mine? Definitely RSVP and check us out!
May 18
Weight, Weight--Don't Tell Me
I met with my endo and the nurse practitioner who works with my high risk OB on Friday.
Two weeks after my last appointment.
The NP was someone I’d never met before, though I suspect I will get to know her very well over the rest of this pregnancy. The first thing I learned, going in to see her, was that I’d gained three pounds in the last two weeks. Bringing this pregnancy’s total to five pounds in ten weeks.
Is that some kind of new record?
I’ll admit that last week, I ate a bunch, and covered for it with ginormous amounts of insulin. I’ve also started eating a LOT of cheese. In part, because cheese doesn’t really wreck my sugars the way many other foods can. I also treat at least one, if not more, insulin reactions a day, with some amount of juice.
So the weight gain isn’t really surprising.
I pointed this out to the NP, and she was all, “are you concerned about your weight?” I replied that it seemed like a lot, and that while I’d lost all my pregnancy weight the first time, I’d put on a good ten pounds or more since starting with actively trying to conceive and taking copious amounts of infertility drugs a few times over the past year. I told her I’d gained 40 pounds with the first pregnancy.
“So do you want to gain 30 this time?” she asked.
“I want to deliver a baby that’s healthy, happy and alive,” I responded. “If I put on more weight, so be it. I need to do what I can to maintain my blood sugars.”
She said she sympathized, that type 1 pregnancies were so hard. Yep. Weight gain is really the least of it.
No one even blinked when I stepped on the scale anytime during my first pregnancy, and that was from a starting point of about 30 pounds over where a height-weight chart says I should be.
The rest of the NP visit was uneventful, because she tried to listen to the baby’s heartbeat through my stomach. I was nine weeks six days that day, and she told me she typically doesn’t hear a heartbeat until 12 weeks. Nothing happened, so she sent me to my endo appointment and told me to return to her office after the endo visit, where she’d do a regular ultrasound to check on things.
You Say 90, I Say 80
I then saw my fabulous Kind Endo, who was pleased that I’d actually brought not just weekly and daily Dexcom readings, but actual logs of insulin rates and boluses and carb counts written out for a few days. Looking at the Dexcom readings, particularly the weekly ones, have scared me. I see a lot of peaks and some valleys, but the valleys don’t freak me out the way the peaks do.
Kind Endo was nonplussed, telling me that I need to just let the insulin do its job and not to worry about short bursts of high blood sugars. She thought I was overcorrecting, and worried that I was running too low at times.
“But I feel fine at 60. And I work from home, so it’s not like I’m driving much with such lows. And I always treat them.”
We have also battled about the target blood sugar I should set on my pump to correct to. I have set it to 80, with the reasoning that you’re suggested to be between 60-99 before a meal, so 80 is in the middle. She argues that’s too low, and that she typically tells people to correct to 100, but that I should correct to 90. We went back and forth on this point.
“Surely I’m not the only patient who fights you on this, right?” I asked. (I end up saying something like this to a lot of people)
“Well," she conceded. "You're a journalist.”
The Downside of Writing A Book
Because my A1c dropped recently, from 6.1 to 5.7, Kind Endo really thinks I’m doing fine, despite the highs I see more frequently due to the CGM. “You really don’t think this baby is going to be deformed because of these highs?” I asked.
“Absolutely not,” she said.
I feel like I overthink everything these days. Mr. Lyrehca, who is just now reading my book, will quote it back to me when I tell him I’m worried. “The book says …. That highs will happen. The book says… that you need to take care of yourself,” he reads.
Whoever thought my published words would be used to taunt?
The irony is that Mr. Lyrehca rarely reads for fun, so he’s s-l-o-w-l-y making his way through the book itself. Which gives him all the more time to find sentences to read back, sometimes citing page numbers as well.
I also think maybe the Dexcom CGM is adding to my fears. Before, I tested regularly, sometimes every hour, but not always. Now, the Dexcom shows me a sharp incline immediately after some meals. Sometimes I can counteract the climb by immediately hopping on the elliptical and doing a 20-30 minute workout, but I can’t always exercise within the hour after a meal. Sometimes I have to work. Or drive. Or do something that makes exercise impractical. And while I can and sometimes do bolus a hit of insulin, the damn stuff doesn’t start working for an hour or two. It is beyond frustrating to see my sugar spiraling upUpUP and know I can’t do anything but sulk and wait for the insulin to kick in and then I watch the spiral reverse and come back down.
Moving Forward
So after Kind Endo, I went back to the NP, who tried to do an abdominal ultrasound (cold gel on my belly), but again didn’t find a great view of the uterine activity. “Would a vaginal ultrasound do it?” I asked. It would, so once again, the Tam Cam did its job and voila! There’s finally a clear shot of what’s going on, and hold-my-breath… all is good.
The NP found the gestational sac, the fetal pole, and look at that--the heartbeat. “It’s in the 150s, 160s,” NP said. “Totally normal.”
The funniest thing was that both she and I could see things moving, as tiny as they are.
“The arms and legs are waving, see?”
And what do you know—I could see tiny limbs all akimbo, dancing around.
Unbelievable.
Afterward, I went to have blood work drawn so that we can learn some early chances of whether this baby has higher chances of carrying some chromosomal concerns. Three years ago, the nuchal fold test was done on the same day as the blood draw, so the full results came after a week or so after the blood was analyzed. This time, they draw the blood first, then we go back in two weeks and see the nuchal fold test. This is where they measure the fold of the back of the fetus’s neck to see if its chances of having Down’s Syndrome are high. Last time, the result came back great, but this time, I’m three years older and officially an old lady being pregnant at 40.
I hope it’ll be all good.
Despite the highs.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
Feeling Low About Highs
May 4
Despite writing the effing book on pregnancy and diabetes, my blood sugars have still soared throughout the last eight weeks.
I just saw my Kind Endo and high risk OB on Friday, the first visit of this pregnancy. The OB did her ultrasounds, said I was measuring right on time (7 weeks, 6 days), and both she and the endo took a lot of bloodwork.
That morning, I printed out six weeks worth of Dexcom readings, and a day-by-day printout of the last week.
Things looked OK, but you could clearly see excursions. I tend to bolus now and bottom out later, so I’ve become more acquainted with juice boxes and such. I’ve started buying big jugs of juice to have on hand when I just don’t want to futz with poking the puny straw in the right place on the top of the juice box while I feel like my knees aren't going to support me.
This weekend, Kind Endo told me to stop bolusing before three hours were up, to religiously test my sugar before a meal, an hour after, and to NOT CORRECT A HIGH until three and half hours after that first (15-minutes-pre-meal) bolus.
Ugh.
I hated it.
My sugars soared and while they were in line a few hours later, I hated sitting there watching my CGM sit in the 200s, or the 300s, for more than an hour at a time.
Just now, I heard back from Kind Endo, and she wants me to reduce my breakfast and lunch insulin-to-carb ratios by one. Frankly, I will probably continue to correct post-meal highs, if they continue, immediately after a meal.
Despite my angst, my A1c dropped .4. It’s well in the fives now.
I don’t say that to brag, though, but to point out the obvious: what does it matter what your longterm averages are if you clearly see potentially-damaging highs at least once a day? Wearing a CGM has pointed this out even more obviously than pricking my finger 15 times a day ever did before. I've recommended the Dexcom to several others, but it certainly has added to my anxiety during this pregnancy as well.
I constantly think of the stat I cited in my book: conceiving with a high A1c means your chances of having birth defects are 30 percent. That means 70 percent of those people will deliver healthy babies. The irony is that my A1c was exactly where it should be, but I still have these daily highs.
I also think about one woman I tried to interview for the book. She carried several children at once and delivered all of them, but she told me diabetes was the least of her concerns while carrying that many kids inside. She did what she could, but she was very lucky because her sugars were crazy and her kids were all born healthy, so that she probably wasn’t the best person to interview for a book about healthy pregnancy and diabetes.
It’s not right to focus on this, but it comforts me when I see a high blood sugar that isn’t budging fast enough.
[Added on July 11 after I wrote this original post: It's also possible to get my sugars to drop faster when I can jump on the elliptical trainer we have at home immediately after I see a post-meal sugar rise. But that isn't always practical, and I usually need to stay on it for a good 30 minutes to see a drop. (Again, the reality of wearing a CGM.) Sometimes I'm driving in my car immediately after a meal, or have to deal with my kid, or have to do some work. Or something.
It makes me angry that insulin isn't instantaneous. This should be a much bigger issue, in my opinion, than other issues that diabetes advocates talk about. Where is insulin that works immediately? As in, doesn't need to be injected early to mimic the absorption of a meal with carbohydrates? Doesn't need three hours to bring a high down? Who out there is with me?]
ON the other hand, I think how awful it would be to have an unhealthy baby after I’ve just written this go-girl pregnancy guide.
Just by writing that makes me think I might be tempting fate.
I really, really hope I am not.
Despite writing the effing book on pregnancy and diabetes, my blood sugars have still soared throughout the last eight weeks.
I just saw my Kind Endo and high risk OB on Friday, the first visit of this pregnancy. The OB did her ultrasounds, said I was measuring right on time (7 weeks, 6 days), and both she and the endo took a lot of bloodwork.
That morning, I printed out six weeks worth of Dexcom readings, and a day-by-day printout of the last week.
Things looked OK, but you could clearly see excursions. I tend to bolus now and bottom out later, so I’ve become more acquainted with juice boxes and such. I’ve started buying big jugs of juice to have on hand when I just don’t want to futz with poking the puny straw in the right place on the top of the juice box while I feel like my knees aren't going to support me.
This weekend, Kind Endo told me to stop bolusing before three hours were up, to religiously test my sugar before a meal, an hour after, and to NOT CORRECT A HIGH until three and half hours after that first (15-minutes-pre-meal) bolus.
Ugh.
I hated it.
My sugars soared and while they were in line a few hours later, I hated sitting there watching my CGM sit in the 200s, or the 300s, for more than an hour at a time.
Just now, I heard back from Kind Endo, and she wants me to reduce my breakfast and lunch insulin-to-carb ratios by one. Frankly, I will probably continue to correct post-meal highs, if they continue, immediately after a meal.
Despite my angst, my A1c dropped .4. It’s well in the fives now.
I don’t say that to brag, though, but to point out the obvious: what does it matter what your longterm averages are if you clearly see potentially-damaging highs at least once a day? Wearing a CGM has pointed this out even more obviously than pricking my finger 15 times a day ever did before. I've recommended the Dexcom to several others, but it certainly has added to my anxiety during this pregnancy as well.
I constantly think of the stat I cited in my book: conceiving with a high A1c means your chances of having birth defects are 30 percent. That means 70 percent of those people will deliver healthy babies. The irony is that my A1c was exactly where it should be, but I still have these daily highs.
I also think about one woman I tried to interview for the book. She carried several children at once and delivered all of them, but she told me diabetes was the least of her concerns while carrying that many kids inside. She did what she could, but she was very lucky because her sugars were crazy and her kids were all born healthy, so that she probably wasn’t the best person to interview for a book about healthy pregnancy and diabetes.
It’s not right to focus on this, but it comforts me when I see a high blood sugar that isn’t budging fast enough.
[Added on July 11 after I wrote this original post: It's also possible to get my sugars to drop faster when I can jump on the elliptical trainer we have at home immediately after I see a post-meal sugar rise. But that isn't always practical, and I usually need to stay on it for a good 30 minutes to see a drop. (Again, the reality of wearing a CGM.) Sometimes I'm driving in my car immediately after a meal, or have to deal with my kid, or have to do some work. Or something.
It makes me angry that insulin isn't instantaneous. This should be a much bigger issue, in my opinion, than other issues that diabetes advocates talk about. Where is insulin that works immediately? As in, doesn't need to be injected early to mimic the absorption of a meal with carbohydrates? Doesn't need three hours to bring a high down? Who out there is with me?]
ON the other hand, I think how awful it would be to have an unhealthy baby after I’ve just written this go-girl pregnancy guide.
Just by writing that makes me think I might be tempting fate.
I really, really hope I am not.
Sunday, July 04, 2010
Rear View
April 28
According to the calendar, I am seven weeks, three days pregnant.
According to my blood sugars, I am requiring more insulin all the time. My insulin ratios pretty much dropped to 1:5 across the board as soon as they told me I was pregnant. I monitor my sugars like a hawk. I give myself giant correction boluses post dinner, sort of off the cuff, and nowadays, they are typically keeping my overnight blood sugars steady.
Last week, we went to our infertility office for a vaginal ultrasound, which is standard even for those of us who didn’t conceive (i.e. without IVF) the way we thought we would (i.e., with IVF).
The tech congratulated me for conceiving unexpectedly, and asked when my last menstrual period was, since that’s how they date pregnancies that don’t have an official embryo transfer date.
“Oh, I have that date, but I also have the dates for when I took Clomid, when we actually had sex, and when I had obvious egg white cervical mucous,” I replied confidently. Who are these people who don’t know exactly when they conceive? Clearly I--a veteran of infertility treatments and a woman who keeps track of carb counts and insulin-to-carb ratios—can’t allow that anything can simply “just happen.”
Based on all my conception info, I said that the embryo should be six weeks and three days along.
Based on the ultrasound, the tech told me the embryo—the embryo that she found easily and clearly saw a heart beating strongly—measured six weeks and two days, give or take a day.
Who called it?
The heartbeat was strong at 122, too. And I am NOT carrying twins.
Similar to my pregnancy with Preschooler L, I don’t feel any different. I’ve had no morning sickness, save for one afternoon episode mentioned earlier. I don’t think my boobs are sore. I’ve had no cramps. Except for my new rigor for drinking water and milk instead of diet Coke, and thinking a bit more about dumping Splenda into tea as I treat my current talking-myself-silent-bout of laryngitis, I don’t feel all that different. I ate a mozzarella with capers sandwich last week and only wondered if it was OK halfway through my devouring.
There has only been one obvious outward sign (besides the blood sugar nuttiness) that perhaps I am pregnant after all:
My mom’s friend C., who I saw two weeks ago (i.e., in week five), casually asked my mother if I was pregnant a day after she came to a party at my house.
“Not that I’m aware of,” my mother said. “Why?”
“I can tell from her behind,” C told her.
Uncannily, C. predicted my first pregnancy back in 2006, weeks before we spilled the news to my parents, merely because of what my ass looked like.
I quickly and vehemently told my mother to tell C. to stop the scrutiny.
However, maybe C. is on to some kind of new money-making venture: early pregnancy prediction by tush size.
According to the calendar, I am seven weeks, three days pregnant.
According to my blood sugars, I am requiring more insulin all the time. My insulin ratios pretty much dropped to 1:5 across the board as soon as they told me I was pregnant. I monitor my sugars like a hawk. I give myself giant correction boluses post dinner, sort of off the cuff, and nowadays, they are typically keeping my overnight blood sugars steady.
Last week, we went to our infertility office for a vaginal ultrasound, which is standard even for those of us who didn’t conceive (i.e. without IVF) the way we thought we would (i.e., with IVF).
The tech congratulated me for conceiving unexpectedly, and asked when my last menstrual period was, since that’s how they date pregnancies that don’t have an official embryo transfer date.
“Oh, I have that date, but I also have the dates for when I took Clomid, when we actually had sex, and when I had obvious egg white cervical mucous,” I replied confidently. Who are these people who don’t know exactly when they conceive? Clearly I--a veteran of infertility treatments and a woman who keeps track of carb counts and insulin-to-carb ratios—can’t allow that anything can simply “just happen.”
Based on all my conception info, I said that the embryo should be six weeks and three days along.
Based on the ultrasound, the tech told me the embryo—the embryo that she found easily and clearly saw a heart beating strongly—measured six weeks and two days, give or take a day.
Who called it?
The heartbeat was strong at 122, too. And I am NOT carrying twins.
Similar to my pregnancy with Preschooler L, I don’t feel any different. I’ve had no morning sickness, save for one afternoon episode mentioned earlier. I don’t think my boobs are sore. I’ve had no cramps. Except for my new rigor for drinking water and milk instead of diet Coke, and thinking a bit more about dumping Splenda into tea as I treat my current talking-myself-silent-bout of laryngitis, I don’t feel all that different. I ate a mozzarella with capers sandwich last week and only wondered if it was OK halfway through my devouring.
There has only been one obvious outward sign (besides the blood sugar nuttiness) that perhaps I am pregnant after all:
My mom’s friend C., who I saw two weeks ago (i.e., in week five), casually asked my mother if I was pregnant a day after she came to a party at my house.
“Not that I’m aware of,” my mother said. “Why?”
“I can tell from her behind,” C told her.
Uncannily, C. predicted my first pregnancy back in 2006, weeks before we spilled the news to my parents, merely because of what my ass looked like.
I quickly and vehemently told my mother to tell C. to stop the scrutiny.
However, maybe C. is on to some kind of new money-making venture: early pregnancy prediction by tush size.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Happy Birthday
April 9, 2010
Today is my son’s third birthday. It’s also the day my publisher starts shipping copies of my book to people who have pre-ordered them.
It’s also the day I am four weeks and five days pregnant.
I had another blood test yesterday to see if my HCG levels are doubling. This is a common way to know if the pregnancy is sticking and your body is doing what it is supposed to do while nurturing an embryo. Once again, I drove myself to my infertility clinic and dragged myself into the waiting room. The place has excellent wireless Internet access, so I always bring my laptop and fire it up while I’m sitting there. When the phlebotomist called my name, she smiled.
“You are always working while you’re here,” she noted.
I have had this woman draw my blood countless times over the last year or so. Having done two fresh IVF cycles, as well as other tests to try to figure out why those cycles weren’t successful, this woman knows my face, if not my entire story.
As she swabbed the crook of my arm with alcohol, she told me I should make a recommendation to the staff of the infertility clinic that they should set up study carrels in the lobby. For people like me, as well as for all the husbands and partners who sit there and wait while their wives or girlfriends are in some lab having blood drawn.
They should listen to me—I’ve been there enough times to have my own parking space. (Even though the parking in this particular clinic is free, thanks to the joy of a suburban location).
Because who am I if not always working? If I’m not trying to get something done so I can bill the time and meet a client’s deadline, I am always wondering where my blood sugar is, what time I last ate, and calculating what I ate and how many carbs was in it. Yesterday was no exception.
I’ve started to keep daily logs of what I eat and how much insulin I take, despite having a CGM. My overnight sugars, while steady, are consistently above where they should be. I bolus correction factors all night long, and nothing budges. I’ve noticed this for three days and changed the correction factor so that I get more insulin, but no dice. I need to email my doc and ask her WTF? And instead of writing this up at 5am, I am supposed to be on the elliptical we have at our house so I can jumpstart my sluggish blood sugar to start dropping back to where it should be. The slowness of insulin is one of my biggest complaints: If I am high now, why should I have to wait two hours before I start coming down? Knowing I am high and that a correction insulin hit will take a few hours before I am down, annoys me.
(Just checked the CGM, and apparently the hit of insulin I took 30 minutes ago is starting to work. So do I still go on the elliptical, even though I might come down quicker, but them bottom out? Should I try it for ten minutes?) Usually, if I eat and go straight up before an hour after a meal (the joys of a CGM with the trend arrows), I can go on the elliptical and, after about 20-30 minutes, reverse the sharp increase. Now that I am apparently trending downward, slowly, would a burst of exercise help me trend down a little faster?
Let’s see—will be right back. Ten minutes is all I’ll do, promise!
Okay, I’m back. My CGM says I’m still trending down gently. In the meantime, I watched the local news and just got angry about some dumbass flasher in the kids’ room of the library where I grew up—a place I happened to visit this week to return a book. What is the matter with people?!
Focus, focus.
So yesterday, I got the call in the afternoon about the results of my blood work:
HCG level was 556, more than double my result on Monday.
Progesterone was greater than 40, which is good.
My TSH level, something that had been low when I saw my endo about a month ago, has jumped up into the normal range, at 0.579.
Since the HCG level was so strong, I asked if I could be carrying twins. The nurse said I had to wait until the first ultrasound, but that a high number didn’t necessarily mean multiples. But wouldn’t that be the ultimate irony, huh?
But the HCG levels of my last two fresh cycles have always started out low or near normal but never doubled right. So the fact that this round had a strong starting number (comparable to what it was when I conceived Toddler L, who, let’s face it, should now be called Preschooler L) and has more than doubled makes me hopeful.
Now if I could only wrangle these overnight blood sugars down.
We’re off to celebrate my son’s birthday today: annual family portrait, a trip to the local kids’ museum to see Curious George, and tonight, dinner at an Italian restaurant near the Boy’s daycare program. Every morning when we drive by, Preschooler L asks if we can go to the restaurant and get “a kids’ menu.”
“Dude, we just finished breakfast,” I tell him. “Plus, the restaurant isn’t open this early.”
“I want to go to the (NAME OF THE RESTAURANT REDACTED) and get a kid’s menu!” he insists. He doesn’t want a hot dog or grilled cheese at that hour. He only wants to look at the menu that is all his own. Just before the preschool dropoff, though, I can usually divert his attention once we pull into school parking lot.
But tonight, my son shall have the kid’s menu of his dreams. Happy 3rd Birthday, Fabulous Boy!
Today is my son’s third birthday. It’s also the day my publisher starts shipping copies of my book to people who have pre-ordered them.
It’s also the day I am four weeks and five days pregnant.
I had another blood test yesterday to see if my HCG levels are doubling. This is a common way to know if the pregnancy is sticking and your body is doing what it is supposed to do while nurturing an embryo. Once again, I drove myself to my infertility clinic and dragged myself into the waiting room. The place has excellent wireless Internet access, so I always bring my laptop and fire it up while I’m sitting there. When the phlebotomist called my name, she smiled.
“You are always working while you’re here,” she noted.
I have had this woman draw my blood countless times over the last year or so. Having done two fresh IVF cycles, as well as other tests to try to figure out why those cycles weren’t successful, this woman knows my face, if not my entire story.
As she swabbed the crook of my arm with alcohol, she told me I should make a recommendation to the staff of the infertility clinic that they should set up study carrels in the lobby. For people like me, as well as for all the husbands and partners who sit there and wait while their wives or girlfriends are in some lab having blood drawn.
They should listen to me—I’ve been there enough times to have my own parking space. (Even though the parking in this particular clinic is free, thanks to the joy of a suburban location).
Because who am I if not always working? If I’m not trying to get something done so I can bill the time and meet a client’s deadline, I am always wondering where my blood sugar is, what time I last ate, and calculating what I ate and how many carbs was in it. Yesterday was no exception.
I’ve started to keep daily logs of what I eat and how much insulin I take, despite having a CGM. My overnight sugars, while steady, are consistently above where they should be. I bolus correction factors all night long, and nothing budges. I’ve noticed this for three days and changed the correction factor so that I get more insulin, but no dice. I need to email my doc and ask her WTF? And instead of writing this up at 5am, I am supposed to be on the elliptical we have at our house so I can jumpstart my sluggish blood sugar to start dropping back to where it should be. The slowness of insulin is one of my biggest complaints: If I am high now, why should I have to wait two hours before I start coming down? Knowing I am high and that a correction insulin hit will take a few hours before I am down, annoys me.
(Just checked the CGM, and apparently the hit of insulin I took 30 minutes ago is starting to work. So do I still go on the elliptical, even though I might come down quicker, but them bottom out? Should I try it for ten minutes?) Usually, if I eat and go straight up before an hour after a meal (the joys of a CGM with the trend arrows), I can go on the elliptical and, after about 20-30 minutes, reverse the sharp increase. Now that I am apparently trending downward, slowly, would a burst of exercise help me trend down a little faster?
Let’s see—will be right back. Ten minutes is all I’ll do, promise!
Okay, I’m back. My CGM says I’m still trending down gently. In the meantime, I watched the local news and just got angry about some dumbass flasher in the kids’ room of the library where I grew up—a place I happened to visit this week to return a book. What is the matter with people?!
Focus, focus.
So yesterday, I got the call in the afternoon about the results of my blood work:
HCG level was 556, more than double my result on Monday.
Progesterone was greater than 40, which is good.
My TSH level, something that had been low when I saw my endo about a month ago, has jumped up into the normal range, at 0.579.
Since the HCG level was so strong, I asked if I could be carrying twins. The nurse said I had to wait until the first ultrasound, but that a high number didn’t necessarily mean multiples. But wouldn’t that be the ultimate irony, huh?
But the HCG levels of my last two fresh cycles have always started out low or near normal but never doubled right. So the fact that this round had a strong starting number (comparable to what it was when I conceived Toddler L, who, let’s face it, should now be called Preschooler L) and has more than doubled makes me hopeful.
Now if I could only wrangle these overnight blood sugars down.
We’re off to celebrate my son’s birthday today: annual family portrait, a trip to the local kids’ museum to see Curious George, and tonight, dinner at an Italian restaurant near the Boy’s daycare program. Every morning when we drive by, Preschooler L asks if we can go to the restaurant and get “a kids’ menu.”
“Dude, we just finished breakfast,” I tell him. “Plus, the restaurant isn’t open this early.”
“I want to go to the (NAME OF THE RESTAURANT REDACTED) and get a kid’s menu!” he insists. He doesn’t want a hot dog or grilled cheese at that hour. He only wants to look at the menu that is all his own. Just before the preschool dropoff, though, I can usually divert his attention once we pull into school parking lot.
But tonight, my son shall have the kid’s menu of his dreams. Happy 3rd Birthday, Fabulous Boy!
Friday, June 18, 2010
Two Book Events
I'm thrilled to announce a few new book events to support Balancing Pregnancy With Pre-Existing Diabetes: Healthy Mom, Healthy Baby. I would love to meet you if you're a book fan or a blog reader.
First up is at Isis Parenting in Brookline, MA on Wednesday, June 23 at 7 pm. I'll be speaking on a panel about diabetes and pregnancy that includes the directors of the diabetes and pregnancy program at Boston's Joslin Diabetes Center/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Florence Brown and Tamara Takoudes, as well as an exercise and diabetes expert from Joslin, Jacqueline Shahar. Isis is a terrific resource for expecting and new parents, and I'm a giant fan of the Joslin/BIDMC pregnancy program. (Drs. Brown and Takoudes co-wrote my book's forward, reviewed every word of it for medical accuracy, delivered my son, and are all-around awesome. And Ms. Shahar is an excellent exercise resource who also contributed great pearls of wisdom for my book.)
Isis is asking for people to register for this FREE event here either by calling 781-429-1500 or by going online (look for the June 23 event).
I'll also be speaking solo about the book at the Framingham MA Barnes & Noble on Wednesday, July 14 at 7pm. I'll give more details as things get closer to the date, but mark your calendar now!
And stay tuned for some new blog posts early next week--it's been too quiet around here for too long!
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Back Into It
Last week, I spoke about my new book to a group of women from ACT1 Diabetes, a support group for women with diabetes based in New York City. They are great, and it would be wonderful if there were similar groups or affiliates around the country. We all need as much support as we can find, and the in-person component to such groups is really something. While online support is also fantastic, being able to chat with other women with diabetes in person is a whole other experience.
I was in New York for the ASJA conference as well, but Thursday night was all about meeting some friends before the talk (I have a NYC-based group of pals with type 1, and three of them were able to meet for dinner beforehand. One skipped out on actually eating because of a high blood sugar, but it was great to see all three of them and catch up. I haven't been in NY as a single woman (i.e, without my husband or son) in a long time, and it was nice. The three of them hadn't seen each other in awhile either, and we all gossiped about our former endocrinologist and showed off pictures of our kids.
Then it was off to NYU for my book event. I pushed my old-school granny cart with two boxes of books (something I haven't used since I lived in New York, because, really, everywhere else it's easy to drive and park), and two of my friends came to the talk. There was an interesting mix of people at the talk: my pals, a woman I'd gone to diabetes camp with thirty (!) years ago who is affiliated with ACT1Diabetes, a blogger I've known for years but never met in person, a woman I interviewed for my book but had never met, and a bunch of other Act1Diabetes women who came, some with their fiances or husbands, who wanted to hear more about the book.
Allison at Lemonade Life and Annie at Sweet Child of Mine have both posted their reports of the event, and I'm glad they came away from it with solid insight and good feedback.
I've been sort of lax about maintaining my blog, but meeting with people last week and knowing how active the online world is made me think I should get back to it. So here's a public announcement that I'm going to try to blog semi-regularly again.
The rest of my weekend was filled with seeing other NYC-based pals, and getting all fired up about writing and working after meeting with other writers and editors at ASJA. The only downside to the weekend: talking myself silent. I'm now recovering from laryngitis, and it's hard to network and meet people when you can't speak.
I was in New York for the ASJA conference as well, but Thursday night was all about meeting some friends before the talk (I have a NYC-based group of pals with type 1, and three of them were able to meet for dinner beforehand. One skipped out on actually eating because of a high blood sugar, but it was great to see all three of them and catch up. I haven't been in NY as a single woman (i.e, without my husband or son) in a long time, and it was nice. The three of them hadn't seen each other in awhile either, and we all gossiped about our former endocrinologist and showed off pictures of our kids.
Then it was off to NYU for my book event. I pushed my old-school granny cart with two boxes of books (something I haven't used since I lived in New York, because, really, everywhere else it's easy to drive and park), and two of my friends came to the talk. There was an interesting mix of people at the talk: my pals, a woman I'd gone to diabetes camp with thirty (!) years ago who is affiliated with ACT1Diabetes, a blogger I've known for years but never met in person, a woman I interviewed for my book but had never met, and a bunch of other Act1Diabetes women who came, some with their fiances or husbands, who wanted to hear more about the book.
Allison at Lemonade Life and Annie at Sweet Child of Mine have both posted their reports of the event, and I'm glad they came away from it with solid insight and good feedback.
I've been sort of lax about maintaining my blog, but meeting with people last week and knowing how active the online world is made me think I should get back to it. So here's a public announcement that I'm going to try to blog semi-regularly again.
The rest of my weekend was filled with seeing other NYC-based pals, and getting all fired up about writing and working after meeting with other writers and editors at ASJA. The only downside to the weekend: talking myself silent. I'm now recovering from laryngitis, and it's hard to network and meet people when you can't speak.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Dude, Where's My Pump?
This morning was my fourth blood and ultrasound visit for this IVF cycle.
(For those of you not familiar with the infertility bandwagon, this was my fourth morning visit to my infertility clinic for a blood draw and a vaginal ultrasound with the ever-popular tam-cam. This giant tampon-like camera takes a photo so someone can manually measures the length of the follicles growing on my ovaries. Once the follicles hit a certain number, it's showtime. The next step is triggering ovulation (which will release the eggs growing on the follicles), and then mixing the eggs with the Mister's sperm in a dish to figure out if any of them look good enough to transfer back into me to see if this whole rigamarole actually produces a real pregnancy with an honest-to-God live baby.)
But I digress.
Because the ultrasound is done pants-and-underwear-free, I've been clipping my pump to my bra so it stays out of the way, and has a place to stay. Typically, I always just latch my pump to my waistband or put it in a pocket--don't you?
After the clinic visit, I did a few errands in a blissful morning of being kid-free. The Mister has been taking Toddler L out for errands of his own every Saturday morning--they call them "Boy Errands." This started when I was working this summer and needed more alone time to write, but the pattern has continued even after the work has ended.
Boy Errands typically include heading to Home Depot, the local recycling center, the local gas station (which Toddler L has taken a new liking to. We now drive on the highway and he'll shout out the names of gas stations. Mobil! Hess! Getty! Sunoco! Shell! Our kid knows 'em all). One thing that is not allowed on Boy Errands, Mister L tells me, is me.
This means I had the morning to myself.... and I went out to our local warehouse store so I could stock up on diapers and shelf-stable low-fat milk in individual servings.
But hello! What else is new? I felt low coming on, and my CGM confirmed it. I went to suspend my pump as a way to help bring myself up and.... couldn't find it.
Left pocket? No.
Right pocket? No.
Waistband? Nuh-uh.
Did I leave my pump on the bathroom sink while I was showering?
Oh wait.
There it is--clipped onto my bra underneath three layers of tank top, sweater, and bulky winter coat.
Confusion averted.
(For those of you not familiar with the infertility bandwagon, this was my fourth morning visit to my infertility clinic for a blood draw and a vaginal ultrasound with the ever-popular tam-cam. This giant tampon-like camera takes a photo so someone can manually measures the length of the follicles growing on my ovaries. Once the follicles hit a certain number, it's showtime. The next step is triggering ovulation (which will release the eggs growing on the follicles), and then mixing the eggs with the Mister's sperm in a dish to figure out if any of them look good enough to transfer back into me to see if this whole rigamarole actually produces a real pregnancy with an honest-to-God live baby.)
But I digress.
Because the ultrasound is done pants-and-underwear-free, I've been clipping my pump to my bra so it stays out of the way, and has a place to stay. Typically, I always just latch my pump to my waistband or put it in a pocket--don't you?
After the clinic visit, I did a few errands in a blissful morning of being kid-free. The Mister has been taking Toddler L out for errands of his own every Saturday morning--they call them "Boy Errands." This started when I was working this summer and needed more alone time to write, but the pattern has continued even after the work has ended.
Boy Errands typically include heading to Home Depot, the local recycling center, the local gas station (which Toddler L has taken a new liking to. We now drive on the highway and he'll shout out the names of gas stations. Mobil! Hess! Getty! Sunoco! Shell! Our kid knows 'em all). One thing that is not allowed on Boy Errands, Mister L tells me, is me.
This means I had the morning to myself.... and I went out to our local warehouse store so I could stock up on diapers and shelf-stable low-fat milk in individual servings.
But hello! What else is new? I felt low coming on, and my CGM confirmed it. I went to suspend my pump as a way to help bring myself up and.... couldn't find it.
Left pocket? No.
Right pocket? No.
Waistband? Nuh-uh.
Did I leave my pump on the bathroom sink while I was showering?
Oh wait.
There it is--clipped onto my bra underneath three layers of tank top, sweater, and bulky winter coat.
Confusion averted.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
The Fan Page Is Live/Hello, Low
Balancing Pregnancy With Pre-Existing Diabetes: Healthy Mom, Healthy Baby now has a fan page on Facebook.
Become a fan, won't you?
In other news, I'm on to the stim part of IVF, where I inject a drug that amps up the follicles on my ovaries to create some good eggs. I've gone for two blood and ultrasounds already, and things are progressing as they should, IVF-wise.
WTF? I just tested and my blood sugar is 41. This is after drinking two juice boxes because I felt a little off and noticed my CGM said I was 85.
Great.
This is where I want to eat the entire bag of goldfish that we buy in bulk for our kid.
But from past experience, those little golden cheesy fish taste OK going down but they will send me soaring into the 300s a few hours from now. And the irony is that I don't even like goldfish all that much.
My mom just bought me a bunch of holiday-themed Lifesavers in packs that went on sale immediately after Christmas. I haven't used Lifesavers to treat insulin reactions in awhile but since I have a fistful handy, I'm now chowing a bunch down.
I can't remember a recent post when I've blogged while low, so hopefully this will be intelligible later on after I've posted it.
But yes, back to the fan page. If you're on Facebook these days, do become a fan. For no other reason than to make me happy when I check to see who supports my book and my efforts to illuminate the world about what it takes to do pregnancy with type 1 or type 2 diabetes.
I just thought about that Flo Rida song Low and now wonder if that guy has diabetes. One of the lyrics in the song talks about "Shorty got low, low, low, low, low, low, low." I always thought he was talking about some illicit sexual activity on the floor of some dance club, but now I see clearly how it can apply to an insulin reaction. Get Shorty some Lifesavers! Or a juice box!
(See the brilliance that comes out when my blood sugar plummets?)
Now my CGM is merely reporting a LOW with an arrow pointing right, rather than straight down.
What I've consumed to treat this low:
--Two Fruitables fruit/vegatable juice boxes, 20 grams of carb.
--One handful of goldfish, no idea of the carb count since it comes from giant bag of the stuff we bought at a local warehouse club and I'm not in the mood to figure out how many carbs are in the handful.
--An entire roll of LifeSavers, approximately 11 candies, about 34 grams of carb.
This is way more than the recommended 15 grams of carb you're supposed to take when you first flirt with the low end of normal, which in my pre-pregnancy state is anywhere under 100 or so before bedtime.
Lemme test again....Ah, 66. On the way back up.
And I'm starting to feel somewhat normal again.
My CGM, on the other hand, just alerted me that I am LOW! BUZZ! BUZZ! VIBRATE!
Thanks for sharing.
Now I'll wonder if I'll go super high in an hour from that handful of pesky goldfish. Should I take a small hit of insulin now to counteract the extra carb? Even though I still don't feel quite right. I mean, am I going low again despite all the food?
Now my meter tells me I am 93.
The CGM? Still holding steady at 60.
Technology: why can't it be accurate? I'm only relying on all this stuff to KEEP. ME. ALIVE.
OK, the CGM is noting an upward trend of 91.
Off to bed. I'll hold off on the extra insulin for now.
(Though I just Googled it, and it doesn't appear, on first glance, that the rapper Flo Rida has diabetes. HOWEVER, he has some other song out called Sugar.)
Coincidence?
Become a fan, won't you?
In other news, I'm on to the stim part of IVF, where I inject a drug that amps up the follicles on my ovaries to create some good eggs. I've gone for two blood and ultrasounds already, and things are progressing as they should, IVF-wise.
WTF? I just tested and my blood sugar is 41. This is after drinking two juice boxes because I felt a little off and noticed my CGM said I was 85.
Great.
This is where I want to eat the entire bag of goldfish that we buy in bulk for our kid.
But from past experience, those little golden cheesy fish taste OK going down but they will send me soaring into the 300s a few hours from now. And the irony is that I don't even like goldfish all that much.
My mom just bought me a bunch of holiday-themed Lifesavers in packs that went on sale immediately after Christmas. I haven't used Lifesavers to treat insulin reactions in awhile but since I have a fistful handy, I'm now chowing a bunch down.
I can't remember a recent post when I've blogged while low, so hopefully this will be intelligible later on after I've posted it.
But yes, back to the fan page. If you're on Facebook these days, do become a fan. For no other reason than to make me happy when I check to see who supports my book and my efforts to illuminate the world about what it takes to do pregnancy with type 1 or type 2 diabetes.
I just thought about that Flo Rida song Low and now wonder if that guy has diabetes. One of the lyrics in the song talks about "Shorty got low, low, low, low, low, low, low." I always thought he was talking about some illicit sexual activity on the floor of some dance club, but now I see clearly how it can apply to an insulin reaction. Get Shorty some Lifesavers! Or a juice box!
(See the brilliance that comes out when my blood sugar plummets?)
Now my CGM is merely reporting a LOW with an arrow pointing right, rather than straight down.
What I've consumed to treat this low:
--Two Fruitables fruit/vegatable juice boxes, 20 grams of carb.
--One handful of goldfish, no idea of the carb count since it comes from giant bag of the stuff we bought at a local warehouse club and I'm not in the mood to figure out how many carbs are in the handful.
--An entire roll of LifeSavers, approximately 11 candies, about 34 grams of carb.
This is way more than the recommended 15 grams of carb you're supposed to take when you first flirt with the low end of normal, which in my pre-pregnancy state is anywhere under 100 or so before bedtime.
Lemme test again....Ah, 66. On the way back up.
And I'm starting to feel somewhat normal again.
My CGM, on the other hand, just alerted me that I am LOW! BUZZ! BUZZ! VIBRATE!
Thanks for sharing.
Now I'll wonder if I'll go super high in an hour from that handful of pesky goldfish. Should I take a small hit of insulin now to counteract the extra carb? Even though I still don't feel quite right. I mean, am I going low again despite all the food?
Now my meter tells me I am 93.
The CGM? Still holding steady at 60.
Technology: why can't it be accurate? I'm only relying on all this stuff to KEEP. ME. ALIVE.
OK, the CGM is noting an upward trend of 91.
Off to bed. I'll hold off on the extra insulin for now.
(Though I just Googled it, and it doesn't appear, on first glance, that the rapper Flo Rida has diabetes. HOWEVER, he has some other song out called Sugar.)
Coincidence?
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
It's The Hormones, Duh
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?
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?
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Catching Up
Writing a book has a way of taking over all your free time. But now that the manuscript is in, I can get back to actually blogging again.
It's a bit weird now, because more people I know are aware of this blog, but with the book coming out based on my blog writings, it makes sense to keep on keepin' on.
This month also marks the fourth anniversary of when I began blogging. I sort of miss my blogging heyday when I had stuff to say regularly and lots of people left comments. I miss those comments, people! Then again, writing sporadically over the past few months if not two years will explain the (mostly) radio silence.
There's actually an upcoming event that lends itself to blogging: we're gearing up for another round of IVF.
Though I haven't blogged about it at all, we've been trying for kid number two for ages. People I know who have had their second children months ago conceived after when we first began trying. We did an IVF cycle this past summer, which got me pregnant, but things never progressed properly. The embryo stopped growing around week 5, and soon after, I had a D&E and was just eager to try again. Pregnancy loss that early is quite common, and it took me longer to chase my insurance company for reimbursement for certain out of pocket expenses I paid for up front than it did to recover from the entire experience.
(Jaded much? What can I say--nothing's ever straightforward when it comes to conception and me.)
We also did a frozen embryo transfer in the fall with two embryos that were created back in 2006 when Toddler L was conceived. We had sort of high hopes that since Toddler L is so fabulous, some of his embryonic siblings might be equally great. Alas, not to be: the FET yielded no positive pregnancy test. Our fertility doc told us that our the success rate for an FET is about 15 percent for a woman my age and with my health history, compared to about 30 percent for a fresh embryo transfer. So despite the fact that we still have a pair of 2006 embryos in storage, it's back to IVF.
The fertility doc put me on Metformin, with my Kind Endo's blessing, because he claims the Met helps my hormones stay in order. All I've noticed is that my blood sugars seem a lot less rollercoaster, particularly after meals and during the night. I'm loving Metformin, and I plan to ask my Endo if I can stay on it. Any other type 1 gals out there on Metformin?
Fittingly, my box of IVF meds *just* arrived as I am typing this post.
I'm not sure how many rounds of IVF I'm willing to do after this one. I'm at the point where I fully appreciate the son I have and wouldn't be crushed if he were my only child. I consider myself an IVF vet by now, but I'm pretty weary.
Let's hope the third time's the charm.
It's a bit weird now, because more people I know are aware of this blog, but with the book coming out based on my blog writings, it makes sense to keep on keepin' on.
This month also marks the fourth anniversary of when I began blogging. I sort of miss my blogging heyday when I had stuff to say regularly and lots of people left comments. I miss those comments, people! Then again, writing sporadically over the past few months if not two years will explain the (mostly) radio silence.
There's actually an upcoming event that lends itself to blogging: we're gearing up for another round of IVF.
Though I haven't blogged about it at all, we've been trying for kid number two for ages. People I know who have had their second children months ago conceived after when we first began trying. We did an IVF cycle this past summer, which got me pregnant, but things never progressed properly. The embryo stopped growing around week 5, and soon after, I had a D&E and was just eager to try again. Pregnancy loss that early is quite common, and it took me longer to chase my insurance company for reimbursement for certain out of pocket expenses I paid for up front than it did to recover from the entire experience.
(Jaded much? What can I say--nothing's ever straightforward when it comes to conception and me.)
We also did a frozen embryo transfer in the fall with two embryos that were created back in 2006 when Toddler L was conceived. We had sort of high hopes that since Toddler L is so fabulous, some of his embryonic siblings might be equally great. Alas, not to be: the FET yielded no positive pregnancy test. Our fertility doc told us that our the success rate for an FET is about 15 percent for a woman my age and with my health history, compared to about 30 percent for a fresh embryo transfer. So despite the fact that we still have a pair of 2006 embryos in storage, it's back to IVF.
The fertility doc put me on Metformin, with my Kind Endo's blessing, because he claims the Met helps my hormones stay in order. All I've noticed is that my blood sugars seem a lot less rollercoaster, particularly after meals and during the night. I'm loving Metformin, and I plan to ask my Endo if I can stay on it. Any other type 1 gals out there on Metformin?
Fittingly, my box of IVF meds *just* arrived as I am typing this post.
I'm not sure how many rounds of IVF I'm willing to do after this one. I'm at the point where I fully appreciate the son I have and wouldn't be crushed if he were my only child. I consider myself an IVF vet by now, but I'm pretty weary.
Let's hope the third time's the charm.
Monday, November 09, 2009
Writing, Workouts, and A Winning Idea
I passed in my final book chapter to my editor yesterday.
I still have revisions to do on all the chapters, but they're minor, and shouldn't take too long.
But as a way to celebrate, I decided to take an hour or so and go running at a track near my house. Plus, it is gorgeous here today.
What does this tell you? To celebrate that I've finished writing a chapter, something that kept my ass glued to a chair and my eyes locked on a computer screen for weeks, at late hours and early hours, I want to exercise? I think the truth is that I love to be really engaged in my computer and writing and researching online... but that I also like exercising when I can get the chance to really go hard. For me, running is going hard.
Oh, and also? My ass is pretty big these days from all that chair glue.
I specifically planned to run after lunch so that the meal would help me from going low, a nod to the diabetes. I ate my usual lunch--a mashed avocado with pepper, salt and lemon juice spread onto a whole wheat wrap--and topped it off with a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich--and took half of the insulin I'd normally take.
I also wanted to go to this track, rather than around a route in my neighborhood, so I could leave my meter/cell phone/keys/water bottle/dorky fanny pack at the edge of the track, rather than schlep it all with me. Again: the diabetes influence.
So the exercise was great. I haven't had a decent workout for a while now, mostly because when I thought about it, I'd think about the mountain of book stuff that hadn't gotten done yet. Even now, I'm blogging and I think I should be going over chapter 8 revisions. Or chapter 2. (But not chapter 7--that one's complete!)
I ran (=jogged very very slowly and initially felt calf pains, but I KEPT GOING and they actually went away) for four laps. A whole mile. For me, this was just what I wanted to do and I even felt like I could have kept going. Even though I haven't run in ages.
But my trusty CGM, which started out around 165 at the beginning of this workout (and about an hour post lunch), trended down. 137. 116. Double arrows pointing down at 110.
Oy.
I tested after lap four and my blood sugar was around 91. I drank a juice box I brought specifically for this occasion and started walking around the track. Four laps later, my CGM dipped down to 59, but was on an upward swing of 116 when I left the track.
Now at home, it's hit 200. I correction bolused, and here I am, holding steady five minutes later and waiting for the bolus to kick in (should I go exercise again?)
I've seen people say how they will eat whatever they want if there's ever a cure for type 1 diabetes. Lists of high carb foods that they'll devour without a second thought.
For me, a type 1 cure would really let me work out hard and not have to drink whatever calories I just burned off to keep my blood sugar stable. I might actually lose weight from exercise this way.
I saw my Kind Endocrinologist a few weeks ago and pointed out that since I started trying to have a baby back in 2006, I've put on about 30 pounds. (This includes some pregnancy weight gain, but not all of it. It also includes weight I've lost, and then put on again while trying to keep my blood sugars tight for a potential second pregnancy.) She told me that drinking a cup of juice a day will help you put on ten pounds a year, and that is clearly what's happened here.
I'm not sure what else to do. Does juice have more calories than glucose tabs? Life Savers? I think someone would make a killing if they could make some kind of glucose raiser that doesn't have calories.
And even though I jogged/walked for two miles earlier today, it feels like wasted effort. Because I had to eat something and ingest unwanted calories, and my CGM is buzzing and telling me that I'm stuck at 200.
I still have revisions to do on all the chapters, but they're minor, and shouldn't take too long.
But as a way to celebrate, I decided to take an hour or so and go running at a track near my house. Plus, it is gorgeous here today.
What does this tell you? To celebrate that I've finished writing a chapter, something that kept my ass glued to a chair and my eyes locked on a computer screen for weeks, at late hours and early hours, I want to exercise? I think the truth is that I love to be really engaged in my computer and writing and researching online... but that I also like exercising when I can get the chance to really go hard. For me, running is going hard.
Oh, and also? My ass is pretty big these days from all that chair glue.
I specifically planned to run after lunch so that the meal would help me from going low, a nod to the diabetes. I ate my usual lunch--a mashed avocado with pepper, salt and lemon juice spread onto a whole wheat wrap--and topped it off with a Skinny Cow ice cream sandwich--and took half of the insulin I'd normally take.
I also wanted to go to this track, rather than around a route in my neighborhood, so I could leave my meter/cell phone/keys/water bottle/dorky fanny pack at the edge of the track, rather than schlep it all with me. Again: the diabetes influence.
So the exercise was great. I haven't had a decent workout for a while now, mostly because when I thought about it, I'd think about the mountain of book stuff that hadn't gotten done yet. Even now, I'm blogging and I think I should be going over chapter 8 revisions. Or chapter 2. (But not chapter 7--that one's complete!)
I ran (=jogged very very slowly and initially felt calf pains, but I KEPT GOING and they actually went away) for four laps. A whole mile. For me, this was just what I wanted to do and I even felt like I could have kept going. Even though I haven't run in ages.
But my trusty CGM, which started out around 165 at the beginning of this workout (and about an hour post lunch), trended down. 137. 116. Double arrows pointing down at 110.
Oy.
I tested after lap four and my blood sugar was around 91. I drank a juice box I brought specifically for this occasion and started walking around the track. Four laps later, my CGM dipped down to 59, but was on an upward swing of 116 when I left the track.
Now at home, it's hit 200. I correction bolused, and here I am, holding steady five minutes later and waiting for the bolus to kick in (should I go exercise again?)
I've seen people say how they will eat whatever they want if there's ever a cure for type 1 diabetes. Lists of high carb foods that they'll devour without a second thought.
For me, a type 1 cure would really let me work out hard and not have to drink whatever calories I just burned off to keep my blood sugar stable. I might actually lose weight from exercise this way.
I saw my Kind Endocrinologist a few weeks ago and pointed out that since I started trying to have a baby back in 2006, I've put on about 30 pounds. (This includes some pregnancy weight gain, but not all of it. It also includes weight I've lost, and then put on again while trying to keep my blood sugars tight for a potential second pregnancy.) She told me that drinking a cup of juice a day will help you put on ten pounds a year, and that is clearly what's happened here.
I'm not sure what else to do. Does juice have more calories than glucose tabs? Life Savers? I think someone would make a killing if they could make some kind of glucose raiser that doesn't have calories.
And even though I jogged/walked for two miles earlier today, it feels like wasted effort. Because I had to eat something and ingest unwanted calories, and my CGM is buzzing and telling me that I'm stuck at 200.
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
That (*&^* Sensor...
So I went all rebel with the new Dexcom sensor and used it for nine days instead of the company-recommended seven days. In part this was because I'd heard the sensors last longer than the company says it will, and in part because I was freaked out about putting a new sensor again.
Yesterday, my meter told me I was one reading while the Dexcom's reading was about seventy points lower. I figured it was time to (wo)man up and insert a new sensor.
So I gathered the new sensor, an alcohol swab, and the detailed directions that come from the manufacturer. I washed my hands. I read everything over.
And then I started to sweat.
I mean, this is a company I've never dealt with before, so all the terminology is new to me. Plus, I've been manually inserting my Silhouette infusion sets for nine years with my insulin pump. You'd think I'd be comfortable with something new to inject.
But the Dexcom inserter is this big plastic thing with "collars" and "pods". I can't just manually insert it; I have to push on this handle and because I typically do things slowly, I can feel the needle pierce my skin. There are plastic parts that are supposed to break off and then the part that actually sends information to the piece of technology that tells you what your sugars are is something separate that snaps into the part that's just pierced your skin.
I mean, it's a whole new way of doing things for me.
And yesterday afternoon, I was just scared of getting everything inserted properly.
So I swabbed my abdomen, choosing this time to pick the flabbiest part so that perhaps the sting would be cushioned. (Fat is definitely your friend when injecting or inserting something, I've learned). I scrutinized the directions.
I pushed the plunger to inject myself.
It hurt, but not quite as much as it did last week.
Then, oy, WTF. You have to break away all this extra plastic so that the sensor is lying flat against your skin. And when I looked down, part of the sensor wasn't lying flat against my skin. I can't even tell you what it's official name is, but when I saw it, I was like, "Great. I just wasted a brand new sensor."
I called the tech support number for Dexcom and quickly got a nice woman on the phone who assured me that everything was fine as I'd done it. I just needed to slide the transmitter into the part that was on skin. That took another five minutes of anguish when I seriously couldn't figure out why the transmitter was so effing hard to snap into place.
I thanked the woman and apologized for my angst, but seriously, is it this hard for everyone else when they first started injecting these sensors?
Yesterday, my meter told me I was one reading while the Dexcom's reading was about seventy points lower. I figured it was time to (wo)man up and insert a new sensor.
So I gathered the new sensor, an alcohol swab, and the detailed directions that come from the manufacturer. I washed my hands. I read everything over.
And then I started to sweat.
I mean, this is a company I've never dealt with before, so all the terminology is new to me. Plus, I've been manually inserting my Silhouette infusion sets for nine years with my insulin pump. You'd think I'd be comfortable with something new to inject.
But the Dexcom inserter is this big plastic thing with "collars" and "pods". I can't just manually insert it; I have to push on this handle and because I typically do things slowly, I can feel the needle pierce my skin. There are plastic parts that are supposed to break off and then the part that actually sends information to the piece of technology that tells you what your sugars are is something separate that snaps into the part that's just pierced your skin.
I mean, it's a whole new way of doing things for me.
And yesterday afternoon, I was just scared of getting everything inserted properly.
So I swabbed my abdomen, choosing this time to pick the flabbiest part so that perhaps the sting would be cushioned. (Fat is definitely your friend when injecting or inserting something, I've learned). I scrutinized the directions.
I pushed the plunger to inject myself.
It hurt, but not quite as much as it did last week.
Then, oy, WTF. You have to break away all this extra plastic so that the sensor is lying flat against your skin. And when I looked down, part of the sensor wasn't lying flat against my skin. I can't even tell you what it's official name is, but when I saw it, I was like, "Great. I just wasted a brand new sensor."
I called the tech support number for Dexcom and quickly got a nice woman on the phone who assured me that everything was fine as I'd done it. I just needed to slide the transmitter into the part that was on skin. That took another five minutes of anguish when I seriously couldn't figure out why the transmitter was so effing hard to snap into place.
I thanked the woman and apologized for my angst, but seriously, is it this hard for everyone else when they first started injecting these sensors?
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Sensor Sensitivity
My insurance company finally made the decision to cover continuous glucose monitors.
I didn't waste any time.
I did a week trial of the Dexcom Seven Plus, liked it, and ordered one for myself.
It arrived a few days ago.
Today, I started using the Dex officially, after a rep came to my house and showed me exactly how to put in a sensor and hook the thing up.
I'm used to manually inserting my pump infusion sets, and I typically go really slow when injecting something.
When I tried that today with the Dexcom sensor inserter, it hurt.
Like four-letter-word hurt.
I'm glad I only have to insert these things every week (or longer, depending how long the sensor will last.)
But any advice? Those sensors sort of scare me right now.
I didn't waste any time.
I did a week trial of the Dexcom Seven Plus, liked it, and ordered one for myself.
It arrived a few days ago.
Today, I started using the Dex officially, after a rep came to my house and showed me exactly how to put in a sensor and hook the thing up.
I'm used to manually inserting my pump infusion sets, and I typically go really slow when injecting something.
When I tried that today with the Dexcom sensor inserter, it hurt.
Like four-letter-word hurt.
I'm glad I only have to insert these things every week (or longer, depending how long the sensor will last.)
But any advice? Those sensors sort of scare me right now.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Checks
Oh, how I have fallen off the blogging bandwagon.
I was reading some of my old posts last night and marveled at how frequently I wrote and how long the posts were. Clearly, those were my pre-child and pre-book days.
Things are the usual over here. Our son is two and totally keeps us hopping. He is a total chatterbox, loves to go to the ATM (which he calls the AEM). Every time we drive or walk by an ATM, or he sees the Bank of America logo somewhere, he shouts "AEM! Checks! Deposit!"
It's a big treat for him to walk with me to the ATM and watch me deposit a check. I wish I got as many as he seems to think I have.
Next week he starts two days of a local summer camp to go along with the three days of daycare he's already in. This is so I can have solid time every day to work on my diabetes and pregnancy book. It's moving along, but my deadline is fast approaching, and currently, I'm not writing fast enough to meet it. August is going to totally suck.
The book, when I finally sign off on a chapter, feels great. However, there's always something else I can be doing, and I always have something hanging over my head. Sort of like diabetes itself, I suppose.
Along those lines, I had a bit of a freakout last week when Baby L (who should really be called Toddler L now) slept really late one morning (I mean, 'til 9:30 am, which is unheard of). His diaper, no surpise, was soaked. Since I had such a great specimen, as it were, I took out a Ketostix and pressed it into the diaper.
The result was Trace.
Oy vey.
I immediately called his pediatrician's office and asked to speak to a nurse or a doctor about it. I explained my history, my reasoning for why I even have a bottle of Ketostix by my son's diaper changing area, and was promptly put on hold.
I did a quick Google search on Trace Ketones in Toddlers, but didn't get much back. Instead, the hold went on and on and I hung up. Toddler L was clamoring to watch Sesame Street on my laptop, his latest favorite thing. I set him up with Elmo and Abby Cadabby, changed the lancet out of my kit and gave everything a good swipe with alcohol.
I didn't want to do it, but I figured I could find things out quicker on my own.
I pricked his finger and tested his blood sugar. He cried and said "No More!" when the lancet went into his finger. I felt bad.
5
4
3
2
1
His result was 78.
I was thrilled.
I kissed his head and immediately called back the doctor's office and finally got a nurse on the phone. She assured me, as this office has in the past, that he didn't seem to be showing major signs of diabetes, and actually had the nerve to say the Ketostix for home use aren't always accurate. (But they're accurate enough for pregnant diabetic women to pee on them every morning, but I digress.) As long as his blood sugar was 78, the trace ketones could be explained away because he slept for so long, he hadn't eaten in a long while and ketones sometimes appear that way.
It seemed reasonable to me. But I will absolutely continue to check his urine if it's easy to do so.
Just as I'll keep writing with my eye on the deadline down the road. And with any luck, people who don't know me will actually buy this book.
And hopefully that will bring me some more checks so my son and I can entertain ourself depositing them at the AEM.
I was reading some of my old posts last night and marveled at how frequently I wrote and how long the posts were. Clearly, those were my pre-child and pre-book days.
Things are the usual over here. Our son is two and totally keeps us hopping. He is a total chatterbox, loves to go to the ATM (which he calls the AEM). Every time we drive or walk by an ATM, or he sees the Bank of America logo somewhere, he shouts "AEM! Checks! Deposit!"
It's a big treat for him to walk with me to the ATM and watch me deposit a check. I wish I got as many as he seems to think I have.
Next week he starts two days of a local summer camp to go along with the three days of daycare he's already in. This is so I can have solid time every day to work on my diabetes and pregnancy book. It's moving along, but my deadline is fast approaching, and currently, I'm not writing fast enough to meet it. August is going to totally suck.
The book, when I finally sign off on a chapter, feels great. However, there's always something else I can be doing, and I always have something hanging over my head. Sort of like diabetes itself, I suppose.
Along those lines, I had a bit of a freakout last week when Baby L (who should really be called Toddler L now) slept really late one morning (I mean, 'til 9:30 am, which is unheard of). His diaper, no surpise, was soaked. Since I had such a great specimen, as it were, I took out a Ketostix and pressed it into the diaper.
The result was Trace.
Oy vey.
I immediately called his pediatrician's office and asked to speak to a nurse or a doctor about it. I explained my history, my reasoning for why I even have a bottle of Ketostix by my son's diaper changing area, and was promptly put on hold.
I did a quick Google search on Trace Ketones in Toddlers, but didn't get much back. Instead, the hold went on and on and I hung up. Toddler L was clamoring to watch Sesame Street on my laptop, his latest favorite thing. I set him up with Elmo and Abby Cadabby, changed the lancet out of my kit and gave everything a good swipe with alcohol.
I didn't want to do it, but I figured I could find things out quicker on my own.
I pricked his finger and tested his blood sugar. He cried and said "No More!" when the lancet went into his finger. I felt bad.
5
4
3
2
1
His result was 78.
I was thrilled.
I kissed his head and immediately called back the doctor's office and finally got a nurse on the phone. She assured me, as this office has in the past, that he didn't seem to be showing major signs of diabetes, and actually had the nerve to say the Ketostix for home use aren't always accurate. (But they're accurate enough for pregnant diabetic women to pee on them every morning, but I digress.) As long as his blood sugar was 78, the trace ketones could be explained away because he slept for so long, he hadn't eaten in a long while and ketones sometimes appear that way.
It seemed reasonable to me. But I will absolutely continue to check his urine if it's easy to do so.
Just as I'll keep writing with my eye on the deadline down the road. And with any luck, people who don't know me will actually buy this book.
And hopefully that will bring me some more checks so my son and I can entertain ourself depositing them at the AEM.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)