Friday evening I went into the endocrinologist for my every three week diabetes and pregnancy appointment only to have her announce I need to come in every two weeks AND call her every few days. Thus far in this pregnancy when I've had issues with my blood sugars, I've just adjusted my own pump rates and rolled out without continuous help from a medical professional. But now that the placenta is making me increasingly insulin resistant on a reliably horrid three-to-four day cycle the fine tuning that goes into making my sugars just right is requiring a collaborative effort.
I guess it's a positive thing that she wants to be more involved and to help make sure that my tight control continues to be tight, but, realistically speaking, you could say that I am both insulin and assistance resistant... my independent, "I've got this" nature doesn't really serve me well in such situations. I mean after 3+ years of marriage I am still learning to accept HB's assistance when he offers it and since I've only been diabetic for a year and a half-ish, it's just weird to be giving someone that kind of trust and input.
Okay, yeah, I know that is what I am paying her for and I appreciate that she is taking the initiative to push me, but it's a source of self-pride that I've done most of my diabetes care on my own with the help of medical professionals limited to writing necessary prescriptions. Setting pride aside, I can rationalize and am working to accept that she's here to help limit the high bgs I don't want to subject Baby to and to prevent the low bgs that are increasingly dangerous due to the risk of falling in the third trimester. Makes sense, right? And any way, since my endocrinologist isn't associated with the hospital I'll be delivering Baby at, I'll gain 100% of my diabetes independence back for game time any way and that's a fair trade off in my head.
On a different note, the big problem I had with my appointment on Friday was that it took almost a hour for me to get back in to see the doctor. I was the last appointment of the day, so I understand that earlier delays in the day in combination with exhaustion makes for an expectable lack of promptness but when the office requires that all insulin pump users suspend and remove their pumps upon arrival so that they can download all of the data for their charts the delays can be irritating. So while I was able to remain patient for their tardiness, I was surprisingly anxious and grumpy about my pump being disconnected so long.
HB couldn't help laughing at me for this because of my inconsistency - on one hand liking to take my pump off during infusion changes and on the other hand being visibly uncomfortable with my nakedness without it at the doctors office. And while he has a point, I have to argue that it's completely different circumstances and reasons... at home, I voluntarily take off my pump and I make the choice to actively protest my pancreas; at the doctors office, I involuntarily take it off because of their data necessity. The purpose of having it off is disparate and both situations introduce vastly different emotional mind sets... so, yes, I love not wearing my pump, but of course I feel naked without it.
Really, what else have you come to expect from me?
Any way, we'll see what my sugars do the next couple days and how the call with the doc goes on Monday. I anticipate I wont be getting out of this an every few day phone call... ug... so God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change and just move on.
Showing posts with label insulin resistance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label insulin resistance. Show all posts
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Ridiculous!
What you hear me say out loud: "Huh."
What you'd hear if you were in my head: "What the bleep do you bleeping mean you bleeping stupid meter! Why the bleep is my bleeping blood sugar so bleepity-bleep-bleep-bleep-bleeping high?!"
The past three days have been absolute blood sugar hell. I haven't been on track with my blood sugars nearly as often as my mental commentary has been inappropriately explicit in my opinion of them. The last two nights in a row I've shot up into the 260s and even with active insulin in my system my body isn't responding to the "excess insulin" I'm rage bolusing to cover down on it.
Take last night as an example, I made this amazing poulet au porto rissoto a la Julia Child (yum) and I measured out my serving so as to bolus appropriately. Two hours later as my pump is reminding me to check my sugars, I see the numbers 186 mg/dl come on the screen of my meter. Knowing that is high but will typically come down with the remaining active insulin, I let the high slide and decided to check again an hour later to make sure things were headed in the right direction. So an hour later my meter reads 262 mg/dl and my jaw just hits the floor (probably making room for the commentary in my head to fall out my mouth). The active insulin did nothing to fight off that high! So I rage bolused an additional 2.0 units of insulin to force my sugars lower sooner rather than later and set my alarm clock to wake me up in another hour to check on the progress... So off goes my alarm clock and I check my sugars again and they've barely moved down to 216 mg/dl. Frustrated beyond belief I bolus an additional 1.0 unit and set my alarm clock again, which I admittedly slept through until morning. But when I woke up, my sugars were still above 100 mg/dl and my morning target numbers are between 60 and 90 mg/dl...
BOO HISS!!
As I've discussed before, such numbers are either indicative of carb miscalculations or insulin resistance as a result of pregnancy. I've been really careful about my carb counting, so that means that the insulin resistance I've been expecting is off to an aggressive start... to fix this, I've decreased my carb ratios for almost all of my meals. Pre-pregnancy my bolus ratios were roughly 22 grams of carbs per 1 unit of insulin, but now I'm down to 12 grams of carbs per 1 unit of insulin. I've also increased my all of basal rates (the body doesn't need the same amount of basal insulin all the time for various reasons such as the dawn phenomenon) by several many tenths of a unit which has added up. Pre-pregnancy my basal rates amounted to a daily total of 8 units of insulin and now I'm up to 11 units of insulin.
For those of you who aren't diabetic and aren't hypersensitive to the daily statistics of your life, such increases in insulin dependence are overwhelming (insulin:diabetics :: gold:pan miners). The scary part is that I have somewhere between 8 and 12 more weeks of insulin resistance to work through, so these abnormally high glucose readings will persist and my increasing usage of insulin will continue until the placenta is delivered.
Again, say it with me now: BOO HISS!!
The good news is that as of the appointment I had earlier in the week, I've been cleared to "exercise" again and that is another tool I can use to combat high glucose readings. By hopping on the stair stepper and creeping along at a slow enough rate to keep my pulse at 140 beats per minute or lower, I can slowly but surely drop my blood glucose over the course of a half an hour from "exertion." Unfortunately, with such high readings as the 260s, the risk is that I am spilling ketones and at that point exercise will only make my sugars go higher rather than helping me to correct. So this additional solution is only helpful if I am at a lower high than the excessive numbers I've seen lately...
I am extremely relieved that I have another endocrinology appointment this next week to get some professional help to fix these issues. From my understanding, I can pretty much expect my insulin requirements and bg numbers to be changing on a daily (or even hourly) basis, so at least one day this week I'll have exactly-exactly what the doctor prescribes.
What you'd hear if you were in my head: "What the bleep do you bleeping mean you bleeping stupid meter! Why the bleep is my bleeping blood sugar so bleepity-bleep-bleep-bleep-bleeping high?!"
The past three days have been absolute blood sugar hell. I haven't been on track with my blood sugars nearly as often as my mental commentary has been inappropriately explicit in my opinion of them. The last two nights in a row I've shot up into the 260s and even with active insulin in my system my body isn't responding to the "excess insulin" I'm rage bolusing to cover down on it.
Take last night as an example, I made this amazing poulet au porto rissoto a la Julia Child (yum) and I measured out my serving so as to bolus appropriately. Two hours later as my pump is reminding me to check my sugars, I see the numbers 186 mg/dl come on the screen of my meter. Knowing that is high but will typically come down with the remaining active insulin, I let the high slide and decided to check again an hour later to make sure things were headed in the right direction. So an hour later my meter reads 262 mg/dl and my jaw just hits the floor (probably making room for the commentary in my head to fall out my mouth). The active insulin did nothing to fight off that high! So I rage bolused an additional 2.0 units of insulin to force my sugars lower sooner rather than later and set my alarm clock to wake me up in another hour to check on the progress... So off goes my alarm clock and I check my sugars again and they've barely moved down to 216 mg/dl. Frustrated beyond belief I bolus an additional 1.0 unit and set my alarm clock again, which I admittedly slept through until morning. But when I woke up, my sugars were still above 100 mg/dl and my morning target numbers are between 60 and 90 mg/dl...
BOO HISS!!
As I've discussed before, such numbers are either indicative of carb miscalculations or insulin resistance as a result of pregnancy. I've been really careful about my carb counting, so that means that the insulin resistance I've been expecting is off to an aggressive start... to fix this, I've decreased my carb ratios for almost all of my meals. Pre-pregnancy my bolus ratios were roughly 22 grams of carbs per 1 unit of insulin, but now I'm down to 12 grams of carbs per 1 unit of insulin. I've also increased my all of basal rates (the body doesn't need the same amount of basal insulin all the time for various reasons such as the dawn phenomenon) by several many tenths of a unit which has added up. Pre-pregnancy my basal rates amounted to a daily total of 8 units of insulin and now I'm up to 11 units of insulin.
For those of you who aren't diabetic and aren't hypersensitive to the daily statistics of your life, such increases in insulin dependence are overwhelming (insulin:diabetics :: gold:pan miners). The scary part is that I have somewhere between 8 and 12 more weeks of insulin resistance to work through, so these abnormally high glucose readings will persist and my increasing usage of insulin will continue until the placenta is delivered.
Again, say it with me now: BOO HISS!!
The good news is that as of the appointment I had earlier in the week, I've been cleared to "exercise" again and that is another tool I can use to combat high glucose readings. By hopping on the stair stepper and creeping along at a slow enough rate to keep my pulse at 140 beats per minute or lower, I can slowly but surely drop my blood glucose over the course of a half an hour from "exertion." Unfortunately, with such high readings as the 260s, the risk is that I am spilling ketones and at that point exercise will only make my sugars go higher rather than helping me to correct. So this additional solution is only helpful if I am at a lower high than the excessive numbers I've seen lately...
I am extremely relieved that I have another endocrinology appointment this next week to get some professional help to fix these issues. From my understanding, I can pretty much expect my insulin requirements and bg numbers to be changing on a daily (or even hourly) basis, so at least one day this week I'll have exactly-exactly what the doctor prescribes.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Agh!
So there are points in each of our lives when we all have one of those moments/days/weeks/whatever that just aren't going in our favor. You know what I am talking about - the day you wake up already late for work, get a speeding ticket on the drive in, have a fight with a friend over lunch and manage to drop a meatball down the front of your white dress right before an important briefing and then you get home to discover your pooch ate the heel off the left shoe of your favorite pair of heels - you know, those days. I've felt like things have been going pretty well lately - nothing new to report with the pregnancy, grades came back from Middlebury and were where I wanted them, and HB and GW are well all things considered - and I have been fighting the good fight to good effect. But then, out of the blue, diabetes struck again!
I don't know what it is about the last couple days, yesterday in particular, but my sugars have been all over the map. One minute I am slightly low and my body is exhibiting major hypoglycemia symptoms (seriously, last night I could have been running a marathon in 150 degree weather given how fast my heart was pounding and how hot I felt) and the next my sugars are soaring higher than I've seen in I don't know how long. All I can figure is that one of the following has to be true: A) I've been off on my carb counting; B) my insulin resistence is ramping up; or, C) my body just plain does not know what to do about the specific carbs I've been eating.
It's probably a combination of all of the above at any given point, but it is frustrating none the less. I mean to vasilate between correcting a low with my three (yes, repeat that, three) starburst and then rage bolusing (this means injecting extra "unnecessary" insulin to correct for a high faster than waiting for active insulin to work) to correct the unexpected high is simply obnoxious. I'm sure there are those out there thinking some extremely useful thought like "well, just eat two starbursts, dummy" and while you might have a point, it's times like this that I'm sooooooooo not interested in commentary about what I should or could do better with my diet or diabetes management. No offense meant, but let it be known I beat myself up enough over abnormal blood glucose numbers for all of us thank you very much.
The cherry on top of my bad diabetes day yesterday was in the middle of the Sound of Music Sing-A-Long HB, GW and I went to (oh so much fun!!) my pump freaks the heck out and reads the stop-you-dead-in-your-tracks, armagedon-is-upon-us, you've-got-to-be-kidding-me error code: "motor error." AGH!! So while the thousands of people around me were belting The Hills Are Alive while Maria is twirling on the big screen, I go into pre-panic mode and have to reset my pump all the while hoping to God that the mechanics of my pump really aren't failing. Exposing my huge belly to the crowd to disconnect the infusion site, I removed the resevoir from the pump and held my breath as I watched the piston rewind back into the gear box. It beeped - rewind successful. I reinserted my old, still full resevoir into the pump and went through the key stoke commands to reset it and watched it intently for additional problems. And - thank God - it worked fine. I exposed my belly again to hook it back up and promptly joined in the chorus of nuns and would-be-nuns in "hallelujahs!" (Thank you to the male-mother superior sitting in front of us for the extra blessing, ha.)
Okay, so maybe that wasn't an actual cherry on top of that particularly bad bg day, but those heart-racing moments of concern that my plastic, artificial insulin life line had been cut off scared the boohockey out of me. Granted, I have back up insulin in the pen form back at the house and I'm not completely in over my head if my pump does actually fail, but seeing as I'm not always home, I don't carry my insulin pens with me (they need to be refrigerated) and time without active basal insulin in my system is not healthy time for the baby, I would really rather not need to go there. Further more, I've fine tuned my diabetes care to the point that my bolus doses are within 0.05 units of exactly where I need them to be at any given moment... with an insulin pen, you can only dose in whole numbers thus requiring too little or too much insulin. Let it be sufficient to say that without the pump, I am pretty sure my diabetes management and my sanity would be out the window.
I know that Medtronic has a 24 hour emergency hotline for full on pancreas crisises like that and that they would have either fixed my pump or gotten a new one to me as fast as FedEx can move it, so it's not the end of the world to have it break. But given the cost of replacing it, the efficacy of treatment on the pump and the necessity - at this point in the pregnancy in particular - to be as close to non-diabetic as a type 1 can get, I'd really just rather not go there.
Needless to say I said several many more diabetes related prayers this morning at mass and increased my morning bolus ratio and my afternoon basal ratio to hopefully combat any resistance issues I'm starting to face. From the other pregnancy and diabetes blogs that I follow, it seems to be pretty typical that things get a bit out of hand right about now and continue to deteriorate as the third trimester approaches and wears on. Hopefully I'll get to expereince the frustration of third-trimester insulin woes for several many weeks and Baby will be delivered after wk 36, but we'll just have to see how all of this unfolds.
I head into the endocrinologist tomorrow morning for my first A1C check up since early this summer and I anticipate that it will be a good number. I've only had issues the last several days and the past three months have been solid, so we'll see where that officially puts me in the rankings...
I don't know what it is about the last couple days, yesterday in particular, but my sugars have been all over the map. One minute I am slightly low and my body is exhibiting major hypoglycemia symptoms (seriously, last night I could have been running a marathon in 150 degree weather given how fast my heart was pounding and how hot I felt) and the next my sugars are soaring higher than I've seen in I don't know how long. All I can figure is that one of the following has to be true: A) I've been off on my carb counting; B) my insulin resistence is ramping up; or, C) my body just plain does not know what to do about the specific carbs I've been eating.
It's probably a combination of all of the above at any given point, but it is frustrating none the less. I mean to vasilate between correcting a low with my three (yes, repeat that, three) starburst and then rage bolusing (this means injecting extra "unnecessary" insulin to correct for a high faster than waiting for active insulin to work) to correct the unexpected high is simply obnoxious. I'm sure there are those out there thinking some extremely useful thought like "well, just eat two starbursts, dummy" and while you might have a point, it's times like this that I'm sooooooooo not interested in commentary about what I should or could do better with my diet or diabetes management. No offense meant, but let it be known I beat myself up enough over abnormal blood glucose numbers for all of us thank you very much.
The cherry on top of my bad diabetes day yesterday was in the middle of the Sound of Music Sing-A-Long HB, GW and I went to (oh so much fun!!) my pump freaks the heck out and reads the stop-you-dead-in-your-tracks, armagedon-is-upon-us, you've-got-to-be-kidding-me error code: "motor error." AGH!! So while the thousands of people around me were belting The Hills Are Alive while Maria is twirling on the big screen, I go into pre-panic mode and have to reset my pump all the while hoping to God that the mechanics of my pump really aren't failing. Exposing my huge belly to the crowd to disconnect the infusion site, I removed the resevoir from the pump and held my breath as I watched the piston rewind back into the gear box. It beeped - rewind successful. I reinserted my old, still full resevoir into the pump and went through the key stoke commands to reset it and watched it intently for additional problems. And - thank God - it worked fine. I exposed my belly again to hook it back up and promptly joined in the chorus of nuns and would-be-nuns in "hallelujahs!" (Thank you to the male-mother superior sitting in front of us for the extra blessing, ha.)
Okay, so maybe that wasn't an actual cherry on top of that particularly bad bg day, but those heart-racing moments of concern that my plastic, artificial insulin life line had been cut off scared the boohockey out of me. Granted, I have back up insulin in the pen form back at the house and I'm not completely in over my head if my pump does actually fail, but seeing as I'm not always home, I don't carry my insulin pens with me (they need to be refrigerated) and time without active basal insulin in my system is not healthy time for the baby, I would really rather not need to go there. Further more, I've fine tuned my diabetes care to the point that my bolus doses are within 0.05 units of exactly where I need them to be at any given moment... with an insulin pen, you can only dose in whole numbers thus requiring too little or too much insulin. Let it be sufficient to say that without the pump, I am pretty sure my diabetes management and my sanity would be out the window.
I know that Medtronic has a 24 hour emergency hotline for full on pancreas crisises like that and that they would have either fixed my pump or gotten a new one to me as fast as FedEx can move it, so it's not the end of the world to have it break. But given the cost of replacing it, the efficacy of treatment on the pump and the necessity - at this point in the pregnancy in particular - to be as close to non-diabetic as a type 1 can get, I'd really just rather not go there.
Needless to say I said several many more diabetes related prayers this morning at mass and increased my morning bolus ratio and my afternoon basal ratio to hopefully combat any resistance issues I'm starting to face. From the other pregnancy and diabetes blogs that I follow, it seems to be pretty typical that things get a bit out of hand right about now and continue to deteriorate as the third trimester approaches and wears on. Hopefully I'll get to expereince the frustration of third-trimester insulin woes for several many weeks and Baby will be delivered after wk 36, but we'll just have to see how all of this unfolds.
I head into the endocrinologist tomorrow morning for my first A1C check up since early this summer and I anticipate that it will be a good number. I've only had issues the last several days and the past three months have been solid, so we'll see where that officially puts me in the rankings...
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Update amid chaos...
Sorry for the hiatus everyone - between final papers for class and getting back home to Virginia it has been a crazy week and a half. I am hoping to sit down and have some time on Sunday to answer a couple questions people have sent in... so bear with me. I will also be posting a new Baby update after I head to the perinatologist on Tuesday to actually get answers that I've been missing for the last six weeks. At the end of the month I check in with my endocrinologist in person and should have an updated HgA1C at that point.
I have time for one quick funny story now though... Last week, I was talking with my endocrinologist over the phone about my blood sugars and she asked me if I was having any trouble with resistance. After week twenty in a pregnancy - I am almost to week 23 - insulin requirements go up and up and up because of the sponge like nature of the placenta, so her question is logical and will be increasingly more common until November. Well, at that point, I was able to articulately answer that "no, things are just fine" and that "no fine tuning is necessary." Knowing full well that God and my pancreas have a funny and sometimes sick sense of humor, the next day my sugars were all sorts of out of whack... a day early and a dose short, eh?
Let the reindeer games begin!
I have time for one quick funny story now though... Last week, I was talking with my endocrinologist over the phone about my blood sugars and she asked me if I was having any trouble with resistance. After week twenty in a pregnancy - I am almost to week 23 - insulin requirements go up and up and up because of the sponge like nature of the placenta, so her question is logical and will be increasingly more common until November. Well, at that point, I was able to articulately answer that "no, things are just fine" and that "no fine tuning is necessary." Knowing full well that God and my pancreas have a funny and sometimes sick sense of humor, the next day my sugars were all sorts of out of whack... a day early and a dose short, eh?
Let the reindeer games begin!
Thursday, June 28, 2012
So I've made the announcement...
As of this past week, everyone who knows me personally should know that I am expecting baby number two. My husband and I are very excited about this and can't wait to meet "Baby" (our name for him/her) later this year! My due date is December 11, 2012.
The thing about this pregnancy, unlike the first one, is that this go around I am diabetic. I can't tell you why or how my body's islet cells continued to function properly under the stress of pregnancy back in 2009, but the reality is I will never have a "normal pregnancy" again. From here on out, all pregnancies I may have are considered to be "high risk" due to the elevated probability for birth defects and other complications caused by insulin dependence.
To be completely honest I've spent much of the past year and half since my diagnosis worrying about the implications of pre-existing diabetes to my subsequent pregnancies. I've done quite a bit of extensive reading on the topic to arm myself with the knowledge necessary to make the most informed decisions about building our family and I feel like I've formed the best possible medical team I can for my location to help me get through it. It still scares me to think that my body can harm the precious thing growing in me, but all I can do is be aware of my own actions and what they mean for the baby.
Comprehensively explaining the complex biological issue of diabetes in pregnancy is best left to the professionals, but for those who are curious the most basic implications are:
That being said, my husband (HB) and I worked extensively with my medical team for five months prior to conception to get my blood sugars under tight control and to get all aspects of my medical profile up to best possible condition before adding the complication of pregnancy. I got my HgA1C down to 5.2 (the best number I have had yet) and, God willing, that number reduces the risk of diabetes caused birth defects to normal pregnancy standards. In order to maintain this reduction in risk, the doctors have given me a ceiling of 120 mg/dl or less for my 2 hour postprandial blood glucose readings... which FYI is wicked tight control. So far, I'm doing pretty well by testing 10+ times a day and my numbers have been relatively consistent in the 65-120 mg/dl range with the occasional unexpected high reading. I will say though, my insulin usage so far has gone from roughly 18 units a day to about 45 units a day... we'll see what my ratios and numbers are as the second trimester wears on and the placenta begins to work its oh-so-unappreciated-magic of insulin resistance.
One thing I am really enjoying about being diabetic at this point is that I get a sonogram almost every appt. With GW (my son) I had four ultrasounds throughout the entire pregnancy, but at only 16 weeks along in this pregnancy I've already had four and expect two more in the next month or so. By the third trimester I can expect bi-weekly sonograms and stress test to check in on the baby, so I know he/she is in good hands and I am thrilled that I get to see the development a bit more closely this go around.
The final thing that I think ought to be shared at this point (more to follow over the next several months of course) is that because of the third point listed above, the doctors will not be allowing me to deliver the baby after 39 weeks of gestation (first week of December). This means that based on what they find with the ultrasounds in that final trimester, they will either schedule me to be induced or (if necessary) to have a c-section before the baby is full term. Ideally the baby will stay put as long as possible, but we'll just have to wait and see what happens come November. (I am secretly hoping for a Thanksgiving baby, just don't tell the Doc on call for that day... ha).
All for now. I head to the doctor tomorrow again tomorrow, so I'll report back soon on how Baby is doing.
The thing about this pregnancy, unlike the first one, is that this go around I am diabetic. I can't tell you why or how my body's islet cells continued to function properly under the stress of pregnancy back in 2009, but the reality is I will never have a "normal pregnancy" again. From here on out, all pregnancies I may have are considered to be "high risk" due to the elevated probability for birth defects and other complications caused by insulin dependence.
To be completely honest I've spent much of the past year and half since my diagnosis worrying about the implications of pre-existing diabetes to my subsequent pregnancies. I've done quite a bit of extensive reading on the topic to arm myself with the knowledge necessary to make the most informed decisions about building our family and I feel like I've formed the best possible medical team I can for my location to help me get through it. It still scares me to think that my body can harm the precious thing growing in me, but all I can do is be aware of my own actions and what they mean for the baby.
Comprehensively explaining the complex biological issue of diabetes in pregnancy is best left to the professionals, but for those who are curious the most basic implications are:
- Poor blood sugar control (an HgA1C above 6.0) at the time of conception is likely to cause birth defects in the first trimester as this is the time when the baby's major organ systems (particularly the nervous and cardiovascular systems) are developing.
- As the pregnancy goes on, the placenta acts as a sponge for insulin and makes the mother's body not only insulin dependent, but insulin resistant as well. This means daily insulin requirements can double or even triple just to be able to control the body's glucose response to hormones and ingested carbohydrates.
- Poor blood sugar control in the second and third trimester causes the baby's body to increase insulin production and therefore the storage of glucose. This means that the baby will be putting on extra weight to protect itself from hypoglycemia and can result in an overly large (10lb+) baby.
That being said, my husband (HB) and I worked extensively with my medical team for five months prior to conception to get my blood sugars under tight control and to get all aspects of my medical profile up to best possible condition before adding the complication of pregnancy. I got my HgA1C down to 5.2 (the best number I have had yet) and, God willing, that number reduces the risk of diabetes caused birth defects to normal pregnancy standards. In order to maintain this reduction in risk, the doctors have given me a ceiling of 120 mg/dl or less for my 2 hour postprandial blood glucose readings... which FYI is wicked tight control. So far, I'm doing pretty well by testing 10+ times a day and my numbers have been relatively consistent in the 65-120 mg/dl range with the occasional unexpected high reading. I will say though, my insulin usage so far has gone from roughly 18 units a day to about 45 units a day... we'll see what my ratios and numbers are as the second trimester wears on and the placenta begins to work its oh-so-unappreciated-magic of insulin resistance.
One thing I am really enjoying about being diabetic at this point is that I get a sonogram almost every appt. With GW (my son) I had four ultrasounds throughout the entire pregnancy, but at only 16 weeks along in this pregnancy I've already had four and expect two more in the next month or so. By the third trimester I can expect bi-weekly sonograms and stress test to check in on the baby, so I know he/she is in good hands and I am thrilled that I get to see the development a bit more closely this go around.
The final thing that I think ought to be shared at this point (more to follow over the next several months of course) is that because of the third point listed above, the doctors will not be allowing me to deliver the baby after 39 weeks of gestation (first week of December). This means that based on what they find with the ultrasounds in that final trimester, they will either schedule me to be induced or (if necessary) to have a c-section before the baby is full term. Ideally the baby will stay put as long as possible, but we'll just have to wait and see what happens come November. (I am secretly hoping for a Thanksgiving baby, just don't tell the Doc on call for that day... ha).
All for now. I head to the doctor tomorrow again tomorrow, so I'll report back soon on how Baby is doing.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)