So, my fabulous 2 weeks of eating only amazing, healthy, lower carb things only lasted just that…2 weeks. ugh. I got so bored with it. BUT I did lose 2 pounds in those 2 weeks. I KNEW that was my weight problem -stupid insulin. No, my goal is not to lose weight, but it sure was nice to hear.

Well, weeks 25 and 26 have been a doozy. BIG doozy and I’m 100% sure that with Lindy and Everett, at 25 weeks, my body went wacko as well. You see, as a diabetic, my insulin requirements will slowly creep up throughout the pregnancy to account for the big ball of sugar in my belly, aka the baby. Well, it seems that at week 25, my body decides it needs WAY more than I think. I’m having a VERY hard time accounting for it. My OB/GYN wasn’t concerned…he said. GOOD. That is the way it is supposed to be. Insulin requirements should be going up. So, one hour after I eat, my levels should be normal (my goal is 90). When I was testing this week and last, I was sitting at 250 after having taken insulin an hour earlier. CRAZY. So, I’d take a double amount of insulin to bring it down. Today I took a double amount and it was 350 an hour later. wow.

Good news, I am bringing those numbers down within 2 hours at least…but the goal is one hour. Bad news is my endocrinologist retired in the fall, so I am out my doctor who knows me really well. All they could do for me was get me in with a PA at the end of the month. NOT good enough for me. I am good at my own sugar/insulin regiment, but this time, I’m kind of being thrown for a loop! Only way to fix this is to monitor every single carb into my mouth and come up with a new sugar/insulin ratio for my pump.

Week 25

Baby girl Tres is looking good. Had an ultrasound on Tuesday and was able to see her little features more. She was basically bent in half with her legs ALL the way up over her head. You can see it in the 3D photo below…can you see her face and 2 feet all scrunched up and possibly her hand holding onto one of the legs? The second one, you can see her peaking through her feet.

Good news is she is looking perfectly on size. Always a big deal for diabetic mothers. If she was measuring larger, that’d be a sign of bad glycemic control. Met with the head doctor of the department for my appointment and he asked what the plan was with the other doctors for an amnio…I told him week 35. He shook his head no and said that was not going to work…we wouldn’t get the results we would want. He says week 37. I interrupted him and said, let’s just wait until week 35 and see what is going on. GOOD NEWS is that as long as everything is okay, there is room for me to keep this baby inside a little bit longer to avoid any health risks on HER part. Only scary thing for me is mentally making it past the 36 week mark when Everett died. Let’s just see how everything goes…I am trying not to make any plans.

I thought I’d answer a few questions about this pregnancy, since a lot of you (IRL) have been asking.

How Far Along: 26 weeks 3 days
Due Date: It’s complicated. Due date is August 15th.
Anticipated Arrival Date: Doctors are talking about c-section at week 36 which is the week of July 18th.
If I had my way:The baby will come naturally on July 26th. If Dale had his way, July 29th.
Name Yet?: She MIGHT have a name as of this week.
Size of Baby: She is measuring roughly 2lbs.
Weight Gain: I’ve gained ONLY 9 pounds thus far!
Sleep: I can sleep well anywhere, at anytime, in any place. I don’t complain much about sleep. The only thing keeping me awake these days is when the dog wakes me up at 4:30 to go out!
Movement: She is pretty mild in movements but when she does kick it is usually REAL early in the morning or REAL late at night. She kicks very very low.
Symptoms: Had some heartburn this week, I think it has to do with my diet and my sugars are of course wonky. Mix those two and I am tired all the time and my stomach is upset.
Food Cravings: Pickles for those 2 days. that’s it.
What I’m Looking Forward to: My mom coming to visit in 3 weeks. Only because I called her crying that I wanted her to come up here and help me with projects.
Emotions: Not as anxious this week about her health. Taking it one day at a time.

My pastor had a very good sermon on prayer a few weeks back and it keeps coming to mind. You can listen or watch it here, look in the month of April, 2011, the sermon entitled “Praying During Civil War”. I really took away when he said something to the affect of “one-off prayers” are not the most effective. To be honest, I can get in that habit of praying for a friend every now and then and then forgetting. Daily, continuous prayers -those are necessary. If I don’t pray, things will not occur. Miracles will not happen. It is not all scripted. Prayers MATTER! Prayer is an act of war against the principalities or darkness.

Seems like a no-brainer.

I am thankful for those of you close friends and family that are praying continuously for us -please keep at it! We are praying for a safe arrival of this baby and I am specifically praying for a non-traumatic, NATURAL birth.

So, I wrote this post a week ago, I made it post-dated so it would automatically post last Thursday and for some reason I’ve lost it AGAIN. This has happened more than once. Gotta get it figured out. @Jessica, you are the only person who mentioned seeing the LAST diabetic post that I lost…did you see this one too somewhere?

I would consider myself a cheater diabetic. Cheater meaning, I eat whatever I want to eat and just take more insulin to account for it. That way, my numbers are always good, not too high after I eat, but it is because I’m taking amazing amounts of insulin. My endocrinologist doesn’t seem to think it is a problem. Every time I mention it, they just say “go see the nutritionist.” Insulin requirements for any diabetic will be different depending on their needs. I was taking roughly 60 units of insulin a day to cover the amount of carbohydrates I was eating and that was eating any carbs I wanted with no discretion. I have decided to switch some things up this pregnancy and change some variables.

Did you know that insulin stores fat when not in use? I’m 110% sure that is the reason I never lost any weight in 2010. Even after going from a sedentary lifestyle to exercising 3 days a week for 9 months. I lost inches but not one single pound. All my doctors were dumbfounded. I think it is the amounts of insulin I was pumping into my body.

So, over a week ago, I started cutting my insulin requirements in half. I am happy to say that I have successfully cut it down 35ish units of insulin a day. The goal: eat more fruits and veggies and not so many carbs in my meals. I made a point to go to the NICE big, grocery store that had millions of options. All I wanted to was sugar snap peas and honeycrisp apples. Of course, couldn’t find EITHER. I was slightly disappointed. I did walk away with the below items though. I spent an hour chopping and dicing -I think that preparing the food is the hardest part because it takes time.

There were a few days where I had a hard time keeping my sugars low based on something I ate which might have had more carbs than I thought. I can’t be legalistic about this…if my sugars are high for some reason, I HAVE to take more insulin. It would be stupid of me to have high sugars just because I don’t want to go over my 35 unit limit. A few days this week I was disappointed that I had to take more insulin but at least I enjoyed the small piece of cake at a friend’s baby shower and some extra chips at a party!

In baby news, we are at 23 weeks now. I’m feeling her move on a daily basis now which is a great feeling. She seems to be a night owl. As my doctor was checking for her heartbeat last week, she mentioned that diabetic mother’s babies tend to navigate towards the port in the mother’s belly. My baby girl, the exact opposite!

Thursday, this week, Dale and I will be headed towards the pediatric cardiologist to check out her heart. If the baby cooperates, we will more than likely have a definitive answer about her heart and possible things to anticipate in the future OR not.

Dear Pancreas,

Ya know, you did your job really well for 21 years and I am thankful for that. I am glad that you malfunctioned AFTER I was already an adult. It would have been difficult being diagnosed as a child and I wouldn’t have wanted that for my parents. Pretty unfortunate though that you got my attention just a few months into my marriage, at least I found out early and not a year later.

I’ve NEVER been angry or called myself a victim because of what you have brought me. I can handle this diabetes thing and we can get through it together, I’ll work with you and we can be a good team. I AM angry with you, because you don’t work correctly, I am labeled “high risk.” That means, even though I am a “good” diabetic and control my sugars AMAZINGLY well, diabetes has a bag of risks that it likes to carry around. Who knows if you are the ultimate cause of 2 traumatic childbirths, but I do feel guilty sometimes that it had to do with our teamwork.

I am going to forgive you for giving up and not working correctly. I have to speak it to feel it…maybe by the time I say it 100 times I’ll actually feel it. Biggest thing I will try to forgive you for is never ultimately allowing me to have a birth of a child like any other TLC mother whose water breaks at home and huff and puff all the way to the hospital to push for a few hours, have the baby pop out, and the baby is placed on your breast 2 minutes later. Someday, if/when I get pregnant again, I will have a scheduled c-section, be strapped down, and not get that romantic holding of my baby like I always envisioned and I ultimately blame you. Looking at the big picture, you’d think that would be my smallest concern, but I just had to let you know how I REALLY feel about you.

You are UGLY but I respect you for what you do in my body, even though you aren’t working at 100%.

Thank you pancreas for pumping a LITTLE insulin into my body right now and not just taking up space. I’ll take care of you and lets do this life together -now that the air is cleared.

If you get a chance, can you send some good vibes down to my uterus? I’ll be sending her a letter next.

We had a bit of a scare last night.

I adjusted the settings in my insulin pump earlier that day but did it incorrectly. I adjust my pump maybe once a year…

Apparently at 4am, I went into a coma like state. Somehow I woke Dale up (I think God did). I have no idea how I did it, I was in a coma. Dale said I was unresponsive when he turned over to see what was going on. My eyes were open, not moving and I was not able to speak.

Dale quickly called 911 got me some juice and then tested my sugar, 47 at that point. It was probably less than 20 prior. (All folks should be between 70-100) Dale grabbed my emergency glucose pen and gave me the shot which we thought saved my life.

Dale got Lindy out of bed and took her to Jessa’s room to avoid the commotion. Ambulance and fire engines showed up.

I was unresponsive for about 15 minutes, but was slowly coming to. I woke up to what seemed like 8 medical response people and Dale.

I was freezing cold, had no good circulation, they had a hard time getting an IV in. All I could remember was how cold I was. I kept asking for Indiana….finally he came up. Peed all over the floor at seeing the commotion. Eventully ended up in bed with me. It was probably a full 45 minutes of chaos while they were trying to get me to eat and come to. Poor Dale was really the one getting me back -he was making me drink and testing my sugars constantly. I went from 147 to 47 and back again -I was all over the place. Finally I ate a donut, grapes, and some nasty pop and was able to sit up and stand. We let the medical folks go and Dale forced me to eat about 800 calories. gross. He was so sweet though. I remember him trying to warm me up, holding me and encouraging me. What a man. I love that guy.

I remember it felt like a dream and everyone was trying to wake me up. I kept hearing, “Hannah, Hannah, drink this, Hannah look over here, Hannah you’re going to feel a small poke (IV), Hannah and it just continued and I couldn’t respond. I had no control over my limbs and I wasn’t able to speak clearly.

We are both a little shaken. After all the food, my sugars bounced to 450. I was a bit leary about taking insulin, but took a little bit at a time until 6am. Dale stayed home from church for an hour, I was scared after I took some insulin and didn’t want him to leave me.

After talking through the details with Dale…I found out that when Dale gave me my glucose pen, he didn’t actually put the glucose part in the syringe -just the saline solution…I didn’t get any glucose from the pen! We know that God was with us last night.

As I was coming to, the medics were talking about how that night they were going back and forth from the Dave Matthews concert all night, so this was a welcome break. We had a good laugh.

I am still shaken and I’m letting my sugars run a little high. I made it to church this morning. Feel like I ate a picnic at 4am, so full and yet somehow super drained.

I’ve never gone into a diabetic coma, I guess there is always a time for firsts.

I pride myself in not being high maintenance. I don’t need an hour to get myself ready for work, I don’t tote around every hair gadget, and I don’t wear a lot of makeup (Some might argue that that is why I look the way I do). As of this week, I am now high maintenance and that makes me a little sad.

I am now officially wearing an insulin pump. I’ve been wearing it for 4 days using saline solution just to practice and this evening I changed the whole infusion and reservoir set to include insulin.

Surprisingly, the sadness goes away quickly because I realize that using the pump is going to be so much easier than having to pull out my needles and stick myself 3 times a day; with the pump, I have a canula under my skin, very similar to an IV that is just a small piece of plastic under my skin. It puts insulin into my body in two different formats. The first starts at midnight and does a steady drip of insulin throughout the day. The second is whenever I eat. I tell the pump how many carbs I ate and it calculates how much insulin I get and sends it through the little tube into my body. I can tell you how the math is done because I had to learn it first before the pump would just do it for me, simliar to you kids who have to learn your math before you can use a calculator.

tonight is my first night of it putting insulin into my body starting at midnight. I will then program it tomorrow for the carbs that I eat for all my meals. I am a little nervous but I think this is the best solution for me.

I’ll let you know how it goes!