Birth Story, Part 1

Several people have asked me for details about how everything went during the little one's delivery.

Brace yourself. This is gonna be a long one.

(And if you can't handle words like "cervix", do yourself a favor and skip out now. :))

(One more warning - opinions expressed here are about ME and MY birth. I have no opinions about how other people choose to give birth. I know that this subject can be touchy for a lot of people. Just because certain things were right for me doesn't mean I think they should be right for you.)

Let's flash back for a second. At my 37 week appointment, my doctor (with whom at that point I had a very uncomfortable relationship of tip toeing around each other, trying not to aggravate one another) said awkwardly to me, "Your next appointment is your 39 week appointment. If baby hasn't shown up by then, we'll start talking about.... induction." He then high tailed it from the room, fully expecting world war III. I chose to deal with that not unexpected news by ignoring it. I was already so stressed out by the doctors and the perinatologist telling me I couldn't do this and I couldn't do that, and that I was already a neglectful parent, that I honestly couldn't handle another one of their "what if's". Anyway, I was thinking positively. I was using my Hypno tools - I started listening to the "Come Out Baby" CD at 37 weeks. Surely she would be here by then. No worries at all.

Of course, she wasn't. The day before the 39 week appointment, I started having some minor panic attacks. I. DID. NOT. WANT. AN. INDUCTION. Basically I felt like an induction with pitocin was pretty much forcing your body to do something it obviously wasn't ready for yet, leading either to contractions that were too close together or stalled labor, both leading to a c-section... and then all the work, all the fight I had put in to have my natural birth the way I wanted, was all for nothing. Yes, yes, yes. We have all heard a MILLION TIMES that nothing at all matters besides a healthy baby. Tip: Never say that to anyone. I mean, c'mon. It's a given. And saying NOTHING AT ALL matters but that isn't true anyway. That matters the MOST. That's not to say other things don't matter. And this mattered to me. A lot. (I mean, come on, if I was destined to have a C-section anyway, I would have preferred to just schedule it, rather than go through 200 hours of labor just to end up there anyway.)

I started plotting ways to just skip the appointment all together. If I waited til the next week, I'd be 40 weeks anyway... and maybe she'd come on her own by then. I tried every old wives tale anyone mentioned to me to naturally induce labor (except castor oil. Ew.). Not a single contraction. Instead, I conned my husband into coming to the appointment with me, to back me up when the fighting began. (This ended up seriously backfiring.)

That place knows how to build up anxiety. First you wait. And wait. Then the resident comes in. Then you wait some more. Then the endocrinologist comes in to adjust your insulin. At this point, I realized that "CRAZY PSYCHO PATIENT" must be written in huge letters at the top of my chart, because the endo remarked, "They are going to want you to have an induction. Go easy on them. They really are looking out for your best interests." (Are they? How do they even know what my best interests are? I always felt that they were looking out for their own best interests - namely, not getting sued if something happened to my baby.)

Then the OB came in - with an entourage. It was as if he knew what was coming and wanted to have plenty of witnesses when I landed in court on battery charges. He even brought the ridiculous and inanely useless clinic nurse.

He told us exactly what we expected - I was 39 weeks, and they wanted to schedule the induction for that Friday. That was their policy for diabetics. They do this because of the chance of intrauterine death after 39 weeks. And yes, he said pointedly looking at me, he has seen it happen even in very well controlled diabetics.

Unlike the last time we argued, there was a very forced, very fake calmness to the conversation.

No. I did not want an induction.

Wayne asked about numbers. What was the actual risk in waiting, percentage wise? When were the last studies on those numbers done? The OB didn't know. It happens. And I didn't want my baby to die, did I? This was the best thing for everyone's safety. (I hate how, when doctors are trying to convince you of something, They make it seem like you don't care about whatever it is you aren't choosing. Don't want the induction? You must not care about this baby at all!) Wayne pressed the issue a little more. What if we increased the number of non stress tests we were having? Every other day, or even every day? Didn't that prove that the placenta was healthy and getting blood to baby? Apparently not enough to make the OB feel comfortable with it.

"Wait just one more week. One more." She's not ready. My body is obviously not ready.

"Our medical recommendation is induction. On Friday." And that was it.

Then they all, the entire entourage, plus my husband, turned and stared at me. That was single handedly the most uncomfortable few moments of my life. And it felt like forever. All of them just waiting for me to see it their way. I felt very small, and very defeated, but I still whispered, "No." And they continued to stare at me, as if I'd suddenly see the error of my ways and change my mind.

"Maybe we should get another ultrasound," the clinic nurse suggested. "You haven't had one in about a month." As if I didn't clearly see through that move. Maybe the baby's too big! Maybe we can use that angle to convince her!

Fine. Whatever. I was too worn out and stressed out by that point to argue anything else. I was already in tears when the ultrasound tech came in. Poor thing, I'm sure almost all her patients are usually happy. She had no idea what to do with a patient who sobbed when she told her, "Look! Your baby is sucking her thumb!" She must have figured something was terribly, terribly wrong, because she sent for reinforcements - enter in awkward clinic nurse again and yet another doctor, to explain to me again all the benefits of an induction, just in case the tears had potentially wiped my brain clean in the last 5 minutes. Basically the only way we made it out of the clinic was to promise to think about it.

I went home angry and yet very calm in my decision. My husband, not so much. My husband is a scientist - a very logical man who trusts in numbers and research and assessing risks. But we had no real numbers to help us in the assessment of that risk at all. He was caught horribly between supporting his pregnant wife or choosing something that could potentially save his child.

What followed can officially be known as "The Week From HELL." As Wayne saw it, no matter how miniscule the risk was (and we didn't know exactly how miniscule that was) - it was still a risk. And it was a risk with dire, dire consequences. Or, as he put it, a 0.001% risk x 0 child can still equal 0 child. It was a pretty morbid week.

I will never be able to explain my reasons enough for anyone out there to understand why I would continue to refuse something once told that my child could actually die. It sounds, and feels, horrible to type. I couldn't even get Wayne to understand it. At one point it we wondered if we were being "greedy", or "selfish". After all, we had waited so long for this baby, gone through so much for her, struggled and argued and fought for her sake - maybe we were asking for too much? Just how important was this "experience" for me, anyway?

I just knew that my daughter was healthy. Mother's intuition? I don't really know. Every ultrasound showed she was perfectly formed, and a perfect size. My A1C's had always been comparable to a non-diabetic's. My non-stress tests had been stellar. She moved and kicked with clockwork regularity. Maybe that's not enough. But I knew.

Wayne stressed over the issue to the point he made himself physically ill with a cold all week. All the poor guy had to go on was my assurances that baby was fine, and doctor's insistance that the induction happen.

I started walking insane distances around our little town. I walked and walked and walked, frantically trying to induce labor naturally in the three days that I had before the forced eviction. And I started to talk to everyone I knew who had had an induction, chose not to have an induction, knew anything about an induction... I scoured the internet boards for any other diabetics who had refused to be induced, without much luck. What I did discover was that while OB's across the board do generally recommend induction for diabetics, there seems to be no agreement as to when exactly that induction needs to be. People talked about being induced at 37, 38, 39, and 40 weeks.. absolutely no consensus or reasons WHY that date in particular was chosen. That soothed a smidge of my guilt over my decision. Again, what I was asking for was NOT out of the realm of reasonable requests.

I changed my decision daily. Friday came and went. One moment I couldn't handle the emotional stress any longer and I was ready to schedule the damn thing. The next I was angry at the doctors' for taking my decision away from me, along with everything I wanted in my birth and a lack of support for my choices or my autonomy as a patient. My gut always said that the induction was the wrong thing for both of us.

I guess in the end there were three things that helped change my mind and prepare me mentally for an induction. I had a long chat with a friend's sister, who happens to be a long time labor and delivery nurse. I learned that the statistics for an induction going to a C-section, while high, where not the 50/50 split I had thought they were - they were more around 30%. Which definitely made me feel better about my chances. I also learned a little more about the drugs used during the induction. I had been petrified of pitocin after my cousin had an induction using it. Her feelings were basically, "Sure, you can do natural childbirth! That's awesome! Oh, yeah, unless they use pitocin. Then forget it. That stuff's so nasty you don't have a chance and you wouldn't even want to think about it without drugs." Apparently, because there are a couple of drugs they use to get things started pre-pitocin, an induction didn't necessarily mean I'd need that either. And if I did, there were levels of pitocin and I could request starting at the smallest dose possible and move up very very slowly from there, to decrease the chance that the contractions would be too fast or too strong. So I could still have my natural birth, even with the induction. Honestly, I learned more about the induction in that one half hour conversation than my doctors gave me during the week long discussion and fight over it.

Secondly, I spoke to everybody I knew who had actually had an induction. I wanted to know what their experiences were, bad or good. I wanted to know how they looked back on their birth. What were the steps and pathways of decision making that their doctors' took in the process, and were they similar to mine? And, of course, did the one medical intervention lead to others, in the end? The resounding answer seemed to be no, in general. Most of my friends hadn't ended up with C-sections, and their interventions seemed to be based on their own decisions pre-delivery (like the use of an epidural). People tended to have a positive outlook on their birth experience overall, even if the induction wasn't a first choice.

Lastly, and probably most importantly, my amazing doula gave me some emotional exercises to work through some of the messy upheaval I was dealing with. What I discovered was that I depend a lot on authority figures' approval and support. Maybe that should have been obvious, right? What was obvious was that I was going to achieve neither in this specific situation. No matter what I did, I was never going to both gain their support and protect my daughter and achieve what I felt was best for her. I also didn't want to feel like I was making a wrong decision just to say "FU" to the doctor. And years later I wanted to be able to somehow explain myself to my daughter when she asks me, "Why did you risk that, Mom?" or "Why did you give in to them?" Mostly, I very badly wanted to bring my daughter into the world with feelings of excitement, joy, and peace. I felt like they had sort of ripped those away from me and replaced them with dread and resentment. I needed some resolution to those issues from within myself so I could be excited about my birth again. After I did all that prep, I came to a place where I was ok with the induction. Not "yippie" and excited about it by any means, but at least accepting enough to schedule it for Sunday night and feel good for the possibilities, and not absurdly angry at medical personnel.

So, I know - this is crazy long and I haven't even gotten to the actual birth yet. But I think it was important for me anyway, to hash through all the stuff that came first, because even now it has a huge impact on how I view everything that followed it.

Part two to follow later. :)

Miracle, revisited

As most of you know, my little bird arrived on the afternoon of August 27th.

I could easily sit and stare at her for hours.

Yes, I am sleep deprived.

Yes, I'm up at midnight. And 3 AM. And 5 AM.

I get absolutely nothing done during the day.

And I love every single stinking, spit-up covered minute of it.

Because she needs me.

And because we are so blessed to finally be a family.

The Safest Place

A friend wrote on her blog recently about risk. It's something I've been mulling over too lately, as I get closer and closer to Ms. B's delivery. There's always been risk involved in this pregnancy. Being "high risk", and what that really means and all it entails. Going back to the early days, and the fears we had over the risk of miscarriage. And going back even further than that, to some very dark days - the risks we took to become parents and the long road it took us down.

I'm listening to Geoerge Strait's "I Saw God Today" at the moment. I'm not a cryer, but it makes me tear up every time I listen to it now. Do I *get* that miracle a little more now?

I find that as I move closer and closer to the fulfillment of this dream of mine, I am becoming calmer. Perhaps more accepting of those unknown risks? More trusting that everything will work out exactly as it should. As I learned at last week's OB appointment, this belief in myself drove my doctor a little nuts.

Yup, we were back to arguing about the birth plan. Poor guy - I can see his point. He's a high risk OB. He's trained to see every possible disaster and plan for it. But he's not trained to see something from anyone else's point of view.

He says I need to "trust him".

So, then we come to a complete standstill - who do I trust? Do I trust myself, my body, my feelings, my education? Or this guy who is very educated and has MD behind his name? The desicions are hard when you know the OB really isn't a bad guy, and really believes in what he's telling you - that HIS plan is the best for you and your baby, and what do you know because you've never really done this before anyway?

The things I am NOT sure of, the risks that bother me, center around these questions I never seem to find the answer to. When do I let go of control and let others help me? When is it better for me to push for what I believe to be BEST for me and my baby, even if they may be unconventional?

I do believe in myself. I believe in my body's abilities, not its disabilities. I believe I deserve a smooth, easy, uncomplicated birth. (Thank you, Hypnobabies.)

In one of the Hypnobabies cd's, you create a "special safe place" that you go to help your relaxation, and you use it in pretty much all the hypnosis sessions. My safe place is a real spot, and one I go to daily - my little girl's room. I sit in the big comfy rocker, and just look around at her special space. The pretty blue walls, the painting her artist grandpa painted for her on the wall, the crib with her pretty birdie sheets all ready for her little head, the infant carrier in the corner.

How this could all turn out is such a big unknown. Birth, parenthood, life with baby in general. No gauruntees about any of it. I'm jumping into the abyss.

Right in the center of that risk is where I am in perfect happiness. In my baby's room, surrounded by reminders of the scary unknown, about the possibilities of imperfections, of the whirlwind around me and the battle for what is right for my baby, is the great irony. It's the place where I feel the safest.

Strawberry Extravaganza!

I love this time of year. Because in Michigan, it's still sort of spring.... Not that we haven't had a few 90 degree days, terrifying me with what's to come this summer... But for the most part, it's been pleasantly in the 70's this week. The farmer's markets are open! Even if it's only meager amounts of asparagus and radishes at the moment, it reminds me that the bounty of summer is yet to come. And sneaking into the farmer's markets this weekend were... the first, teeny, red, beautiful strawberries of the season!!!

Inspired by these little gems, a friend and I braved the muddy fields at a u-pick strawberry farm nearby. I quickly discovered that squatting and bending over while 7 months pregnant wasn't the brightest thing I'd ever attempted. In five minutes flat I was gasping for breath like a fish. I know people have told me (my husband included) that I have to slow down, that I have to quit pushing myself so hard for the time being. I find that really, really hard to accept. I'm not used to having to think about it. Usually, if I want to take a walk or a run, I do it. If i want to hike, I do it. If I want to clean my house (hahahaha, right), i just get it done. I hate waiting around to do something. Accepting the limitations of my body right now and even just doing things slllooooowwwweeeerrr has been hard. I honestly don't think about it being too much til I'm already at that point of exhaustion.

But in this case, there were strawberries at stake... and all the things that come with strawberries.... Strawberries and fresh whipped cream! Strawberry ice cream and frozen yogurt! Freezer jam! Regular jam! Pie! Strawberry - rhubarb crumbles! Strawberry vinegar!



So you see, I just couldn't let that strawberry field hold me back.

Ladies and gentlemen, I got on my hands and knees and crawled.

While not the proudest moment of my life, I did come back with 8 (!!) quarts of perfect berry goodness. I'm just glad there was no one else there to see me crawling through the mud. You do what you gotta do, folks.. :)

In baby news, things are going stellar. My body is sucking up huge amounts of insulin like a sponge, which the docs told me tends to happen after 24 weeks. A completely full pump reservoir lasts me about 2 days currently (a half full reservoir used to get me 3+). I have a full fledged bump, no longer able to be mistaken for a beer gut. (Yay! This actually took a lot longer than I expected.) Baby B is 2 pounds and 5 oz, and has fallen from the 90 to the 78th percentile for weight. Which, in our case, is good news! Oh, and she's completely gorgeous, of course. :) No bias here...

So, in honor of strawberry season:

Strawberry Orange Muffins

(From Cooking Light)

1 1/4 cups halved strawberries
3 tablespoons butter, melted
2 teaspoons grated orange rind
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups AP flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
cooking spray
2 tsp sugar



Preheat oven to 400.

Combine the first four ingredients in a blender or food processor, and process until just blended. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add the strawberry mixture to the flour mixture, stirring until just moist. (This looked really dry to me for awhile - I ended up adding about a teaspoon of water to get things to mix.) Spoon batter into 12 muffin cups coated with cooking spray. Sprinkle with 2 tsp of sugar. Bake for 20 minutes or until muffins spring back when touched lightly in the center.

Makes: 12 muffins
Per muffin:
Calories - 184
Fat - 4 g
Carbs - 35 g

deflated

It's one of those days. In reality, it's been one of those weeks.

I'm tired. I'm tired of doctors, nurses, miscommunications, noncommunications. I'm tired of logging sugars, and meals. I'm tired of feeling not *listened* to.

I'm tired of diabetes.

I'm tired of basing pregnancy decisions around diabetes. I want to choose what is best for me, and what is best for my baby, because I've thought it through and the decisions fulfill a vision that I see for my daughter's birth. I don't want diabetes to play any part in that moment.

But it does. Of course it does. It always does. It's always there.

There are so many examples of this swirling around in my head right now. The first several occurred during one of my biweekly appointments with the endo last week. I saw a different endo this week - who am I kidding? The lack of any kind of continuity of care is my major issue with this clinic. I've never seen the same resident twice, and I rarely see the attending OB at all. Once I get used to a specific endo doc and what their expectations are, I see someone else, who has a completely different set of goals. Shouldn't the goals be clinic wide, so as not to confuse the patient this way?

Last week I was the perfect patient. Last week, my blood sugars were *too good*. As in, "I'm ok with you running a little higher so you don't go low."

This week, the endo pointed out that I'm not meeting the after meal goals. The ones I've NEVER been able to meet, even if I survive on salad alone. The ones that are the same for type 1's, type 2's, and gestationals. The exact numbers that a week ago were "just fine and not negatively affecting my baby at all." My fasting numbers were too high. Not out of range high, just not in the 90-100 area they want.

Ok. I can work with that. I like constructive criticism, especially if it helps me get tighter control. Just quit giving me different stories all the time, ok? Pick a goal and stick with it.

Not long after that, as I was leaving the clinic, another nurse from fetal echocardiography called me to remind me of my echo the next day. This test was basically a really detailed ultrasound of the baby's heart. She asked me a bunch of questions over the phone, so that I "didn't have to fill out all the paperwork the next day". After the basic type questions, she started asking me about my blood sugar control. "Well, my A1C is currently 5.9," I said, rather proudly. "Oh." She replied. "Well, that's...okaaaayyyy...... what do your fasting numbers look like?" So I, rather instantly deflated, recounted my earlier visit and the corrections made to help my fasting numbers fall into the range that new endo wanted them in.

And... then the litany began. "This is pretty uncontrolled," the nurse said to me. (PS, nothing sets me off quicker than suggesting that I'm "uncontrolled". It's basically saying to me that after all my hard work, you believe that I just don't care enough.) "With blood sugars like these, your baby's heart could have problems. We're basically looking for heart deformities that occur early on, as well as thickening in the wall of the heart caused by high blood sugar. Also, with sugars like these, the cardiologist will probably not be able to see everything she needs to see, and you'll most likely have to come back for another echo later on in the pregnancy."

Needless to say, I was in tears by the time I hung up the phone. This woman was (the way I heard it)saying that I was causing damage to my child's heart because I was ignoring tight control. Guilt trip much? First, I called my husband, who, as usual, can look at a situation logically and talk some sense into me.

"Are you sure she's not using some textbook guidelines that aren't really possible in real life?" he asked. "Or lumping you in with type 2/gestationals whose bodies work differently?"

Even so, what I didn't understand - how could she say these things to me when everyone in the endo/ob clinic tell me that I'm doing fine, aside from tweaks here and there? What new set of goals and expectations does SHE have for me? Why am I not clearly being told exactly what the expectations are? I'm ready to have a mental breakdown because they seem to change weekly.

I ended up calling the OB clinic and tearfully explaining to them what the echo nurse had told me. I explained that I was just getting too many mixed messages, and I needed ONE set of goals that I could feel confident in for me and the health of my child.

The OB clinic was pretty ticked at the echo nurse. First of all, apparently a 5.9 A1C means that your risk for fetal heart damage isn't ANY different than ANYONE ELSE'S. Secondly, even with tweaking, I had some of the best looking numbers in the clinic - and further more, the echo nurse had no right to even be asking me those questions. Endo and OB takes care of blood sugars. I'm where they want me. Her scare tactics were completely unwarranted and unbased.

In the meantime, this elevated a test I wasn't super concerned about to a major source of stress. Thanks a lot, Nurse Ratchet. I'm sure the stress was great for my baby. (My "positive pregnancy affirmations" went on loop on the car radio for awhile.)

The next day, after the echo, I have never wanted to fling test results in someone's face the way I wanted to do to her. The cardiologist found no evidence of any heart deformities, issues, or thickening. I heard her say the word "perfect" somewhere in there, too. And she said there was absolutely no need for me to come back later - she had seen everything she needed to see.

I refrained, but I really wanted to scream at the nurse that any damage done was due to her complete lies, rather than my so called "uncontrolled" blood sugars. Honestly, I wonder if she KNOWS what she is doing to people mentally? I know that scare tactics can help some people get back on track, but to use that method you really have to know your audience. Instead, she nearly caused me a psychotic break while I guilted myself into imagining all the things I personally had damaged in my baby's fragile, developing body.

Sigh. Although I guess all's well that end's well.... But the whole thing left me with such a bad taste in my mouth. People who are supposed to know what they are talking about don't. And no matter what, you can't change these folk's judgements and opinions.

This week's project was the "birth plan". Something that naturally should focus on things we want during the birth itself. It, to, turned unfairly d-heavy. First of all, I plan on trying for a natural birth. Not because I have anything against epidurals. Yup, you guessed it. It's because of that stupid disease again. Basically, diabetics have an absurdly high rate of C-sections. Why? Well, lots of reasons. Often we aren't allowed to go full term and are induced. Induction leads to more C-sections. Basically, I believe that a doctor is more prone to freaking out with any high risk patient, and jumps on any excuse to demand a C-section, whether or not it is really medically warranted. Anyhoo, basically I want to avoid ANYTHING that could cause me to have a C-section. So.. that leaves.. au naturel. So in some weird way, choosing a method other than that recommended for most diabetics is still allowing diabetes to guide the decision.

I want to be in control of myself, my birth, my baby, and my diabetes. I am afraid (and rightly so) of nurses ability to care for type 1's, their knowledge of type 1, and their reliance on flow sheets and blanket orders for "sliding scale" insulin regimens that DO NOT WORK for me as an individual. (And this is coming from a nurse. I hate to be that way, but it's true.) They generally don't trust that I know what works for me and my body, although I have kept up with this for 14 years. So I wrote in the plan that I wanted to test my own blood sugar, with my own meter, control my blood sugar during labor using my pump and CGM, and not be hooked to insulin and glucose drips. I don't even want an IV. I don't want them giving my child glucose solution for a low blood sugar at birth. I don't want to be forced into an induction, or continuous fetal monitoring.

And my doula - who I thought would be completely down with the self care empowerment thing - gently told me that all these things may not be acceptable for me as a high risk patient.

Deflated again.

How do I come to terms with my visions for a "moment", an experience of this great thing, and what the doctors insist on? And don't tell me that it doesn't matter how it happens, as long as she arrives safely. I know all that already. That doesn't mean I have to give all my choices away. No matter what happens that day, I just for *once* want diabetes to be in the background.

d news

So.. more odds and ends, it seems. Maybe that is just how my head is working these days.

We had a very long set of appointments about a week ago. Endo, OB, ultrasound, doula... I figure if you gotta drive as far as we do, you might as well pack it all in.

First the exciting things:

We are having a baby girl!

I'm totally psyched. I'm thrilled for frills and ruffles and girly clothes and a pretty birdie themed nursery (Thanks, pottery barn kids, for that new obsession). I love knowing that she's a she - she has a name, a little identity.

Even better - everything looks good, healthy, and normal. We saw five fingers, tiny toes, healthy kidneys, and a beautiful, four-chambered pumping heart. Next week we have a more detailed fetal echocardiogram that will take a closer look at her heart, and I'll keep my fingers crossed til then. But right now, she's a perfect teeny 9 ounces with the cutest little upturned nose. She's absolutely gorgeous.

And now confusing things -

During my endo appointment, I got some news I never expected to hear. "I wouldn't mind seeing your A1C a little higher," my doctor said thoughtfully.

Uh...... WHAT?

I mean, don't you want the lowest A1C possible? Hasn't that been what you've been telling me from day one? That if my A1C is in the "basically normal" range, my daughter has less likelihood of having congenital heart problems, malformations, kidney problems, being too big, or having blood sugar problems of her own after birth.. right?

And didn't I work my ass off for that 5.9 number?

My doctor explained that now that I was in my second trimester, all my baby's vital organs are formed. And things look good. Therefor, they are less concerned with malformations now. Now I get ultrasounds every two weeks, basically to carefully monitor the baby's size to make sure she's not getting too big. And, according to my doc, that is unlikely as long as my A1C stays under 6.6. "So you have some wiggle room," he said. And, although most type 1's are plagued with lows their first trimester, I had to be the odd ball, naturally. My insulin needs went up, up, up my first trimester and I fought a lot of highs. Now, in my second trimester, when hormones from the placenta normally set in to cause insulin resistance, I seem to be spending a lot of my time stuffing my face trying to get out of the 60's. So basically my doctor see it as a safety issue - if I can increase my numbers ever so slightly, I can still protect my baby without worrying about things like car accidents, or falling down stairs. Still, with a disease where all you ever hear is "lower! lower! lower!" I had a hard time wrapping my brain around this.

One the plus side, my doc did call my a "model patient". Yay! I'm a person who really relies on positive feedback, so after weeks of logging, logging, logging, and only ever hearing "yup, you're doing fine" - this was very important in motivating me to just keep on keeping on.

In other pregnancy notes -

I think I've entered that awkward pregnancy stage where it's a little hard to feel good about yourself. I don't care about the increasing numbers on the scale. I just want to be like all my pregnant friends- cute, skinny everywhere but their taut little bellies, and obviously, well, pregnant. Instead, my boobs each have their own zipcodes, and my growing belly could honestly be mistaken for a beer gut. I'm halfway through my pregnancy, and most people don't realize I'm pregnant. And yes, this is all pure vanity. I completely recognize that.

And while I'm whining, can I take a moment to complain about maternity clothes? You drop a friggin fortune on clothes you have to have because you can't fit into anything else and you are tired of wearing sweats, and you want, need to look and feel pretty again. Maternity clothes are expensive, you wear them for 6 months, and they are made RIDICULOUSLY cheaply. Pilling and stretching after one wash? Are you flippin kinnding me???? ok, rant over.

I still don't feel like I have any right to complain about ANYTHING. I have exactly what I have always wanted. All in all, I love being pregnant. I love feeling my baby kick. I love preparing for her arrival. And I am willing to wear a paper bag for 9 months if that's what it takes. Beating down that vain streak in me has been a little tough, though. Combating it relies heavily on listening to a "positive pregnancy affirmations" CD a friend loaned me. It's basically just positive statements you repeat to yourself to remove your negative mindtalk. Sounds like a lot of new-agey mumbo jumbo, but I find statements like "My pregnant body is radiantly beautiful" pretty helpful certain days. My other favorite statement on the CD is "My body is in perfect health - for me and my baby." It's hard to describe in writing, but there is a very important pause in the statement - "My body is in perfect health - FOR ME." My body may not be PERFECT, but THIS is what "perfect health" looks like for me, in this situation right here and now. And perfect health is not the same for me as it is for anyone else. I find that statement so empowering.

Odds and Ends

What a difference two weeks makes.

We've been in the new place a week now. Still getting things arranged and unpacked, but already we're SO. MUCH. HAPPIER. And not just because we are finished with the crazy landlord.

The house itself is amazing, if a little dated. I like to think of that as "old fashioned charm." Well, 70's era old fashioned charm, as opposed to little house on the prairie charm. It really is perfect for us - we have more room than before, and the house is chock full of hidden little storage areas and built-ins (some of which we had to conference with a group of people just to figure out what exactly it was, like the old school can opener in the pantry). My kitchen actually has enough shelving for my humoungous collection of cooking paraphenalia - a definite first of anywhere we've lived! There is a little trash chute next to the stove top that goes to a garbage can in the garage - absolutely brilliant! I actually have a pantry in this house, which is a huge plus. The baby's room is a good size - we can fit the furniture we've already bought in it. And our bathroom is so big, I feel like we have a whole wing to ourselves. The only negative comment I can make on the place in that the oven and stovetop are 60's era tiny. I own pans that are too wide to fit the oven. So no giant hams or roasted turkeys for me for the moment.

(Room for more random cooking supplies!!)

My handy cookbook shelf in the kitchen, for easy recipe access. And, no, this is not all of my cookbooks. :)

(And check out the awesome 70's bar. Love, love, love the wall paper back here. I look at it and feel the urge to put on some bell bottoms and polyester.)


It's hard to believe that everything managed to come together in the span of a week. I'm not gonna lie - it was a rough, rough week. Between the rental market being very tight right now, our ridiculous time table, realtors and landlords not returning calls, and then at the end of the week, my poor husband came down with the stomach flu - I was ready to pull my hair out. Or plot numerous ways to painfully torture the ex-landlord. To top it all off, Friday morning before the big move, my Dexcom broke. Normally not a big deal - you call the help line and they overnight you a new receiver. That is, as long as your current receiver is still under warranty.... and guess what? Mine wasn't. Which means I'd have to go through the long drawn out insurance approval process for getting a new dex, which could take weeks... or months. Have I mentioned how ABSOLUTELY DEPENDENT I am on the Dexcom? The idea of not having it at work, where I tend to run on the lower side anyway, petrified me. Plus, I would have no good blood sugar information on moving day - a day of lifting, pulling, running around, eating quick and easy and probably not easily countable things.... Yikes. Talk about crappy timing.

Anyway, I want to give a big shout out to the slew of people who showed up to help us out. Even more so because I felt a little useless, being unable to lift any of the boxes and such. It definitely made me feel like we are finally starting to have a little bit of a community here. Moving a town over, out of the cornfields and closer to where everyone else already is, has already added to that feeling immensely.

Back to the move though - it was one of the craziest things I have ever seen. The guys were moving furniture out as another friend and I were frantically dumping things willy nilly into suitcases - no order to it whatsoever. (I'm still paying for that in the unpacking phase. Where the heck are my plastic ware lids? And it took me a day and a half to find the suitcase with all my underwear, hidden in a closet.) Also, moving that quickly allows no time for thought about how you want to arrange and organize the new place... So when the poor guys come lugging in heavy furniture and ask, "Where do you want this?", I generally stood there looking dumb and saying things like, "Ummm... well... maybe.... gee, how much does that weigh?" So thanks for putting up with me, boys. I also had some fabulous girlfriends (pregnant and on no-lifting duty like me) who stayed at the new place and not only unpacked, but organized my kitchen and dining room shelves!!!!!! I am not the queen of organization - I would have ended up just throwing things in the shelves to get them out of sight. My friend, however, is a whiz at this apparently - I now have a very thoughtfully laid out kitchen that makes so much sense - I can actually get to everything I need without digging through drawers cursing. (Yes, I'm thinking of you, old spice drawer. DID I MENTION THE WORLD'S MOST GIGANTIC LAZY SUSAN THAT'S BIG ENOUGH FOR ALL MY SPICES? That's really saying something, if you are familiar with my spice collection. I got a lot of flack for that in the move... it took three bins to move them all.)

I am so amazed and so thankful to everyone and with how everything turned out. I simply can't say it enough. Once again taken care of and provided for. It honestly blows my mind.

So now I can move on to other things! Like baby news. Again, another area where I feel like things are just way too good to be possible or true, and I want to shout about how incredibly blessed I feel. I feel awesome. I never had the awful nausea and sickness my friends have been plagued with. The worst pregnancy symptom I can complain about is some seriously dry eyes (which, if I hadn't read about it on a pregnancy website, I'd have chocked up to allergies anyway). Things are going well from a diabetes standpoint. I made the drive to Ann Arbor for my biweekly appointment - an important appointment because the OB was going to evaluate whether or not I needed to start driving down weekly for check ups. And I suppose here is where I finally get an award for my type A personality - because I am so... well, anal, about sending in my blood sugars weekly and downloading the dexcom, he decided that not only do I not have to come in weekly.... we can stretch out my appointments to 4 weeks! Ah, less time in the car! Less money on gas! Sometimes it pays to be neurotic. (The flip side of that coin is when I start to notice a blood sugar pattern, I send in the numbers wanting the issues to be addressed right away, and no one calls me for three days. ACK! Drives me a tad bit insane.) Oh, and the other awesome D-related news? My last A1C - 5.9!!! I'm ecstatic. And let me give a quick kudos to my doctors for just a minute too - they are very much of the "eat healthy but don't drive yourself insane" mindset. Never once have they made even a single comment about the contents of my food diaries, even when I was prepared with explanations (pizza on moving weekend? Pastries? Ice cream?). This has had an amazing affect on my overall psyche... No judgements. Things happen. Blood sugars (and basals, coreection factors, and I:C ratios) change weekly. The most important peice is counting the carb correctly and covering with insulin accordingly. I've calmed down about the food issue a lot and am instead focusing on healthy nutrition for baby. One more stressor removed! We can eat out with friends and enjoy ourselves without freaking out about the consequences.

Some days are beautiful, like this one...

Other days I feel like I'm mountain climbing.



I'm starting to feel what I think are tiny little kicks... Which is strange when you don't know what you're really looking for... Is that gas? My stomach rumbing? A random muscle twitch? They don't come very often, but I find myself stopping...waiting...watching for them.

Next week is the big ultrasound. We've decided to find out what we're having... Mostly because I want to decorate a cute nursery and I find the gender neutral patterns... well, boring. But the more I think about it the more I like the idea. Picking out a name. Bonding with my child over that new identity. Part of me hopes that that might make this a little more *real* to me. I still have moments where I think, "Am I totally making this up??" I need the outside confirmation - and I still don't really look pregnant, so that confirmation can be hard to come by. (I find that a little odd, too. If I'm just barely shy of the halfway mark, shouldn't I start really showing???)

(Yes, that's a bump. Really.)

I'm stoked about getting another photo of the little one, too. One where he/she looks less like a gummy bear and more like... well, a baby! :)