Pregnancy Update and Morning Sickness

First of all, I want to thank everyone for all the wonderful comments on my pregnancy announcement. I still go back and read all of them multiple times throughout the day. I definitely feel the support and love of the DOC. Now that I'm "out", I wanted to give you guys a quick update on my pregnancy so far these past 9 weeks.

When I first found out I was pregnant, I didn't really have any symptoms. I had some soreness and cramping, but nothing that was discomforting. But once I hit 6 weeks, it was like the plethora of pregnancy symptoms hit me like a ton of bricks.

I had heard about the pregnancy lows accompanied with a type 1 diabetic pregnancy, but I didn't realize that they were on a completely different scale. It's like my body wants to be at 60 mg/dL all the time without any symptoms. All I can say is THANK GOODNESS I have a CGM. The majority of the time, Constance catches my lows before I feel them. I honestly don't know how low I could be most of the time without her alerting me. The only problem with this is she seems to go off all. the. time! Especially when I (try to) sleep, she keeps beeping at me every hour that I'm below 70 mg/dL. And when she woke me up last night at 1 AM for the 5 millionth time, I busted out into tears because I just freaking wanted to sleep. I know these lows are manageable and it's better for me to hang out in the basement end of my range for the next few weeks, but I'm looking forward to getting back to the 100s as "normal".

Another symptom that hit me in the gut is morning (umm, all day) sickness. I've always had a pretty strong stomach. Even if I get a whiff of something that turns my stomach, I can usually hold it in and still eat like nothing happened. But it seems that pregnancy has turned my iron stomach into mush. And the main culprit that makes me run to the bathroom? Ground beef. Even just typing that makes me try to think of something else. But as it stands right now, I can't even look at a hamburger right now without turning the other way (towards the bathroom).

This pregnancy side effect actually caused me to lose 5 pounds the first three weeks I was pregnant. But it seems I have turned a corner recently because I can eat something larger than a tennis ball. The nausea is still there, mainly when I first wake up and if I go more than 3 hours between meals.

At my 2nd appointment with my endo since I found out I was pregnant (where my A1c was 5.5%! Woo!), I asked him what was the standard procedure with insulin and puking. Because I mainly worry about "eliminating" something I just bolused for and the oncoming low. He said the best thing I can do is either suspend my pump or put my bolus on an extended square for an hour or two to make sure I keep most of my meal down.

I've got roughly 3 more weeks of the pukes before it hopefully gives up altogether. Until then, I'll keep my diabetes supplies stashed with diet ginger ale and whole wheat crackers.

My new love.

Music Therapy

I love listening to music!  I'm not musically-inclined at all (minus that one year I played flute in junior high), but I definitely feel my soul lifting when I hear a good song.  I gravitate towards songs that have some inspiration behind them.  One of my favorite artists right now is Manafest (a Canadian Christian rapper, eh?), and I'm really digging on his new song "Every Time You Run".  I've heard this song a couple times before, but today when I heard the chorus I thought about the DOC. 

Every time you run, every time you hide

Every time it hurts, every time you cry

Every time you run away, every time you hide your face

And it feels so far away, I'm right here with you

I know we all experience some bought of diabetes burnout at some point or another.  When I heard this song today, I just wanted to give everyone in the DOC a big hug and let you know that we are here together.  We are in this together.  You can lean on us whenever you just feel like throwing your hands in the air and saying "Forget it!"  I love you, DOC, and I'm right here with you.  

The Day I Found Out I Am PREGNANT!!!

It feels weird to be writing this post since you guys probably won't see it for another month or so, but I know this time in my pregnancy is important and I need to get down every emotion and feeling.  This post was written on September 26, 2011.  

I'm 5 weeks!  It feels awesome to be writing those words.  I feel so incredibly blessed and excited with this pregnancy.  Trey is excited, too!  Every once in a while he'll just look at me and giggle--I don't have to guess what he's thinking about.

We found out I was pregnant last Tuesday, September 20th.  I knew there was a strong possibility I could be pregnant because I was 2 days late, and that never EVER happens to me.  I'm very . . . "on time"?

The dogs started their usual stirring around 4:30 AM, and instead of telling them to "Shhh, lay down!" to try and get those few extra minutes of sleep, I went ahead and let them out so I could take the test.  I did the test and put it on the counter to wait the instructed 3 minutes, but I didn't have to wait that long.  After less than a minute, the "Pregnant" line showed up clear as day, and after 3 minutes it looked like this:

The proof!

I woke up Trey and said, "Come look at this!"  My sleepy husband got out of bed and came to the bathroom.  He looked down at the test and said, "I told you so!"  He had guessed a few days ago that I was pregnant, but I wanted to wait until I was officially late to test.  We hugged and kissed, then looked at each other.  "So what do we do now?" he asked.  "I'll call my OB later and my endo to get the ball rolling."

I went to my OB that afternoon to do the initial blood work.  I got a call back the next day that my levels were right on schedule for someone who's 4 weeks, my hcg levels were over 500.  I did another blood draw on Thursday, which I'm still waiting for the results. My first ultrasound was scheduled for October 20th, I'll be 8.5 weeks and praying they find a good, solid heart beat.  (If you guys are reading this, then they did.)  ;-) 

I saw my endo that afternoon as well.  He congratulated me on my pregnancy and took my A1c.  To be honest, I was a little nervous about what the number would be.  We figured we had gotten pregnant while on vacation and I was CGM-less for a week, not the best environment for good blood sugar control.  However, I was astonished when I saw 5.6!  I actually asked the nurse, "Is that right?"  She looked back at the machine and said, "It's right.  Not gonna argue with it are you?"  "Not at all!" I said with a smile.  I texted Trey and said "A1c = 5.6! Hellz yeah!"  We set up my next appointment for October 24th, with blood work a week before. 

I haven't really been having any bad symptoms yet.  I keep having this nagging worry that something will happen before our first ultrasound; it plagues my mind all day.  I have made conscious efforts to keep those thoughts out of my mind, even to the point of writing down reasons why I shouldn't worry:  I'm a young, healthy female.  My numbers are solid.  There's absolutely no reason to be worried and every reason to celebrate.

I'm sitting with a smile on my face at that last sentence.  For the first 4 weeks of this pregnancy, I haven't really celebrated because I was so worried.  But now that we've seen the heartbeat and know there's a baby inside me and not a monster causing my morning sickness (more on that later), I can't help but smile . . . and freakin' tear up a tiny bit.  

What I Advocate

So for No-D Blog Day, I wanted to talk about something that's really near and dear to my heart. To be honest, I'm a crappy diabetes advocate. I've been to one JDRF walk in the almost 5 years I've been diagnosed. I haven't contacted to my local congressman to talk to him about funding towards a cure or the artificial pancreas project. For the most part, the only time my husband and I discuss my diabetes is when it is extremely evident via a scary low or high.

But there is something that I'm a real advocate for and that's adopting rescue animals. When Trey and I discussed getting a puppy to add to our 2 person, 2 cat family, we tossed around the choices of breeds we wanted. He wanted a boxer, I wanted an English bulldog. However, after researching breeders in the area and realizing the amount of rescue shelters there were in town, we decided to get a rescue.

We were lucky to pick out an 8-week-old, 10 lb. ball of fur at PetsMart, because most rescue dogs are older and have some type of behavior problems. Roscoe's momma came to the shelter pregnant with him and his 7 siblings. And we got to pick him out when they brought them to the store that day. Half Labrador retriever, half Siberian husky, my Roscoe is all love! Loyalty is his middle name, because he's never more than 3 feet from me. I love that big ball of mess.

Missy we adopted as a roughly 1-year-old boxer/lab mix, or a boxador as I call her. She came to us with some neglect issues, because we noticed that she wants nothing more than for someone to pet her and play with her ears. We gave her all the love we could and balanced it with enough discipline to make her a great dog. She has the shortest attention span of any dog I've ever met, especially when she sees a squirrel. She's our little sweetheart. 

Our family at the local Dog Fair

So if you're looking to add a furry animal to your mix, I extremely advocate looking at rescue animals. There are millions of dogs and cats in our country that are waiting for someone to give them a chance. And after a few years, the old saying is really true, "Who rescued who?"