Busy Mamma

Life of a mom is busy.  Life of a mom of two is busier.  But life of a mom with diabetes with two, is busiest!

I have had no time at all in the last three weeks.  With two kids there is always someone to feed, someone to change, someone's snot to wipe, and some days mom is feeling drained.  I am thankful beyond words to my mom, who has been here for half of those three weeks, my in-laws who have dropped off meals, picked up Noah for an afternoon or even overnight numerous times.  Hubby has been more than wonderful!  Changing the diaper, burping the little guy, bringing my tester, finding my tester... He's been great.  And working on top of it all.  He was able to stay at home with us the first week, which was great.  Now I miss him when he's away all day.

The two little monkeys are keeping me busy.  It's pretty hard to enforce TimeOut with the toddler when the infant is at my boob.  :)  But you gotta do what you gotta do - consistency is key in disciple.

My sugars have been kindda all over the place.  I have a sensor on again... after hitting a 23 one day simply because I did not test for hours upon hours.  Somewhere in there I must have had a meal or a large snack and forgot to take any insulin for it.  Well I say enough is enough.  I plopped another sensor on and now I hear the familiar beep beep BEEP letting me know my sugar is going up.  "Oh yeah, I didn't bolus."

After being so used to having a sensor, going without throws me for a loop.  So anyways, I wanna say the 23 was a one time thing but it wasn't.  Even with the sensor on, if the METER BG NOW prompts me to test and I don't (and then it does it again every hour for the next 4 and I still don't) a 17 is not a surprise.  I am not used to testing before every meal - the sensor usually tells me where I'm at... and if I forget to bolus (as if I haven't been diabetic for over 6 years and needed insulin AT EVERY MEAL!!!!) then the sensor will beep at me.  Anyways, all that to say I am not trying hard enough.  It's sad to say but it's the truth.  In fact, let me check *looks down at pump* right now I have a METER BG prompt (and it's been there for almost two hours).  Ugh!  *goes and retrieves tester* 11.7  see?  That's bad.  I'm a bad diabetic.  Alright, lets do this *updates sensor*  *bolus wizard to correct high*  What is going on?  It doesn't want to give me anything to correct the high.  It says I have enough insulin on board... but that is only true if I bolused correctly... Sometimes I override the wizard and give myself a guestimate amount of insulin.  Sometimes (most of the time) I was wrong in bolusing.  But sometimes after doing an override I end up with a low.  Let's think here... Yesterday I had a high around lunch time and the wizard did the math calculation for the correction and it was right.  I was down to 4.6 in about 2 or 3 hours.  And now?  Do I trust it and also trust that I bolused for the correct amount of carbs?  Or since I doubt my bolusing I also doubt it?  So much thinking.... I have baby brain right now and feel as if I won't make the right decision...*do nothing*  Hopefully it will correct itself.  I'll see in about an hour or so... if it's not going down, I'll do the wizard again.

Yesterday I woke up with a low and that threw the whole day outta whack.  After overcorrecting with way too many carbs - I wanted to eat everything in sight - , I felt like I had a huge high but my sugar reading was 7.8 . Why is that?  If I bolused correctly and if my BG is saying I am good, why do I feel so rotten?

As I was holding Josh, while Noah was playing on the carpet in front of us, I had the same sensation as if I was driving and suddenly got really drowsy.  I felt as if I might just fall asleep right there on the armchair in the living room, leaving my infant baby and toddler to fend for themselves.  It was scary.  I made myself stand up and walk over to the phone to call my father-in-law.  I asked him to come over and watch the boys while I napped.  He was very gracious and came over promptly.  I passed off Josh and kissed Noah on the head.  Then I dragged my feet to the bedroom and passed out immediately.  No tossing, no turning; just sleep.

My father-in-law brought Josh in to nurse two hours later and told me he'd be taking Noah back to his place to give me some more time to sleep.  I said thank you and me and Josh fell asleep together on my bed.  I woke up another 2 hours later not feeling any better.  Hubby was just walking in the door from work and took Josh to change him before brining him back to me to nurse him.  I think I fell asleep for a bit again... that was kindda scary.  I don't ever nap for more than 2 hours, 3 max!  I had slept 5 hours and still felt lousy.  Hubby brought my tester and asked me to test (my sensor had not been updated, of course).  *test* 5.1 - so it wasn't that.  Later on in the evening I got some muscle cramps and was feeling quite lousy still.  Finally by 10 or 11 I felt normal again.  I'm not sure what was up with all of that.  But at least it was a one day thing.

Today is much better.  I am tidying up and doing what feels like laundry for a small army.  A friend from work is stopping by to meet Josh later and I am quite excited to see her.

Life is busy for sure.  But life is also great.  I have two wonderful boys, a loving husband, a gracious family and more blessings than I deserve.  God is good!

Post Partum

I've been reading up on lower blood sugars in babies of diabetics.  It seems to be that the poor little guy struggling to produce insulin during the pregnancy on behalf of the mom when sugars are high.  Once the baby is born his little body may continue to over-produce insulin, thus there is a huge concern with babies going hypo during the first day of their life.  

Well when Josh was born his blood sugar reading was 2.2 (36.9) which they said is perfectly acceptable at birth but that it needs to be above 2.6 three hours later.  So we got Josh latched on good and he started drinking little portions of colostrum.  I made sure we had a good latch, that he wasn't falling asleep (we had him down to a diaper right up against me - it was so sweet) and that I could hear little swallows.  The nurse came in and told us that she will be retesting him at the three hour mark and that if his sugar isn't up that she would like to supplement with formula.  I chose to nurse my boys and not to include formula.  So I told her I would like to try to nurse him further if at that time the sugar is low.  She took a few steps closer to me and in a semi-threatening tone told me that they would admit him if we don't get his sugars up stat.  I told her to hold her horses and lets get there and see what his BG is.  I was confident that colostrum was more than adequate to provide the baby what he needed after birth. My God knew what he was doing when he designed us.   

Well when they came back to test him I was a bit nervous.  They poked and prodded him for a good ten minutes (as if it's so hard to take a sugar reading).  Josh was screaming.  I was nearly crying.  I offered to do it myself since they couldn't seem to squeeze a big enough drop from his tiny little heel.  But they wouldn't - it was necessary to be done with the hospital tester.  Finally, after three failed attempts, they got it.  The reading came back at 5.6  PRAISE GOD.  

By now I was a little annoyed with my nurse.  I did not appreciate that she was pushing formula on us when I had laid it out on the birth plan that I will be nursing my son exclusively.  And on top of that to threaten us and then to botch up the second BG test to the point that I was nearly crying.  Seriously.  I knew we needed to stay the minium amount of time in the hospital (24 hrs after the birth) then get outta there.  

For the rest of the night, sure enough, they (the nurses, the cleaning lady, the Health Card lady, a pediatrician, the lab nurse - everyone that had a post in the hospital) came in our room.  After a very intense labour, I got absolutely no sleep.  They had to check Josh's sugars every three hours (it was pretty much the same debacle almost every time) and they had to check my blood presurre and my temperature and check Josh and check me and Josh and me.  Please just let me sleep!  I get they were just doing their job but it was so rigorous and so much of it was unnecessary. I couldn't wait to take Josh home so people would stop poking and prodding us.

His sugar reading stayed around 5 or 4 for the rest of the night.  So that was great.  

My sugars on the other hand were totally outta whack.  The endo had asked me to remove my pump right after delivery.  Well I simply turned off the basals and kept the pump on so that my sensor would continue to work.  I saw the stable sugars that I had during labour completely go through the roof after Josh was born.  About two hours after delivery, I was 14.  Why?  It didn't make sense.  Was it the stress?  I wasn't sure.  I set my basels to run as they were pre-pregnancy, took a correction bolus and waited.  

During labour my sugars were great.  Both Hubby and the doula kept asking me to check my pump for the sugar reading and occasionally test to make sure the calibration was correct.  A few times, as I saw the sugars dip below 5 I would take a swig of Ginger Ale.  During the part that we were in the shower (I was sitting on the yoga ball and I was using the hand-held shower head to bring heat to my lower abdomen - where the pain was) I removed my pump and placed it on the counter - again for the CGM to keep doing it's thing.  I needed those readings.  Hubby at one point in between contractions told me that my sugar was 3.7 so I popped two DEX glucose tablets and jumped right into another contraction.

So although they were kindda wonky the first day or two my sugars have now completely stabilized.  My milk is in and that really helps.  I guess it's hard work for my body to be producing all this milk (and boy is there a lot! - I already have 6 feedings frozen in the freezer - a few times already I just HAD TO pump after Josh finished feeding).  

I did want to clarify one thing - I did not chose to go natural to be a martyr or a hero or because I think birth "needs to be experienced".  When I was pregnant with Noah I did lots of research on the upcoming birth.  I found a lot of evidence that the epidural is not as safe as we think.  Sure, a lot of women take it and everything turns out fine.  It wasn't the very small chance that I may be paralyzed from the waist down that freaked me out.  But rather the alarming rate of C section that happens if epidural is taken.  Or the fact that once you are on the epidural you are on the bed, with a catheter in your bladder, with an IV hooked up to your arm, and you are almost not even able to feel when your body needs you to push.  The labour slows down or doesn't progress at the same rate anymore.  Then the baby might not progress as needed so there is a need for forceps or vacuum.   There is so much medical interversion that happens that it made me wonder about natural delivery.  Which is funny.  Me?  Natural?  Come on.  I remember during my teen years I used to joke that I'd take the drugs as soon as I was pregnant.  There is no way that you would catch me dead going through that pain.  Why would you?  The drugs are there - they're totally safe, right?  

So anyways, I just knew that being high risk was bad enough.  If I could limit the amount of medical intervention that I allowed then I could keep some control.  That is why I was very clear with the doctors on what my wishes were.  My doula and I talked a lot about my choices and I read up a lot on it.  I was very confident that it would be doable.  Millions of women have been doing it natural for thousands of years.  Besides labour and delivery is designed to be durable by God.  Why else would we get breaks between contractions?  Why else would the stronger contractions that do the most work last the shortest?  Why else does the baby just know what to do too?  You are both working together to get through it.  His head has 5 or 6 plates that shift around as to be able to squeeze though the pelvis as it makes it's way down the birth canal.  How amazing.  And even the pushing part.  It's crazy how that part - even though the hardest perhaps - has some sort of accomplishment attached to it.  You are no longer just "getting through" the contractions but you are now working with them to cross the finish line.  

Don't get me wrong - I am not one to say that birth is beautiful because I think it's messy and scary and not pleasant at all.  I just wanted to get through it as simply as possible. 

I have a small confession to make.  While I was labouring with Noah I did break down and asked for the epidural.  I was later told that almost all women who choose to go natural, do.  I remember telling my doula that I can't do it anymore.  That I am too scared of the next contraction to be able to cope.  She reminded me of the reasons why I chose to do it natural but I wasn't listening.  I asked for the anesthesiologist.  So they started an IV in my arm and started rushing the contents of an entire bag of IV into my arm.  It was such an awful feeling.  It was cold.   As the anesthesiologist made his way through the hospital, I asked my doula if I'm making the right call.  She told me it was up to me, but honestly "No, you are not making the right call." And then she reminded me again (the exact thing I asked her to do if I ever get to that desperate point) the reason why I went this way.  As the anesthesiologist walked into the room I chickened out and told him never mind.  He was not impressed and neither were the nurses.  Oh well.  I got back on track and focused hard.  Within the next hour Noah was born and I had done it.  

This time around I didn't break down and beg for the drugs.  When the feeling came over me that this is too tough to handle I remembered that with Noah I held him within the next hour.  So I knew to stay strong and carry on and God would supply the strength that I needed.  

Looking back now, having gone through two natural deliveries, I'll do it the same with the next baby (if God blesses us with another).  It has all worked out wonderfully.  

The Birth Story

I am more than pleased to announce the birth of our second son, Joshua Lucas.  He was born Saturday, September 4th at 10:02pm weighing (get this!) 10 lbs, 2 oz.

Joshua Lucas, 12 hours old

It all started the day before.  We were working hard to wrap up The Basement Project.  We had a carpet installer at the house, and my mother and I were working hard at "flipping" the boys' rooms.  The toddler's bed needed to be converted to a crib again.  It needed to be washed and the mattress raised and the bedding found and the railing reinstalled.

mom and I, setting up the bassinet
the day before

Then there was the bassinet and a new toddler bed for Noah.  We set up a cool blue car bed for him and rearranged his bedroom.  It was all happening in a frenzi.  I invited some friends over to help us and Hubby and his dad were still touching up the paint in the foyer.  I'm sure all that work did something for my uterus.

The next morning, Saturday, Hubby and I thought we'd "get busy" since it worked before.  Maybe if I was ready this time it might actually put me in labour.  The house was mostly ready so why not?  Well within about 2 hours, while we were enjoying our coffees with mom and Noah in the newly plush carpeted basement, the contractions started.  At first I didn't really time them since I wasn't sure they were close together enough.  Then finally when I started catching my breath as they came, I pulled out my iPhone.  Sure enough they were about 3 or 4 minutes apart.  I gave Hubby the green light - it was time to go.

We piled our stuff in the minivan and started driving to the hospital.  As we got closer to the hospital my contractions spaced out a tad and I chickened out a bit.  I suggested we circle around the hospital - maybe hit a Tim Horton's drive-thru.  So although they were somewhat consistent, the one or two that was 5 or 6 minutes apart threw the whole thing out of whack.  We grabbed ice caps and drove home.

I went to lay down and soon Hubby and Noah joined me.  We all piled into the King size bed and took a nap.  It was sweet.  I remember waking up once or twice during contractions but I was able to go back to sleep.

timing my contractions

I woke up an hour and a half later with some more contractions.  I walked out of the bedroom quietly.  My mom was watching the US Open so I joined her.  I pulled out the iPhone again and started timing.  This time they were consistently 2:30 to 3:00.  I went in the bedroom and woke Hubby up.  "This is not a drill."

We arrived at the hospital around 5:30pm and right when I walked in security asked if needed a wheelchair.  I wasn't panting, I didn't look disheveled but yet they knew I was in labour.  I wondered if they are trained to notice these things... or did it just come with experience.

We headed up to maternal triage.  They checked me and much to my surprise I was 3-4 cm and 50% effaced.  They said I was in labour and a room was being set up for me.  I called the doula and she said she'd arrive in 10-15 min.  I couldn't believe it - this was it.  I was about to get on a "crazy train"and I knew there were no stops until we reached our destination.

Our doula :) 

Once our doula arrived, Hubby headed down to repark the car and bring up our stuff.  I explained my contractions and their frequency to the doula - I had pain that was similar to menstrual cramps but stronger and they were pretty frequent.

The nurses were great.  They must have all read my birth plan because soon the yoga bag and a bean bag made it's way in our room.  Then they all pretty much left us alone.  Every half hour they had to come in to listen to the baby.  They used a wireless monitor to listen to Nr. 2.  I thought they would use a portable one one wheels but no.  It was a small and wireless - the size of your fist.  That was so great.  I was given the freedom that I needed to cope with labour.  

We started focusing.  The contractions kept coming.  One after another, they did not ease up - they only got stronger.  Soon it was harder and harder to concentrate on anything else but getting through the current contraction.

The contractions were now starting to be doubled-up - as one was "easing up" the next would be starting.  Those were hard since I was not getting any breaks in between.  My doula suggested that I try labouring in the shower.  I insisted on wearing my maternity bathing suit.  I was not comfortable being "exposed" and labouring naked as some women do.  I used the yoga ball in the shower and during every contraction Hubby compressed my hips together and that helps so much.  The doula kept me focused and reminded me to breathe for the baby during every contraction.  As the urge to push came near we quickly moved from the shower to back to the room.  It was all happening very fast.  I chose to refuse the epidural earlier in the pregnancy and so I was dealing with the pain solely through getting through each and every contraction one at a time.

As I entered into the transitioning stage, the hardest part, all I could do was ask God to give me the strength that He has promised in the Bible to those who ask.  I saw the other side of each contraction and soon, only 4 hours after I was admitted, my son, Joshua Lucas was born.  He was wonderful.  I burst into tears when they placed him on my chest.

What a blessing!  Another boy.  Another healthy baby boy.  Another successful delivery.  Another reason to praise God and thank Him for getting us through this.  There is a verse in the Bible that says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."  This has been so important in my life.  As a diabetic I was always afraid that I would be limited to the things that I could do.  Last year this is the verse that was on my shirt as I ran the Detroit Free Press 1/2 Marathon - something I figured that a diabetic could never do.  Or that this "sick" body could carry a child (could carry two children) to full term, and that my sugars have not harmed them.  I am blown away by the grace that has been extended to me.

Josh, 5 days old

Now as Josh is five days old, I am loving him and nursing and enjoying being a mom of two beautiful boys.