Bring your own smores and pillow

In just a few hours I'll be on my way to BlogHer where I'll be cavorting with 1400 women (and a few men) talking about blogs and online media. I know that many of you are headed to Pennsic shortly, so just think of this as my version of that, only with less sunburn and better wifi. When I got pregnant, I did the math and was pleased that I would be able to still go to BlogHer and not be as big as a house or with a wiggly newborn. And with this being our first child, it will be interesting to see if my perspective starts to change as I become a card-carrying "mommyblogger" (they do give you a card at the hospital, right?). I'm expecting the money and fame to just start rolling in as soon as this little boy is born, I'm sure. Everyone will be riveted to know which brand of diapers I choose or if I will breast feed him.

I could really use this break right now, even if it will be action-packed. I've been really emotional lately and as someone who generally has that stuff under control, it's been harder than I expected. A few weeks ago I got mad about something and Rich just said "I don't know why this is something worth getting this worked up about" to which I screamed "BECAUSE I'M FUCKING PREGNANT!" and then promptly collapsed on the bed in tears.

Ugh, it's exactly how I don't want to be. I don't care about the physical inconveniences, but this emotional roller coaster is something I'm not used to. I find myself getting angry at myself for getting angry in the first place, which is not very productive. I'm not sure if I prefer this rage to the angst of before. But either way, I'm looking forward to just taking a break from the daily irritations of life and meeting new folks.

And of course, every time I start to feel worked up about something, I just keep watching this video Christie sent me.

Your mileage may vary

My poor husband was lied to. Many helpful people told Rich that I was going to puke for the first three months and I would be huge and miserable for the last three months of this pregnancy. And several folks warned that once the baby is here, we'll barely interact with each other. Mixed in with all these gloomy premonitions was the consolation of the second trimester. Men would waggle their eyebrows at my husband, grin and tell him "wait until the second trimester."

Well, dear readers, we are smack dab in the midst of the second trimester and were I Rich I would call bullshit.

I sailed through the first trimester without hardly any nausea. And thanks to my height, I'm really not very large by most standards. But there isn't a lot of eyebrow waggling going on around here. Frankly, I'm pissed about it.

The last two weeks or so have been hard in general. My blood sugar has been all over the place. I wrestled them down all last week with ridiculous amounts of insulin only to have them hit rock bottom on Saturday. My own personal lowest moment was lying down for a nap with a blood sugar of 158 and waking up in a full panic a little over an hour later with a blood sugar of 33. So the exact time when we should have been having a quickie upstairs while our house guests were downstairs, Rich found me sitting on the toilet sobbing uncontrollably and blubbering about orange juice. Good times.

It's not that I feel unattractive or am worried about the baby, despite what BabyCenter.com may hypothesize. My skin is incredibly sensitive so that I go from "that feels kinda nice" to "don't touch there ever again, are those your hands or blocks of sand paper?". If I lie on my back for more than a few minutes, I feel nauseated. If I tighten my stomach muscles for too long, I get really nauseated. And then there's the lightheadedness or the chance that all these symptoms mimic my low blood sugar. Sexy, huh?

No one promises that a relationship will be consistant, emotionally or physically, over time. I suppose it's part of the adventure we embark on together. And I don't expect us to have everything stay the same ... gosh, that would be boring. But I take solace that even though things are changing a lot these days, one thing and one person remains constant. And I wouldn't want to figure all this out with anyone else.

Living by the numbers

I have changed my diabetic basal rates, bolus ratios and correction numbers as of yesterday. As a reminder, the basal rates I take are the insulin I need for just walking around. The extra insulin I take to counteract food is a bolus. And if my blood sugar is too high, I need to know how much my blood sugar will lower for each unit of insulin I take. All these settings are stored in my insulin pump but I have to set them up in the first place. I also have to tell them all to my doctors with each visit (which most of the time involves my stammering and looking them up in the pump, particularly now as they change over time).

Since this little guy in my belly has been making my blood sugars crazy for about a week, I had enough data to try to fix them. I've changed my basal from 1 unit of insulin per hour to 1.3 units of insulin per hour. I changed my bolus ratio from one unit for every 13 grams to one unit for every 10 grams of carbohydrates. And I changed my correction settings to give one unit for each 40mg/dL I want my sugar to drop down from 50. It's a lot of changes and I'm a bit tentative I may have overdone it. But those numbers were conservative considering how many corrections I was having to take all day.

So far my sugars have been much better today. It's barely crested 150 all day and only a smidge low after a huge dinner. It was a little creepy, though, to dial up what seemed like a huge amount of insulin compared to yesterday. Sometimes I have a hard time trusting the technology.

This afternoon, my sensor alarmed in a meeting, telling me I was at 204 and climbing. I checked my blood and it said I was only 130. Hmm. I calibrated the sensor and went about my business. An hour later, I felt a little fuzzy headed and the sensor said my sugar was 120 and dropping. Figuring it was off earlier, I wondered if I was low. I checked my blood at it was 183. Hunh?! I checked immediately again (using blood from the same finger and needle prick) and it said 153. Oh for Pete's sake!

I just put the meter away and told the sensor to shut up and trusted how I felt. And today, I feel pretty okay.