Week 24 - Take Two

Yep, you read the title correctly....we have a new due date! It's now June 19th. This puts the 38-week mark (i.e. induction time) around June 5th...which just happens to be my husband's birthday! Perhaps I will only have to make ONE birthday cake every year for the two of them. :) (Who am I kidding, I've never made my husband a birthday cake!)

Long story short, between the first ultrasound, the first fetal assessment, and clearing up an earlier miscommunication about cycle-length, my OB did a recalculation at my appointment on Tuesday, and we came up with our new date. Under this new date, the baby is tracking perfectly size-wise. :)

Also during the appointment, the nurse was using the doppler machine to listen to the baby's heartbeat, and the baby kicked the doppler machine! She's feisty! The good news is that her heart rate accelerated exactly as it was supposed to when she exerted this little effort, so it was a very healthy response.

Speaking of kicks, this week I SAW a kick for the first time! She is very very active still, and has started a slightly annoying habit of kicking my bladder. I get to feel her movements lots, but every time my husband tries to feel her, she stops moving. I think her Daddy has a calming effect on her, but I think it's starting to make him question whether I'm making all this up about her being so active! ;) The other day I could actually pinpoint where her head was, and when I gave it a little push, she responded by kicking me! I'm really looking forward to being able to "interact" with her more now if that happens more often!

I've still been having a lot of energy lately which is very good. I'm hoping that lasts for a while, but with the 3rd trimester looming, I'm not so sure it's going to. I've still been trying to keep at least mildly active with walks over my lunch break, a few walks after work, and some yoga on the weekend. It actually really seems to help with my energy levels, my bloodsugar, and with the comfort of my joints.

Speaking of bloodsugar, I have had some major frustrations this week! Augh! My infusion sites just don't seem to be lasting as long as they used to. I don't know if it's pregnancy hormones, my stretching belly (I'm still using my abdomen), or developing scar tissue, but I'm starting to only get about 2 days out of them. (I usually lasted about 4 pre-pregnancy, and then I just changed it because the site was getting irritated.) After the 2 days my bloodsugar starts creeping up. I think it's time to start trying alternate sites...

Just this week I had remarkably high bloodsugars this week for seemingly no good reason, and every effort I made to bring it down just wasn't working as well as it should. It wasn't a complete lack of insulin, but there was definitely something wrong. Even after changing the site it was still bad, so I ended up changing the whole reservoir/tubing/infusion site - everything. So finally it worked, but by that point I was up around 17, and then when the "good" insulin hit, I dropped to an uncomfortable 2.5 in the middle of the night. Ugh! (Thank goodness my CGMS woke me!) I know it was just one day, but it's hard not to think about the effects a bad day like this could be having on my baby. Plus it just felt miserable to have high bloodsugar all day. (Not up at 17 all the time...but above 12 pretty much all day.) Yuck yuck yuck.

On a somewhat unrelated note, I have a hint for those of you who are somewhat new to the whole CGMS thing. I have found that the CGMS isn't especially good at keeping up with quickly dropping (or rising) bloodsugars, so to keep me safe at night, I've actually set my low bloodsugar alarm a bit high. I have it at a 4.0 right now. It does mean that sometimes it alarms when I really don't need it to (i.e. I don't need it to tell me if I'm a nice stable 4.0), but it has really come in handy a few times. For example, this last week when I dropped so fast at night, the CGMS alarmed at 4.0 when I was actually 2.5 - I was just dropping too fast for it to keep up. If I had left it set for 3.5 or 3.0 I might have been a lot lower by the time I woke up (unless I would have woken up on my own, which does eventually happen too). It might not work for everyone, but I do find it's a good workaround for one of the CGMS's quirks....it works well for me.

All for this week! I have another fetal assessment coming up later in March, so I'll be posting again in a couple of weeks!