So much change...

Talk about pathetic. I have not written here since February of this year! Wow. It's been five months. So much change and so much to report. First off, I am currently five and a half months pregnant with twins! My husband and I are incredibly excited, a tad terrified, but really excited nonetheless.

Being pregnant...with twins...with type 1 diabetes. Hmm. Not really the easiest thing in the world. The first trimester, blood sugar wise, was actually pretty good. I had severe morning sickness (which btw should not be called morning sickness rather 24-7 sickness) and the only thing that made me feel better was to scarf down carbs at all hours of the day. Needless to say, heavy carbs and limited exercise do not a good blood sugar make. That said, I kept my a1c in the 6.4 range almost the whole first three months. Ahh and then we arrived at the second trimester and more specifically the 5 month. Insulin resistance is in full effect. Every morsel of food I eat raises my blood sugar significantly-including low carb or no carb foods. Once my blood sugar gets into the 200's or so, it's virtually impossible to bring it down. I change my pump almost every day and am even then my skin is irritated when I take it off. And worse, with twins you have to eat ALL THE TIME! You are encouraged to eat between 3000-3500 calories a day. I was never a big eater before this and certainly not a big carb eater so this has been a challenge to say the least. The doctors want you to eat high fat foods like whole milk etc which is also weird and hard to adjust to.  When my babies are going through a growth spurt, I wake up at like 2am, 4am and so on and have to eat a piece of toast with peanut butter or a granola bar or drink a large glass of milk. I have gained a healthy amount of weight so far-I think I'm at 28 pounds gained which, when I say it out loud is INSANE. The pregnancy books that are stacked to my ceiling in my bedroom tell me not to focus on my body image but on the profound thing (s) happening in my stomach. Easier said than done when getting dressed has gone from cute outfit making to essentially sheet wrapping.

People keep saying how lucky I am because it must be so fun to eat whatever I want. Trust me, it's not. It's fun to indulge in foods I wouldn't normally eat but it is not fun to wake up and have to walk down the stairs with my enormous belly, eat a sandwich, somehow get back up the stairs and try to fall asleep...only to repeat the whole scenario one hour later.

Other than all that, it hasn't been that bad. The amount of pressure that I feel at all times caring for and growing these babies while trying to control my diabetes can be overwhelming. The guilt that comes with a 200 or a 300 blood sugar stops me in my tracks. When they stop moving for a little while, I'm convinced I've hurt them because of my careless ways. I'm trying really hard though. I test my blood sugar about 14 times per day and my little fingers are covered in poke holes and bruises. I read today that at 22 weeks their little pancreases are forming. Fingers crossed that they match my husband's instead of my broken one. The thought of their tiny pancreases is pretty darn cute :-) (Even though I have no idea what a pancreas really looks like and I imagine it's gooey and gross).

I've found with diabetes, it's easier to just put my head down and get the work done. In other words, it would be so easy to get frustrated, really really frustrated, and give up or collapse in a heap of tears and cuss words on my kitchen floor at the end of a particularly hard day. And sure, I keep going because of the beautiful lives living in my tummy. But in less idyllic moments, when I feel a breakdown coming on, I try to put my head down, wipe the blood off my stomach and put on the replacement pump without really engaging my thoughts. Otherwise, I don't know that I would make it through this whole pregnancy. The thought of working as hard as I am working through the end of this pregnancy is daunting. If I focus on the day in front of me, hell the blood sugar in front of me, I feel like I'll make it. I follow another blogger who is fantastic at http://www.diabetes24-7.com/ who says she deals with diabetes one blood sugar at a time. That's really a brilliant way to summarize life with this disease. If you think about it as this vast ocean in front of you-a sea of shots and tests and eye exams and bad news and blindness and amputations and fear, I think every one of us would crawl under the covers and never come out.

However, if you focus on the disease, hell if you focus on life, one blood sugar at a time, one moment at a time, it's bearable. And with that, it's time for a finger stick :-)