Pregnant type 1 diabetics, step over here...

[RueDeWakening]

I seem to have filled up the old thread and thought I better start a new one! Still got ages to go, don't leave me now...

Am currently sat waiting for my 16 week antenatal appt, been here an hour so far and just had BP done and that's it.

Ok fed up with this morning thing at bedtime i was 7.2 but that had jumped up from 6 in an hour so i took 2u at 2.30am i was 9.4 took another 2u at 7am i was 11.8!! So i added an extra unit to my normal plus a 2u correction 9.30 i was 10.7 still but with no correction i was 5.1 an hour later, what am i doing wrong ladies?

Hoping I'm the same. I just keep upping my long acting by half a unit every night. I'm trying 17.5u tonight. I can't remember this with DS

I'm 10/11 before breakfast but it's definitely the dawn phenomenon thing as on the CGM I'm fine throughout the night and then it starts to rise from about 5am.

It does get you down. I'm 13 after lunch! Been out for half an hour's exercise and 12. Arrrgghhh! Least

Least I'm trying that's supposed to say!

Aww puds its just not on!! If i correct it with novo i crash if i dont it stays high how do we win?!

Don't know hoping feeling very guilty

I do a bit but i dont eat overnight or from 3am so cant help it

I know. We can't help any of it really. X

Isn't DP linked to the massive hormone surge you get in the middle of the night? I know when I was expressing for DS when he was in NICU that I was told the key feed to express was 3am, as that would give the highest quality/most milk - and it pretty much always seemed to. Allegedly that was down to the DP effect (only different hormones, of course! :o)

Still tired and suffering over in my corner, I feel like painting a big red cross on the front door so everyone keeps away.

Oh Rue. Hope you feel better very soon. Levels still weirdly okay?

I do sometimes wonder just how different we are to 'normal' people in that their blood sugar levels aren't constantly monitored - really they can only rely on a HBA1c and ours are (generally) ok too!

I just think if we were really 'bad' then we wouldn't feel well IYSWIM. Obviously at diagnosis I was very poorly but generally since then physically I've felt fine! Perhaps a lot of the worry is needless in that when your levels really are terrible - and putting a baby at risk - your body soon lets you know about it.

Does that make any sense to anyone? I mean obviously we have to be careful but maybe, just maybe, we're all doing bloody good regardless of high readings here and there (and everywhere in my case...).

It just made me think when Rue mentioned the hormone surge. Perhaps most pregnant women, unknown to them, would have higher readings on a morning? Or even toward the end of pregnancy (hence why many do often develop gestational diabetes in the last trimester which more often than not reverts back once the baby is born).

What do you all think?

Interesting theory puds.
As is the 3am expressing rue - I currently express at 2am, maybe I should change it to 3am.

spotty, when did your levels return to 1g = 1u?
Mine are more like 10g = 2u or 1.5u now (4weeks).

Diec once I had ds I went to 1u/15g but that's not enough now, he's ten weeks. In SCBU they said between 2-4 for expressing.

Last night at about 7:30 I was 2.4. I had one scoop of chocolate ice cream, stupidly haven't tested since, woke up at 10.2. So did I have another hypo in the night?

Ds wakes ever 1.5-2.5 hours still

Oh Spotty! I'm not looking forward to the hourly wakings. Arrggh! Hope I get a good sleeper this time.

What a day! On the bright side baby showed us her face
But bg hells bells, was rising before bed when it got to 7.8 i took 2u by 2.30am i was 2.5!! ok by this morning 4.9 had 14u with breakfast one more unit of levemir so up to 15 was 13.2 at 9am!! Took 1u to correct by 11.30 2.6 what what what?!

Oh Hoping. Well I have had a somewhat better day and it's due to upping my long acting I think...

The rise at 5am still happened but just nowhere near as severe.

Have you tried upping long acting and not correcting before bed Hoping? I left mine at around 7.8 last night knowing I'd be having more long acting and it seemed to do the trick.

Could be all change tonight though, as ever!

Glad baby showed you her face! Does she look like your DS did?
x

Shall try puds all else fails il call dsn weds i guess.

Yes she is very similar i was quite suprises as ds looks like me i thought myb she would look like my oh

Ok I was 4.9 before bed so had a massive handful of maltesers and this morning it's 5.2. Should I reduce my bedtime levemir again?

Ooh sounds like you got it just right with the Malteasers (yum). I'd reduce it by 1u.

Morning ladies - just realised I have not posted in ages. Was away with work Thursday and Friday, so limited MN'ing opportunities! Had to get up at 5.30 am to catch the Eurostar on Thursday, stayed overnight, full day with early start on Friday and home by about 9pm. I thought I was going to die I was so tired. Did A LOT of lounging around on Saturday and Sunday, and had cleverly also booked a day's holiday yesterday so was able to rest up a bit. Only 4 more weeks of work to go - thank the lord!!

Am off for 32 week growth scan this morning and am DEFINITELY going to ask them about birth plan, induction, sliding scale, expressing colustrum etc.

Went to our first NCT class last night. Have to say, a part of me was so jealous as the others talked about their bloody midwife led units and birthing pools and the instructor talked about the increase in medical intervention just by virtue of being in a more medicalised environment if you go consultant led. It just doesn't seem fair sometimes. However, there seem to be a couple of lovely girls in the class I'm hoping to have as mat-leave buddies

On a brighter note, levels have settled down a little bit. I have MASSIVELY increased all ratios plus Levemir. I think I really needed it. It doesn't seem so difficult any more! However, one penfill of Levemir is only lasting me about 2-3 days at the moment. I'm probably taking in excess of 100 units in any given day - and I'm not going mad on the carbs or sweets. In my old pre-preg state I was probably taking 10-14 units per day max!!

Hope everyone else is ok. Can see there are the usual ups and downs - mainly downs for those of you BF'ing!! Poor you - we can't win, can we?!

Good luck with the scan Bona

I'm sat with DS waiting to see the DSN, midwife, consultants etc etc at the mo - getting hungry though, and I only brought lunch for DS with me (which he's already scoffed!). Appt should have been 40 minutes ago but no sign yet...

Hope the scan goes well bona
rue i was the same last week at clinic went at 10.30 never got out till 1.20pm

Well ladies, need some cheering up now, I think.

The baby's tummy has had a cracking growth spurt in the last fortnight and has jumped from being average (59th percentile) to 97th percentile. Docs are happy enough, but I think it has somehow burst my little bubble of "well, I'm being careful, so everything will be fine". If it carries on like that I think I'm in serious danger of being induced much MUCH earlier.

Also asked my questions about induction, timing etc. Not sure I was really ready for the answers. Apparently as it stands I have only a 50% chance of giving birth, 50% c-section. That shocked me - I didn't realise the induction was so unlikely to work.

The bit that really upset me was chatting about the baby being taken to SCBU after birth because of low blood sugar. Can you guys give me some reassurance here? Did that happen for all of you? Did you think it affected bonding? Did you cup feed or give the baby a glucose drip? I can't bear the thought of being separated from my baby when he or she is just an hour or so old.

Sorry, I feel like I have probably been living in cloud cookoo land and the reality is just hitting home. Feel really upset

Bona sorry you're feeling crap I can tell you my two experiences and hopefully that might reassure you?

Dd I was induced at 36 weeks. She was 8lb but fully in proportion even though her tummy was top end of the scale for size. She was born via forceps but due to my bp (185/153) I was only allowed to put for 30mins. Ten hour labour.

She was taken to SCBU two hours after birth due to sugar levels where she had a glucose drip and was tube fed. She was in for nine days but it would only have been three or four had she not caught an infection. I think it took me a whole to bind with her, I'm not going to lie, but I was completely unprepared for it. I always planned to ff her so she went from tube to bottle.

Ds I was induced at 35+4 his tummy was also bigger on the scans than the rest of him. He was 7lb13 which although was big again it was all in proportion! He went to SCBU after about 30mins as he was grey. Turns out he had a lung infection and he was nearly put on a ventilator. Wrt his sugar levels it took about nine days for him to come off the glucose drip and after that we whipped the feeding tube out and breastfeeding was established very quickly (when he was first born he didn't even pretend to be interested in latching on!). I had no problems bonding after a three hour labour with 20 mins pushing. I felt really good. He would have been out if SCBU before two weeks it was because he needed oxygen he was in longer nothing to do with sugar levels.

With both dc I expressed for them whilst they were in SCBU but in the beginning they both had formula top ups. It's hard having a baby in SCBU, it's actually shit and not fair at all, but it's such a short time. Does your SCBU allow mums to stay? I don't know if I've helped or not and I can't remember if I've answered all your questions as I'm so sleep deprived I think the best advice I can give is to be prepared and do your research. Prepare for a SCBU stay and if it doesn't happen great

Sorry for babbling

Hi Spotty - thanks for sharing your experiences. I have no idea whether mums can stay at SCBU but I've checked the website and there is no mention of it.

Very undecided on whether formula top ups or a glucose drip are the right course of action - consultant said we could go either way and opt for the drip if I didn't want to confuse things with formula top ups.

I'm so glad to hear you say that you manage to establish breastfeeding after nine days in SCBU for your DS. Did you get help at the hospital with expressing? I just wouldn't know where to start...

I didn't get help with expressing this time but had done it before. They gave me all the bits for the pump and showed me how it worked. They advised me to do it every three hours but i did four hourly over night so as to get some rest.

In our SCBU there was no choice of glucose drip or formula it was both (obviously breast milk/colostrum preferred but if not enough formula used).

The peads were very pro breastfeeding and there were always nurses or nursery nurses to help plus could call in the bf specialist if you wanted.

Expressing is exhausting and can feel a bit demoralising but it was worth it and had I not done it I'd have been so annoyed that for the sake on a week and a bit of crappy expressing I'd forfeited breastfeeding.

In our SCBU they have a mums room with four beds and a bathroom but I'm aware this doesn't happen in all of them so worth asking. Also you can ask to be shown round beforehand so it's not so scary when you first go in

Thanks. The consultant said today that if I / we feel very strongly about not using formula at all, we could elect to go for a drip. On one hand, the idea of my tiny newborn having a drip sounds terrible. On the other hand, I wonder whether it is a quicker way to get to where we want to be: blood glucose stabilised and ebf?

on expressing... I've actually booked a private consultation with a lactation counsellor at home at 36 weeks (hope it's early enough!!) so will be able to cover this stuff with her. The idea of expressing for the first time seems very daunting but you are completely right - would be awful to forfeit breastfeeding altogether for the sake of a few days in SCBU.

As far as I know we can't see SCBU before hand. My hospital doesn't do tours at all, save for an online virtual tour. Like that's the same thing!!