Thanks, Mom!

My mom is SO talented! She sewed many of my baby clothes when I was a little one, and my prom dress. She's created BEAUTIFUL quilts - several of which are in my house now, one of them is on Evvie's wall. When I told her I was planning to use cloth diapers, and showed her how cute they are now, she said "I think I can do that!". So I bought her a couple of patterns, and boy did she go to town! I have something like 15 diapers that she made for Evvie - and they're all adorable! Today in the mail, I received a package from my mom. In it, I found:

A blue tiered dress with coordinating fleece hoodie

A diaper to match:
And socks and a hair bow, also to match:

Also in the package were a diaper cover and bows that can be interchanged on the headband/bow that is shown above! Genius! And, she says there are matching pants to come. Evvie is so lucky to have a grammy who loves her so much already, and who knows how to sew to boot! I'm very proud of the creations she's made and look forward to future goodies!! Thanks again, mom! I love you!

Progress?

Thanks to all who were concerned after that last post. To give you some closure, here's how it ended: Scott and I walked up and down the stairs at 1 am and did yoga at 2 am and those two things (probably combined with the gallon of insulin I took) brought my blood sugar crashing down nicely to a 40-something in the middle of the night. At least I wasn't high any more.

Now, onto this week. I'm 37 weeks pregnant! Yay! That means I've passed the first alarming milestone for Diabetics Who Don't Want to be Induced Way Too Early - I got past 36 weeks! Wahoo! I'm having weekly non-stress tests, all of which have gone swimmingly so far. The nurses keep telling me how good of a girl Evvie is because she passes them with flying colors each week. But, I already knew that.

I also have a weekly "AFI" which uses ultrasound to see how much fluid is around the little one. So far, so good here too.

The most exciting news (for me) is that I've been having a few contractions! Like 1-2 per day! And I'm not just talking about the Braxton Hicks ones that I've been having for months - these are honest to goodness pre-labor, practice contractions! w00t! This is good news. Hopefully, HOPEFULLY!!!, it means that this little girl will decide to come sometime BEFORE the dreaded induction - likely to be set between August 14 and 17 (I'm pushing for the 17th. Or 18th. Or maybe 20th, but it's more likely closer to the 14th - boo.). We might actually get to experience labor as it was meant to be experienced - without drugs to make it harder (i.e. induction) or "easier" (i.e. epidural)! We might get to follow our plan of laboring at home (using the Bradley Method for those who are interested) for as long as possible and only going to the hospital for the actual pushing part! We might get to feel almost normal and not like a "special case" with lots of caveats on what is and isn't allowed due to diabetes.

To encourage this dreamy possibility, we've been walking a lot this week. And drinking Red Raspberry Leaf tea. And doing yoga. And walking some more. Because that's what the books say will help encourage and support a good labor. So, while we're not ready for her JUST yet (unless she really wants to come now - then that'd be OK), we're doing a lot to try to encourage her to start making her way into the world.

And, by the way, I'm hoping she'll come on August 7. Her great great grandmother for whom she was (will be?) named was born on August 7 and I think it would be a super cool coincidence. Plus 7 is a prime number, and I like that.

Sometimes, things just get wonky.

Tonight, my good friend and college roommate (for 4 years!), FAC, had a Harry Potter Party celebrating the release of the new movie. She had "Golden Snitches" (mini corndogs), "magical pizza" (because she thought the snitches didn't turn out well...but they did), "Cheesy Grubs" (cheese curls), and my favorite - Cornelius Fudge (It's a little nutty) (she thought of that, not me). Scott and I went to the pre-movie party and enjoyed ourselves, spending time with some good friends. I ate freely - enjoying a couple of slices of pizza, a snitch or two, a piece of fudge, and a cupcake (supplied by Liz who dressed as a Golden Snitch!). All was delicious.

On the way to the party, I remembered I only had a little bit of insulin left in my pump, so I pulled out my stash of insulin and reservoir set from my purse, refilled, and as I was putting the pieces together heard a weird "pop!" sound. I didn't notice anything wrong, so didn't think anything more of it.

Then, we got home from the party and I tested my blood sugar. 378 mg/dl. Crap. So, I bolused something ridiculous like 16 units (thanks, pregnancy, for making me more resistant to insulin!) and waited. And an hour later, I was 386 mg/dl. Dammit. I'm sorry, baby Evelyn. At this point, I changed the tubing of my pump, thinking that was where the problem lay. I was wrong. 45 minutes later, and I'm in the 350 mg/dl range. So, I changed my entire pump set - reservoir, tubing, and infusion set, and give myself another huge slug of insulin, hoping that it will get my blood sugar back in range. By the way, at this point, it's around midnight, and I was ready for bed at 9:45 when we got home from the party! At 12:20 I test again, and it's down to 318 mg/dl. Going in the right direction, right? One would think. Now, it's 1:15 am. I'm totally exhausted, and my stinking blood sugar is still 332 mg/dl. That's 3 hours of being HIGH - way higher than I should be, especially while pregnant. I'm feeling guilty, nauseous, tired, and defeated. I just want the insulin to work. I just want to go to bed. Most of all, I just want my baby to be healthy.

Hopefully my blood sugar will come down soon, and then I can go to bed. Hopefully I haven't caused too much damage either to myself or to my unborn daughter.

She's growing!

16 weeks:

22 weeks:

34 weeks (this past Sunday):

5 weeks until our due date! Let's hope she hangs out for at least 3 or 4 more weeks, and that the doctors let her hang out that long! :)

What is this? Seattle?

So, here in the DC area, it's been raining. A LOT. We've had a few gorgeous 80* sunny days, but not nearly enough of them. So I thought "what is this? Seattle?". Well, two interesting facts:

1.) Seattle is, in fact, currently in a dry spell. They may be saying "What is this? San Diego?" out there.
2.) Washington, DC typically gets about 4 times more rainfall in May than Seattle, WA, according to this site and this one.

So, while any other year my smartass comment would have been completely wrong, this year, at least Seattle's experiencing a little unseasonable dryness.

And, for your pleasure, here are some recent belly pics that Scott took while we were visiting his family in the Outer Banks last weekend:


Maybe someday when you're old enough, I'll tell you what we were laughing at.


It was REALLY sunny. No rain in NC while we were on the beach, luckily.


Scott gets artsy. I think it turned out to be a pretty neat photo.

How did we do it? How do other people do it?

I have found myself beyond busy since becoming unemployed. How did we ever get the oil changed in the car, get the laundry done, the dishes cleaned, dinner cooked, and still both work 40+ hours a week? And how did we EVER survive when we were both working full time and going to grad school part time?! Oh, right, we didn't. The car oil changes often went weeks or months overdue. We regularly ate out or ate super quick homemade dinners, and the laundry was a joke. It was a mountain of dirty clothes that we picked through to do a load here and there to accommodate our needs, usually for the next day.

As I said, I've been busy. But, surprisingly from the text above, not really from doing laundry, though we are regularly caught up on our laundry - it doesn't take nearly as much effort now. I'm busy running to doctors' appointments, lunches with friends, shopping trips, more doctors' appointments, running errands, and did I mention the doctors' appointments? Unfortunately, with all that running, our house is no where near as clean as I'd hoped it would be when I was first laid off. And I'm not getting as many projects finished as I'd hoped either.

What I am getting is rest, relaxation, and time to read all of those pregnancy, birth, and parenting books I had on a list that I never had time for before. I'm spending more time with friends and family (I got to visit Kentucky for 8 days instead of 4 when we went a couple of weeks ago!). My dogs aren't cooped up in the kitchen for the majority of the day (well, at least not most days), and I can volunteer at church.

I'm a little surprised to tell you that I'm thoroughly enjoying my time at home. I never really thought I'd be a good "stay at home wife" (SAHW), and judging by the state of our house, well, maybe I'm not. But I am thankful that we are doing just fine on Scott's income and that I can have this luxury during the third trimester of pregnancy, and especially that I'll have it once Evvie arrives. That's not to say I won't go back to work either part time or full time at some point - but right now, I'm counting my blessings.

Does this make me a yuppy?

I have some time to kill this morning in between having my blood drawn for my monthly thyroid check and going to lunch with people from church to church to celebrate administrative assistant day (or whatever it's called now), so I decided to bide my time in Panera. With an Asiago bagel. And a giant cup of chai. As I sit in an arm chair, with my oversized mug of chai, eating my bagel while reading my much neglected Google Reader on my iPhone, I wonder what high school me would have thought about this me. And then I thought, I can't imagine a more relaxing way to spend a morning in Fairfax, and that makes me happy.