Confessions of a Starbucks addict

So I went out to lunch with Troy, Chris and PJ the other day. At the end of our lunch someone from the heparin pump company called me on my cell. Troy and the kids got up as we were getting ready to leave the restaurant. I'm there, talking on the phone, gathering all of my stuff to put back in my purse and I'm searching crazily for... MY CELL PHONE!

Can I just say that I totally feel like my mom now?

I've been taking a nap in the afternoon lately. It's so nice that Troy works from home so that I can do that and not worry that PJ is getting into trouble... If he didn't work from home I might just make her take a nap with me. I don't know if it's the pregnancy that's taking a toll or if I'm not getting enough sleep at night. Either way, it's really nice to take a nap in the afternoon. :)

Unless... you have a set accident like I did during yesterday's nap. Whoops! It wasn't my insulin pump set, it was the heparin pump set. It seems that I must have scratched at it while I was sleeping or pulled on the tubing, something must have happened. I woke up from the nap with this cold and wet spot on my shirt. I looked down and it was like someone had stabbed me or something! A huge amount of blood was all over my shirt, and I don't even want to talk about the mess on my skin. Ick. I knew there was a reason they told me to keep the old set in for at least 12 hours after a set change. Sheesh, I'll make sure to definitely do that.

So my first set change for the heparin pump was a day early. Such is life, I guess. Also, the site is now a hard, huge lump. I'm kind of disappointed about that. I don't tend to get lumps under my skin with my insulin sets, and if I do it's because I left the set in for more than 4 days (you're only supposed to keep it in for 3 days). The site is also bruised like crazy. I thought the whole point of the pump was that the site wouldn't bruise. I'm going to have to yell at my OB about that one...

As of noon today, I'm a double pumper. :p I have my insulin pump and now I have a heparin pump.

The pump is the same case as my Cozmo, made by Smith's Medical. The thing I don't like is the sets... the sets are *awful*. They are the Orbit 90s. I suppose they're supposed to be like the Cleo's but the tubing is the real problem. The Luer-Lok connector comes up out of the cap, so it's scraping my side up. Ugh. The tubing is blue, so at least I can tell through the tangled mess of 42" tubing which has a bubble and which doesn't.

Another interesting difference is that heparin sets are allowed to stay in for 5 days. Yippee! My rate for the heparin is 0.024mL/hr. The 3mL cartridge lasts almost the full five days. I'm also glad that I have the clear holster from my Cozmo that I'm not using (because I'm pumping with my MM722 right now), so I have that instead of the stupid carrying case they gave me for the pump. It's like a big wallet that you clip on to your belt. No thanks.

I also now have to check my first morning urine for Glucose, Protein, Blood and Leukocytes. Oh yay!

For what it's worth though, I think these Orbit sets might have a smaller gauge than the Cleos. I could feel those going in and with the Orbit's I can't. Which is kind of strange since I was told heparin is a larger molecule than insulin, but if it's working through a smaller gauged set, it does make me wonder...?

My OB and I get along so well. We chatted about everything today...mostly to do with how women who are diagnosed with gestational diabetes should just immediately be put on insulin instead of trying to do the quite limited ADA diet for GD. I gave her my email address and phone number so that I could be kind of a "friend" to anyone newly diagnosed in her practice. What prompted this was the patient who left the office as I was coming in... I could have sworn that this woman was just told her baby had died inside her, she was carrying on so badly. I felt really sorry for her. But no, that's not what happened...she was told she needed to be on insulin because the diet just wasn't working for her. I do kind of feel badly for people who are dxed while pregnant, but you know, at least it ends with the birth of your baby!

So, I'm hoping to help convince these women that having to take shots isn't the end of the world...those needles are itty-bitty, they don't hurt, and honestly look at it this way: with insulin you can still eat whatever you want to! I guess the previous patient had told my OB that she was trying to kill this lady's baby... with what? Insulin? You're kidding me, right? IT''S A HORMONE PEOPLE! It's not like it's really a medication, it's something your body isn't producing properly (or it's producing it but your cells aren't using it right so you need some more injected). It's not going to cause cancer, it's not going to kill anyone (well, okay if you give yourself too much and don't eat to cover the insulin you took I guess it'd kill you, but come on don't be stupid!)

I don't mind being a support person, but my OB knows, I'm going to tell it like it is.

So, in other talks at the OB's, she mentioned that she'd like me on a heparin pump. I guess because I was complaining about the enormous bruises on my hips from the 25-guage heparin needles. To give you an idea of the size of that needle, it's the same size they use for the flu shot. A normal insulin syringe is 29-gauge. What they draw your blood with is 21-gauge (the green-topped needle, that is...the butterflies ~light blue~ are 23-gauge). Okay, so it's about middle-sized for things that have been stuck into me (I'm not counting IVs or the needles they use for pheresis), but the heparin was leaving enormous bruises. So, I'm being referred for a heparin pump.

Baby's heart rate was a little low today (152 BPM), but my OB noticed that I was dehydrated so that's probably the cause. She made me drink 32 oz. of water before I left the office. :p

So I was perusing the boards over at MDC and I came across this post, hijacked from another board. I thought the humor was stellar and the subject so incredibly needed sometimes. :)

My DH got sick of EVERYONE telling me, "You know, you don't get a medal for going natural!" in their own snobbish way. So what does he do? He gets me a MEDAL! LOL! I got a Copper one for birth #1 (In hospital, pitocin, no other drugs) and a Silver one for birth #2 (in hospital, drug-free). One of the family found out about our little gag gift and asked me if it offended me that he "rates your performance in labor". I was like, "No, if he started out giving me gold medals I could have never strive to do better." Then they asked how he "rated" me. Keep in mind that this is our GAG gift and is purely in a joking manner between my DH and I only but his rating system goes something like this:

Platinum- Home Unassisted birth (as long as it's perfectly safe), vaginal breech delivery (home or in hospital) or vaginal multiples delivery (home or in hospital).

Gold- Home birth with traditional midwife, drug-free.

Silver- Hospital birth drug-free.

Copper- Hospital birth with some kind of drug(s).

And then she asked, "Well what if you have to have a c-section?" and my DH goes, "She'll get a participation ribbon." LMAO! He was COMPLETELY joking but the look on that woman's face was priceless!

I figure that since I posted about Troy leaving me, I should post that he came back. :) His plane arrived about a half and hour early, so that was nice. The little girls had wanted to stay awake to greet him when he got home, but I saw that they were all falling asleep standing up. So I told them that I'd have him wake them up when he came in, so they'd be able to greet him then. I think Shayna was the only one who really stirred and uttered a sleepy, "I love you daddy."

Since he's been home, he's been working just as much as he was while out in NH. Funny, I don't ever *see* him working so much, but he's kinda set himself up in our room and is hanging out with me. That's been nice, except when he's on the phone...he's got a newly acquired loud phone voice. He doesn't seem to use it when he's on the phone with me, since I can barely ever hear him, but you'd almost think he was trying to shout his way to NH! It's quite comical. :)

All is back to normal now. The kids are off school for mid-winter break. What a stupid break. I swear it's for the teachers more than the kids (sorry mom!), but seriously why can't we just have a week-earlier end-of-school release instead of this stupid mid-winter break? It's ridiculous!

Not for real! Sheesh... :) He went off to NH for the week. Nice timing of his company, I think. Today is Tani's birthday (17th!), and he won't be back until Chris's birthday (19th!), which is Friday. Technically, I think with the flight and the drive from the airport he'll be back the day after Chris's birthday but Chris probably won't know that since he's probably going to spend the night out with his friends... :p

So I'm all alone, with the kids, for a week. I see major headaches in my future... Big ones. Ones that don't go away with Tylenol. Actually, it probably won't be too bad, I'm just trying to make Troy feel badly for leaving me a single mother for a week!

I wanted to paint Shayna and PJ's room this weekend. That didn't happen. I wanted to clean my room this weekend, that didn't happen either. I'm finding that when Troy leaves I drop into a bit of a depression...of course, maybe it the weather. Yeah, I'll blame that. The weather sucks here. It's gray, wet, cold. Yeah, I pretty much hate it here. Can you tell?

I have a friend who lives in Australia. I hear that it's somewhere around 114°F these days. I'd be in total love! Except for the power outages, where I'd have to just have to go spend the day at the pool or something. Comparing that temp to our crappy 45°F rainy, overcast weather...yeah, I'd jump a plane to the land of Oz if I could. Of course, I guess it could be worse... I could be living where and auntie of mine does, near Anchorage, AK, which is currently at 14°F. Brrrr! But hey, it's sunny there too! :D Gotta find that gold at the end of the rainbow, no?

I think I'll be okay this week. It's not like I haven't done this before. At least I'm not ready to push a baby out while he's on a trip this time... he's got a few months for that left yet.

It's so funny... every time I think that my appointment is all set and going to go smoothly, something crops up that makes it end up not-so-smooth.

Today's appointment was the 20 week check-up with the peri as well as the 20 week u/s scan. At least, that's what I *thought* it was. Apparently when I was there a month ago and the receptionist was making all the appointments for this one as well as the one for last Monday with the fetal echo people, she got confused and forgot to book today's appointment as the check-up *and* u/s. Whoops!

After talking with the peri, she went out and said that they'd be able to move things around and go ahead and do the u/s if I could just wait a few more minutes. That was fine, since I'd brought Troy and PJ along so they could see the baby. :) It did put us over-time to get home and let Kaycee and Shayna in the house, but I guess Kaycee had her key and got themselves in just fine...

The check-up was good, Troy reminded me of a few things to talk to the peri about, and all was good. The peri didn't even say she needed to see me again, so I guess they're done with me and I'm cleared for full OB stuff now... For the u/s we had the crappy technician again, I didn't see the good one there so we were stuck with the crappy one. At least this time she didn't try to force Troy to take PJ out of the room. That drove me crazy the last time... PJ was good, just needed to not ask questions during one part of the scan, other than that all was good.

I love the pictures that I got. :) One is a full profile of baby's face, and the other is a between the legs shot lol. I wish that this tech would have printed out more pictures, there were some great shots of his hands and feet too. Ah well. At least now, we can *really* tell that he's a boy!

Today's appointment was interesting. I had to get a fetal echocardiogram, which is done at a children's cardio group... So, other than the parents in the waiting room, I was surrounded by kids wondering why a mommy was there without her kid.

Anyhow, the little man is *still* a little man. Other than that, he was moving around so much the the sonographer was getting a little irritated that he wouldn't hold still so she could capture his heart really well. I guess I shouldn't have eaten that banana on the way there?

Eventually she got good tracings and afterward I spoke with the cardiologist. He says that the little man's heart looks perfect, the walls are the right thickness, and he wants to repeat the echo at 32 weeks, just to be sure that the walls of the heart don't get thick (apparently this is something that can happen to babies of diabetics and it's easily treatable during pregnancy but can be a problem after pregnancy).

So, we're good.

I have the detailed 20 week u/s at the perinatologist's office on Thursday. I'm sure I'll get a plethora of pics from there... no pics were available from the cardiologist's office since that's just a temp office and they only have portable equipment there until they move.