Things Diabetes has taught me this month... December edition

I never got around to posting November's "Things"... I know I had a bunch of them, but then I had a baby and gave birth to what was left of my brain. I'm a few days late with December, but at least I'm making the effort, right?  Here goes...

-Always be prepared when it comes to D. Heck, when it comes to ANYTHING. But ESPECIALLY when it comes to D. I haven't shared much about Lucas's birth, but I went into labour while we were an hour away and had to drive straight to the hospital. I walked into L&D with nothing but the clothes on my back. There wasn't even a bag prepared at home for Fred to get. We had nothing ready for the baby either... The bassinet wasn't set up, we had no newborn diapers, no car seat... The only thing I had done was wash his clothes. But worst of all, we had to fly by the seat of our pants with Elise. We had no one to take care of her in the days following Lucas's birth.  Her care manual was still a few pages away from being done. We were lucky to have insulin and an extra pod with us the night Lucas was born.

-Have a back-up plan to your back-up plan. And another plan just in case. We weren't totally unprepared when it came to Elise's care. In the event Lucas came early, we  had approached a few friends that had an inkling of how to care for Elise to see if they were comfortable staying in the waiting room while Fred was in the OR with me. Unfortunately, friend #1 was out of town. Because it was getting late, friend #2 took Mattias to his house. Thankfully, friend #3 was able to get up to the hospital about 30 minutes after I went into surgery.

-Nurses are the bomb-diggity.  I was seriously in a panic about what to do with Elise. If Lucas had waited until his due date, my mom would have been here to look after the kids. But the doc wanted me to get into surgery ASAP and our friend couldn't be get there right away. The amazing nurses in L&D stepped up and offered to care for Elise until B could get there. One even stayed past the end of her shift. And as I quickly went over her pump,CGM and the glucagon with them, I wasn't met with blank or confused looks.  Love those ladies! And what better place for Elise to be, right?

-Sometimes D has to take a backseat. This last month has been coo-coo bananas. Lets review:

• Lucas was born a month early
• He spent 9 days in NICU
• My mom couldn't fly in until 2 days after he was born
• Mattias got sick
• Elise got sick
• Fred got sick
• Fred and I had to split our time between the NICU and home. The kids started acting out and crying every time we tried to even leave the room
• My mom got sick and ended up in the hospital with pneumonia
• I got sick
• I got pink eye in one of my eyes
• Lucas came down with some sort of funk
• At one point I had three doctors appointments in one day, making it a grand total of five for the week.
• I got pink eye in the other eye.

During all this, diabetes was being a jerk. And I feel awful saying this, but I had no time or energy to try and fix it. It really took its toll on poor Elise.


-I am so thankful for the pump.  We were still on MDI when Mattias was born and it was hard.  I think it would be almost impossible this time around.  I am still trying to learn time management with three kiddos, and dinner time is HARD. I had planned on preparing some meals and freezing them for Lucas's arrival, but I never got around to it. Now that my mom has left, things are still so crazy that dinner time sneaks up on me and I don't have anything made. Needless to say, we've been getting a lot of take-out.  I just need to figure out a rhythm to this three kids thing. Or hire a professional chef.  Anyway, I'm thankful that the pump makes mealtime a little less stressful.
 
Whew... That was a long one. And I'm pretty sure I forgot some stuff. As long as this was, it's probably a good thing I did.