Third Trimester

Alright, let’s take it back to third trimester. The hardest trimester of pregnancy for type 1s and probably for any woman really. You’re officially visibly pregnant whether you carried it all in front or all over (hello, giant butt!) and you’re uncomfortable, so very uncomfortable.  But, for type 1s it also means your blood sugars are creeping up and harder to control.  You throw so much insulin into your body only to have to wait it out and hope it comes down.  My basal rate was literally 3X the rate it was pre pregnancy! 

The doctors appointments become incredibly frequent, in fact the nurses and doctors knew me by name before I spoke and remembered past conversations we had - and they see A LOT of people.  You also are getting impatient because you just want to meet the little one whose keeping you up in the night kicking and forcing you to stop at EVERY SINGLE STORE to pee. 

For me, third trimester was a bit rough, only because my blood pressure began to creep up around 34 weeks ish. It was stressful because while I didn’t have any other symptoms of high blood pressure (besides actually having high BP) I wasn’t sure what this meant for me and my baby. Would this mean I’d be induced early? Was my baby okay? Would I need a c-section? Should I rest more? 

Well, what it meant for me was going to the hospital triage literally every single day (including weekends) to get my blood pressure taken and do a few other tests like a non-stress test, and urine / blood sample.  This is when the staff began to recognize me as I’d stroll in there and literally know exactly what to expect.  Lay on the bed, get hooked up to the NST machine which I called my “seat belt” and then get hooked up to the cuff to check my BP.  Oh and pee in a cup, the number of times I peed in a cup, I couldn’t even count. 

Each time I saw my OB, which was a couple times a week, I never knew what she’d say. If she’d tell me to it was time to have the baby early or if I’d be okay to keep going on. I know she was aiming for 38 weeks, but began to talk about 37 weeks or maybe even sooner. This scared me, but at the same time I didn’t want to wait too long and face the risks. 

On the Monday (36.4 weeks) I went in for my appointment with my OB. We took my BP and urine sample and within a few minutes of my appointment she looked at me and said, “I think it’s time to have baby!” I agreed because I didn’t want to play the game anymore of being scared of high BP. 

Then I was told to head to triage and of course this time my husband didn’t come to my appointment, so I had to get a hold of him to come down because I didn’t really understand what was about to happen.  They decided to induce me then, but then told me to come back when they called me. So we then waited for that call!

Kayla