Life With Jenny: Type 1 Diabetes & A Baby

Steven and I exchanged vows on November 26, 2005. I was about 30 weeks pregnant at the time. We had a sweet little wedding at Steven's parents house with our families, it was perfect!

About a month after our wedding, Steven left for basic training at Fort Benning, Georgia. The plan was that he'd be almost done with basic training by my due date, which was February 3, 2006, and he'd be able to come home for the birth (he'd have to go right back to finish basic, but that was okay). Well, little did I know, God had other plans.

At 32 weeks pregnant, I started seeing my OB/GYN once a week and I also had to go to the hospital and get hooked up to fetal monitors and have an ultrasound to measure the baby and fluids. Being a type 1 diabetic made my pregnancy high risk and history shows that towards the end of the pregnancy, things can get dangerous, fast. I actually didn't mind going to the hospital each week, I got to lay in a bed for an hour and watch Charmed! Each appointment went well, baby and I looked great.

The aches and pains of pregnancy were certainly setting in at this time and I felt all of it. My back hurt, my hips hurt, I had the worst heartburn too! My ankles started to swell, which the book said was normal. I even told the doctor at one of my appointments and was assured it was normal for this stage of pregnancy. I was getting concerned though because the swelling came on quick and the scale said I'd gained almost 20 pounds in 4 days. I protested and said there is no way I gained that much weight in 4 days. Again, I was assured this was normal. (NO IT WAS NOT!)

Two days later, I went to my hospital appointment. I was looking forward to relaxing and watching Charmed, because I was just so tired. Once I got into the hospital there was this kind of ramp I had to walk up to get to the room where my appointment was. I started having a hard time getting up that ramp. My heart was racing, it felt like my whole body was shaking and I couldn't catch my breath for anything. I stopped right outside the door of my appointment room, just hanging onto the rail, trying to breathe. The nurse that I had my appointment with either heard me or sensed there was something wrong because she opened the door, looked at me and asked if I was okay. I said that I wasn't sure, it's hard to breathe. She took me into the room and had me lay on the bed. She took my blood pressure and asked me if my blood pressure had been running high lately. It had not. She asked me to lay on my left side and she took my blood pressure again. She started doing an exam, asking me how I've been feeling. She asked if she could look at my feet and ankles. I had slippers on because my feet and ankles were so swollen, that's all I could get on. She took my slippers off and gasped. "How long have your feet and ankles been swollen like this?!" I told her almost a week. I tried to tell them at the doctors office but they didn't listen to me. She apologized for them and explained that my blood pressure was 200/110 and she believed I was experiencing something called 'Preeclampsia'. She called my doctor and reported the findings of the exam. She hung up the phone and said "Okay honey, you're getting admitted, you're going to have a baby today!"

I was not ready. We didn't have a car seat. We didn't have baby clothes. We didn't have diapers or wipes yet. I was scared. Steven wasn't here. I didn't want to do this alone. But I didn't have a choice. My body was angry and the only fix for preeclampsia was having the baby. I called my mom and told her I was getting admitted to the hospital and asked if she could bring me some things. She came to the hospital with a bag for me and stayed with me. I had to stay in the nurses room for a while because they had to get my labor and delivery room ready. Nurses from Labor and Delivery came down and started getting IV's going on me because my blood pressure was so high, we couldn't wait to get medication on board for that. I got poked a lot because the nurses were having a hard time finding a vein. Finally, they got me all hooked up and it was time to move to the labor and delivery room.

My labor and delivery room was actually pretty nice! It was more than I was expecting! Once I got into labor and delivery I got settled and met the nurses. They got me hooked up to all kinds of monitors, I had 2 IV's in each arm; saline, magnesium, insulin drip, and the Pitocin. My mom went to go buy a car seat because we didn't know how long it was going to be until the baby was here. While she was gone getting a car seat, the nurses got the medications to induce labor going. The first medication was called Cervidil - this was a medication that was inserted into the vagina and helped to 'ripen' the cervix and really get things going. That stayed in place for 12 hours. The nurse told me I probably wouldn't notice much from it, maybe some small contractions.

Can I just say she was WRONG!! After about an hour of the Cervidil in place, I started having contractions. They started out small and I was like okay, okay, I'm going to be fine. An hour later I was questioning everything. The contractions were INTENSE and just got more and more intense as the time went by. Finally, 12 hours were up and the Cervidil was removed and Pitocin was started through my IV. Nobody told me the Pitocin was going to be worse than the Cervidil! Oh man, once that Pitocin started working, the contractions were so strong. I refused pain medicine. My birth plan was no pain meds, all natural birth and I was going to breastfeed. The nurses kept asking if I wanted something for pain and I kept saying no. I'd sleep, have a contraction, yell and squeeze my moms hand and then go back to sleep - this was exhausting! My labor progressed slowly and painfully. After about 18 hours of labor, I was only 6 cm dilated. I was exhausted. How in the world was I going to push this baby out of me when I had no energy?!

Hour 25 of labor. The contractions are coming so fast it doesn't feel like they even stop. The pain is indescribable. I tell the nurses it feels like I need to push, they check me and say nope, you're only 9cm! I was like okay, well then I need to go to the bathroom. The nurses quickly told me nope, that's just the baby! I was so annoyed at this point because I really, really felt like I needed to push. Each contraction just intensified that feeling. A couple of contractions later and I just started pushing. This baby was coming and I couldn't stop it. The nurse checked me again and the baby's head was right there, so she asked for another nurse to get the doctor. With each contraction, I pushed - those 10 second counts were the longest 10 seconds of my entire life. It felt like nothing was happening. I was so tired. Everything hurt. After 45 minutes of pushing, I started talking to God. I said "God, please get this baby out of me!" Moments later, the doctor said there wasn't enough room in the birth canal for the baby's head and that she needed to do an episiotomy to make it easier for me. I didn't know what that was. She told me she needed to make an incision, basically in my undercarriage (I'll spare the gory details). I told her to do whatever she needed to do to get this baby out safely! So she did the episiotomy, and I pushed, and pushed and pushed so hard that blood was coming out of all my IV sites. Finally after about another 15 minutes, the baby was out. What a relief. All that pressure was gone. The doctor was covered nearly head to toe in amniotic fluid! All of the fluid was behind the baby and I was pushing so hard that when the baby came out, so did all the fluid and it went ALL OVER THE DOCTOR!

I didn't hear the baby cry right away so immediately got worried. After a few moments, she was crying. While they were taking care of her, the doctor told me I needed to push again. WHAT? No, there was only one baby in there! I couldn't. I was done. She said I needed to deliver the afterbirth. I mustered up as much energy as I could find and I pushed. I had been so used to pushing so hard for so long, that I pushed really hard and the afterbirth just shot right out! Once that part was done, the doctor gave me an injection of a numbing drug so she could sew the incision she made. While she was doing that, I got to hold my baby.

Welcome to the world, Ryann Marie! Born January 4, 2006 at 12:59pm, weighing 6 pounds, 6 ounces and 19 inches long. She's perfect and beautiful. I didn't get to hold her for too long before the nurses said they needed to take Ryann to the NICU. Since she was born 4 weeks early and I'm a type 1 diabetic, she had to have her blood sugar monitored. So, they took my baby away to the NICU. The nurses helped clean me up and then I got some time to rest. Let me tell you, I S L E P T. I was completely exhausted. I was too exhausted to eat, so thankfully the nurses were doing a great job monitoring my blood sugar and adjusting my insulin drip accordingly. I slept for the remainder of the afternoon. I woke up hours later when a nurse was bringing in dinner. We checked my blood sugar, it was still good and I was still on the insulin drip. My blood pressure had come down to normal ranges so I was taken off the magnesium as well. The nurse who brought my dinner said if I wanted to get up and shower I could. I decided to eat a little bit of my food and then decided that I did indeed want to shower.

I tried to sit up in the bed and literally could not do it. I couldn't find the remote to raise the head of the bed or call for help so I mustered up some more energy and strength, and pulled myself to a sitting position using the bed rails. That was incredibly painful and exhausting. I wanted to give up. I wanted to just stay in the bed. But they told me if I could get up to shower, that I'd be able to see my baby soon. So I kept working on getting up. I sat on the side of the bed. I managed to stand up. My legs were like limp noodles. I was shaking. I got my IV pole and managed to walk to the bathroom with the IV pole. I took the best shower I could on my own. As I was finishing up my shower, I heard the phone ringing. I hurried and wrapped a towel around myself to go get the phone. I left a trail of blood from the bathroom but made it to the phone. After the phone call, I was sitting on the side of the bed and a nurse came in (finally) to check on me. She saw the blood and asked if I was okay. I said I was, just so tired. She asked if I had taken a shower by myself and why I didn't call for help. I told her I couldn't find the call button. It had fallen down so we got that fixed. She helped me get dressed and get all cleaned up and I laid back down to rest some more.

The next morning, I got to visit the NICU to see my baby! I was so excited! She was doing great. Her blood sugars were good, she just had a bit of an elevated bilirubin level so she had to hang out under the bili-lights. I got to hold her and I tried nursing her, she had a hard time latching though. The lactation consultant said it was common with preemie babies but to keep working at it. So we kept trying.

I was discharged from the hospital 2 days after Ryann was born. Ryann and I were not discharged together though, which was so very hard. I hated leaving the hospital without my baby. I felt like I left a part of me behind. I felt heartbroken. Luckily, I could come to the hospital as often as I wanted to visit Ryann. She ended up staying in the NICU for a week before she got moved to the nursery. Once she got moved to the nursery, she had to stay for 2 days and then I got to bring her home. It felt so good to finally bring her home!

After having a baby and having a pretty traumatic birth, my blood sugars started to go a bit crazy. I had some super lows and some pretty high, highs. It was hard having a newborn and trying to manage my blood sugars. I wasn't getting enough sleep, ya know, because I had a newborn, I wasn't eating properly, also because I had a newborn. Steven was still in basic training in Georgia (we were in North Carolina). I felt pretty alone and isolated. And, I had a brand new baby that I had no idea what I was doing with! Breastfeeding turned out to be really hard for us because Ryann had a hard time with latching. I continued to pump and I supplemented with formula. My supply really started to diminish after a couple months so we transitioned to formula only. I felt defeated by this and was sad that I wasn't making enough milk for my baby.

I've never told anyone this but due to the traumatic birth, the trouble with breastfeeding, being on my own with a newborn, I felt like I lost control. To try to find control, I started limiting what I ate. It wasn't planned, I just decided one day that I didn't want to eat, but knew that I couldn't survive if I did that because of my blood sugar. I started drinking Gatorade and found it would sustain my blood sugar, sort of. Like just enough to get by. Then I decided I could have a fun size Kit-Kat once in a while and that would be okay. It wasn't necessarily that I wanted to lose weight, I had actually lost a bunch after recovering from preeclampsia, I just wanted to be able to control something in my life. And maybe, I was punishing myself because I couldn't carry my baby to full term and I couldn't produce enough milk for her. This went on for about a month, month and a half, until one day I neglected to take insulin for almost the entire day. This landed me in the hospital because my blood sugar was so high. I was in what is called DKA or diabetic ketoacidosis. Thankfully my in-laws took care of Ryann while I was in the hospital. I was admitted to the hospital for a week until I was better.

After getting discharged from the hospital, I really focused on taking better care of myself and eating properly. It was hard and I was exhausted because Ryann had her days and nights mixed up, but I did better. I started eating normally again. Being so sick in the hospital and having to be away from my baby again, was a big wake up call that I needed to take care of myself. I never told anyone this, nobody ever knew that I had developed an eating disorder. I felt like I was expected to be strong, no one really asked how I was doing with Steven away. Everyone just wanted to see the baby and aww over her. I felt like I really wasn't seen, and it wasn't seen that what I was going through was a lot and I really needed support. Trying to do it on my own caused me to develop an eating disorder and then neglect my chronic illness. I was just supposed to be fine, so I tried to be. I always said that I was doing fine, when inside I was barely hanging on by a thread.

Finally, after 4 months, Steven was done with Army basic training and Airborne jump school. He got to come home for a bit so we could get all our stuff packed up because we had orders for our first duty station: Fort Benning, Georgia, ironically. We got moved to our on post housing and I was doing okay. Ryann was doing well, growing so fast, and we were back together with daddy. It felt more complete. It was still hard but it felt like a manageable hard because I had Steven with me. I was whole again.

Having type 1 diabetes is hard. It's chronic, it's lifelong, it's not my fault I have this disease, it's autoimmune, diabetes burnout is real. Adding pregnancy, childbirth, a newborn, my husband away for military training, it was just a pot that was being stirred and stirred until it was too thick to be stirred anymore and then I ended up in the hospital. I should have asked for help, but I didn't feel seen, like I could ask for help. I was supposed to be strong and if I asked for help that would make me weak. I still think this way sometimes, now. Please know that if you have type 1 diabetes or any other chronic condition, it's okay to ask for help. It doesn't make you weak.

While the things I went through were hard and scary, I'm glad I went through them and am here to talk about them now. I know God had plans for me and I believe this blog is part of those plans. I pray I can be helpful to someone going through something similar. I wish I would have asked for help when I needed it, but I thank God He got me through all the hard times. If you need to talk, I'm here. Send me an email, message me on social media. You're not alone.

Thank you for being here and reading my story. Thank you for your continued support! I want to hear your stories, connect with me!

Until Friday,

xoxo - Jenny

P.S. Jesus loves you!