Type 1 Diabetic. Pregnant. 13 Weeks In.

I've been living with T1 diabetes for 11 years now, since I was 21.  I was one of those people that the docs were confused about:  "Your blood glucose is over 600, you're not overweight (indicating Type 2), but you're not exactly young (indicating Type 1)."  It became clear pretty quickly that I was T1 when the oral meds did absolutely nothing for me!  Needless to say, 11 years later, I've been using a Minimed pump (several versions now) for ten of those years, and a Dexcom CGM for about three.  And the most important part of the story at this point - I'm pregnant :). 

I'm 13 weeks in, this is my first pregnancy, and it's been a wild ride already.  If you're reading this you probably know that diabetes is a full time job - one that we diabetics just DO without really having the time to ponder or reflect on :).  We poke ourselves all day, correct or drink a little juice, wake up in the night to check, visit the doctor waaaay more than the average Joe, deal with lovely insurance companies more regularly than we'd like, order our supplies, check our blood sugar while on hold with the insurance company, drink a little more juice, check again...you get the idea.  We do this so much that it just becomes a normal part of every day life, and I pretty much had it dialed.  But then I decided I wanted to have a baby, and the whole thing went on steroids!

I'm extremely lucky to have hunted down a great healthcare team.  Things so far have been going pretty smoothly if you don't count the unbelievable nausea, debilitating exhaustion, and record low insulin needs (I remarked to my nurse practitioner that my pregnancy is curing my diabetes, hehe).  But although I've felt like absolute death on most days, the little bean inside me is doing just great in there, waving it's arms and doing flips. 

I don't know many people with Type 1, and when I meet them I feel like there is a magnet drawing me to them.  I want to ask them "What pump do you wear?"  "Do you have a CGM?"  "Do you hate glucose tablets like I do?"  "Can you eat pizza?"  They probably think I'm a little nutty :).  But seriously though, I meet so few Type 1s that when I do, it's like sighting a rare bird in the wild.   When I began preparing for pregnancy I was dismayed at how little information I was able to find on T1 diabetes and pregnancy.  When I found Cheryl Alkon's Balancing Pregnancy With Pre-Existing Type 1 Diabetes, I felt like I had discovered the Holy Grail.  And when I discovered she had a blog,  where I could read about her pregnancy I could hardly contain myself.  I think I read every post from beginning to end in the same day.  She and other pregnant Type 1s who have shared their pregnancy journeys through blogs have been such a great resource for me. 

So as I began to come out of the fog of the first trimester and was thinking about buying a pregnancy journal at Papyrus, a little light bulb went off in my brain.  So here I am, journaling on a blog.  Type 1 diabetic. Pregnant.  13 weeks in.