Bear's Arrival.
Say hello to Vlasnik kiddo #2, who shall on the internet be referred to as “Bear”:
I’m a mom of two. That’s… wow.
As it turns out, I didn’t get the seven more days of pregnancy that I was hoping for. I got two.
The last biophysical profile (“BPP” if you like acronyms) I received suggested that my amniotic fluid level had gone slightly north of the normal range. I found out this is not cool because that means that when your pregnancy is already technically full-term and you are dealing with crazy insulin resistance and trying to keep your blood pressure down, your delivering OB leaves you a voicemail after consulting with your high-risk one which essentially says “hey, just wondering what you thought about having a baby today” and then you frantically find childcare for your toddler, grab your bags, and go have a c-section that very night even though you weren’t mentally prepared for it just yet.
Or, you know, that was my experience.
With Rabbit, we tried inducing labor. When that didn’t work, we went the route of emergency c-section. I think the hours of labor prior to surgery were a large part of why that surgery was so hard for me to recover from, so I wasn’t really looking to relive that scenario this time around. I knew that the result would likely be the same – this baby was measuring larger than my first had been, plus I was one more week pregnant when I delivered. I’m not a big risk-taker on matters like these, so I was totally fine with scheduling a c-section (and so were my doctors).
The whole process was way less stressful than the first time – I guess because it wasn’t an “emergency”? It helps to know how the whole thing goes down already.
As for diabetes, I opted to keep my insulin pump connected to me, rather than have an IV for insulin. I did the insulin IV option with Rabbit since we didn’t know how long labor would last and I didn’t want to be worrying about pump settings while having contractions – but with a scheduled surgery, I knew I’d be back “on” in a few hours and didn’t want to hassle with an extra IV line. I wish I could say that I stayed totally in range throughout the whole procedure, but that’s a big ol’ bucket of nope. We had to administer a couple of partial doses of IV glucose as we prepped me for surgery – the last delivered a few minutes before my son was.
There have been lots of good things:
- I didn’t throw up after surgery this time! ::high fives self::
- Bear didn’t have the low blood sugar issues in the first 24 hours of life that his sister did. His BG was low right after delivery, but resolved itself within a few hours.
- I was somehow able to stand up within 24 hours of surgery and was walking around within 48 hours, which, what, how.
- I didn’t need to take pain meds for as long after this surgery, as I did with the first. And most importantly, to me:
- This recovery has been SO MUCH BETTER than my first. It has not taken nearly as long to be able to move around without pain, and I actually feel about 80% of the way to the “normal” I felt prior to this pregnancy, now that I’m two months out. Again, what.
