Baby Bullets

• Wow!
• We've been home from the hospital for a week now
• In the first 48 hours after birth, they test the blood sugar for infants every 8 hours
  
  
• The "normal" range for infant's blood sugars is 45 mg/dl - 90 mg/dl
• Both babies hung around the mid-40s to low 50s for the first day before pushing up into the 70s once they were getting some formula in their bellies
• They're not checking for diabetes (as a nurse kindly explained to me) because they are much too young to have an autoimmune attack kick into gear (and hopefully never will)
  
• OneTouch has pulled off a mini marketing coup
• Rather than explaining to parents that they're checking their newborn child's blood sugar, they say, we have to "do a OneTouch" every 8 hours" (and it even says this on the official medical records!)
• The machine they used was ancient though, and took a good 45+ seconds to perform the test
• As for me, I'm completely off my schedule
• I rely on being on schedule to help maintain my control
• Usually, I change my infusion sets every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings after my shower
• I occasionally waste a little insulin this way, but to know *exactly* on schedule brings me a peace of mind that is well worth the waste
• Now, I don't hardly know what day or hour it is, so I've been setting up my pump with the maximum amount of insulin it can hold and hoping I remember to change it in less than 4 days
• I haven't logged my blood sugars through any of this, so I have next to no idea how well (or poorly) things are going
• They (the doctors, the books, etc.) recommended using a log to keep track of the babies feedings/sleep/pee/poop
• I refrained from doing this for some reason
• I think it's because I'm a little OCD and wouldn't be able to really do it unless I designed a log myself
• And I just don't have the time for that!
• And besides, things have been going so well, the babies have been feeding rather well (and until recently pooping and peeing rather well -- L hasn't pooped in 24 hours, so there's a low level of concern, but E has been a monster eater and pooper)
• Logbooks are best for debugging (at least that's my rationalization for not logging their feedings, etc. (and when I'm slacking off in logging my own blood sugars))
• I also have been ridiculously over-treating my low blood sugars
• A reading of 43 mg/dl is COMPLETELY different from a reading of 43 mg/dl with an infant in your arms (diabetic parents: any suggestions for dealing with this new fear?)
• And I've found that it's increasingly difficult to distinguish between the symptoms of sleep deprivation and hypoglycemia -- not cool
• But other than that, things are going great
  
• I've been peed on, pooped on, spit-up on, I'm sleep deprived, and I've never been happier in my whole life
  
  
• Go figure