Ever since my last post regarding my food guilt, I have made some changes to my boluses to combat the post-meal highs.  My original insulin:carb ratio before I got pregnant teetered from 1:12 to 1:15.  Immediately after I became pregnant, I changed my ratio to 1:10 to bring down my post-meal numbers.  When I began the 2nd trimester and noticed an overall increase in my numbers, I changed it again to 1:8.  I had never taken so much insulin before.  I worried about crashing from the increase in insulin, and I fought some lows with the initial change.  Some of these lows have been really scary. 

The worst of these lows occurred shortly after I changed my ratios the last time.  I went to bed after battling a post-dinner high for 3 hours.  Feeling scared and guilty, I kept stacking bolus on bolus as well as setting an increased basal rate.  When I finally went to bed, I was still coming down from the high but was at a more comfortable number.  I ended up crashing hard and woke up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and barely able to move.  When I finally got up to test, my blood sugar was a frightening 22 mg/dL.  I corrected with a banana, peanut butter, and juice, which worked but left me paralyzed with fear. 

Being low scares me, but what scares me more is not knowing that I'm low.  My hypoglycemic unawareness is at an all time high with trying to keep my blood sugar at such a low range all the time.  Before I was pregnant, I would feel the shakes and become sweaty when I was in the 50s.  Now, the 50s barely affect me, and the 40s are little different.  It takes me getting into 30s or 20s before I start to feel the effects of being low.  It's times like these I'm grateful for my CGM that warns me when I get below 70 mg/dL.  I just have to make sure I have plenty of glucose tablets on hand with me at all time, because I'm less likely to correct a low if I don't feel the symptoms. 

What's worse with all these lows is that I feel justified with being low because of being pregnant.  This is wrong.  I know it is.  I'm simply too scared to try to go higher because of the possible effects to my baby.  I feel like I can avoid any other pregnancy complications if I keep my A1c low enough.  I know this isn't true.  I could go as low as I want, but I have just as much of a chance of getting preeclampsia or having a big baby, diabetes not included.  And I think that's what makes a diabetic pregnancy so hard:  Even if I have the best numbers I've ever had in my life, I still have just as much of a chance for things going wrong. 

Everyone keeps telling me that all this will be worth it in the end.  That once I have that life in my arms, all the frustrations of going through a diabetic pregnancy with be totally worth it.  I sometimes close my eyes and try to imagine that day, when diabetes will fade in the background and it will be just me, my husband, and my DAUGHTER!  Then I open my eyes and she kicks me.  Yeah, totally worth it.