Lupus and Motherhood one woman's tale

This is just my take on my life, my disease and my viewpoint.

I was suspected of having lupus SLE for approximately 3 years however it was not confirmed until I was pregnant with my 5th son. I had lost many babies to early losses (4) and a daughter to birth defects previously so this 5th son is a much wanted child.

Once I went to the docs I was amazed at the complications that come about because of lupus and it's common ailments however it was too late to think twice as he was already coming.

I did ok in my pregnancy until about 26 weeks I had a severe lupus flare up and was put on Prednisone- a steroid. It took another 4 weeks to truly clean up the flare and stop the side effects (time for the steroid to get in my system and work the flare up down on a low dosage- higher dosages would have took much less time). However at 31 weeks I started having complications because of the steroid.

First to come was I have to have an IV in labor to "restart" my natural instincts to pain and stress. I guess when the prednisone blocks the lupus from attacking it turns off all of our natural instincts to pain and stress too.

Then I was diagnosed with steroid induced diabetes- gestational we assume. Within 1 week of being diagnosed- I went to a gestational diabetes class, started 1 dose of injectible insulin, then 2 then 3 within 2 weeks. We still 3 weeks later haven't fine tuned the dosages and I am still yo-yo'ing but hopefully it will subside soon.

Due to the gestational diabetes my baby is in the 97 percentile and at 30 weeks was estimated at over 5lbs and now at 33 is estimated at round 6 give or take 10%. Due to his size I will likely be pressured to deliver early- and if they allow me to do a natural induction I will consider it after 37 weeks however I am avoiding a pitocin induction if I can -been there done that and over it!

Well here we are at 33 weeks -in pain, stressed out, getting poked 6-10 times a day and ready to go.

But before you think this blog is one big complaining- negative site- it's not. I wanted to get the "background" stuff out of the way so you understand whats going on.

We have more blessings than we could have ever imagined:

-Our health- yes even with lupus- we have all of our health- we do not have terminal diseases and despite my side effects of lupus I am able to be active in my children's lives.

-Our sons- We have 4 sons- 11, 8, 5 and 2 with another on the way that we thank our lucky stars for every day.

-We are not rich by any means but we have a roof over our heads, food in our stomachs, and love in our home- That makes us better off than much of the world and I am thankful for this every day!

Well I will post again soon! But I wanted to get my initial post there and on before I forgot....More posts to come on many subjects including going green, cloth diapering, raising boys (well the boys in general), lupus, and of course the new baby.