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DISCLAIMER: This text is the output of AI based transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors and should not be treated as an authoritative record. Nothing that you read here constitutes advice medical or otherwise. Always consult with a healthcare professional before making changes to a healthcare plan.

Scott Benner 0:00
Welcome back, friends. You are listening to the Juicebox Podcast.

Steph 0:15
Hello, I'm Steph. I'm 37 I live in the UK. I've had part one diabetes for 30 years. I'm currently 28 weeks pregnant with our second son.

Scott Benner 0:27
Nothing you hear on the Juicebox Podcast should be considered advice medical or otherwise, always consult a physician before making any changes to your health care plan. I know this is going to sound crazy, but blue circle health is a non profit that's offering a totally free virtual type one diabetes clinical care, education and support program for adults 18 and up. You heard me right, free. No strings attached, just free. Currently, if you live in Florida, Maine, Vermont, Ohio, Delaware, Alabama or Missouri, you're eligible for blue circle health right now, but they are adding states quickly in 2025 so make sure to follow them at Blue circle health on social media and make yourself familiar with blue circle health.org. Blue circle health is free. It is without cost. There are no strings attached. I am not hiding anything from you blue circle health.org you know why they had to buy an ad. No one believes it's free. This episode of The Juicebox Podcast is sponsored by the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour. Next.com/juice box. The episode you're listening to is sponsored by us. Med, us. Med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, you can get your diabetes testing supplies the same way we do from us. Med,

Steph 1:58
hello. I'm Steph. I'm 37 I live in the UK. I've had diabetes for type one diabetes for 30 years. I'm married to my wife, Leanne. We have a 10 month old, nearly 11 months old, son, and I'm currently 28 weeks pregnant with our second son.

Scott Benner 2:17
Oh goodness, look at you. Well, congratulations, first of all, on both of them. Thank you very much. Awesome. And wait, you were diagnosed when you were seven years old. Yes, yeah, okay. And what was that like? What is your recollection of it?

Steph 2:30
Honestly, I don't necessarily remember a whole bunch of it. I remember specifically walking across the car park to the hospital, eating, chew its so chew its are this, like, fruity, really sugary sweet. And I like to think that was like the last legal sugar I could have had. And it certainly made my, well, first blood sugar test super high. I think I was like 33 something. So, oh, so we Yeah, UK, we use different units to us, so I think that's around 600 Oh, okay, but yeah, so that's pretty much all I can kind of remember from diagnosis. I'm

Scott Benner 3:10
going to ask you a question that you have no you don't have no way to answer this. But do you think you remember that because you remembered, or do you think people have retold that part of the story so many times that it sticks

Steph 3:20
to you? I don't know, because I was talking about it to my parents recently, because I've just sort of turned 30 years, like last month. So I was chatting to them about it, and they they didn't seem to recall it until I'd said it. So I think I do kind of remember it. I do remember other things, like the first couple of days we were injecting into oranges, which is nothing like human skin, obviously. Yeah, think things like little things like that I remember, but I don't really remember being in hospital or being freaked out or anything. So a

Scott Benner 3:52
person just told me recently that the nurse at their diagnosis give her a syringe and said, Go ahead, put it in my arm so you can see what it feels like. She was like, No, thank you.

Steph 4:04
That's, I mean, it's true to life, but geez, no, thank you. I

Scott Benner 4:08
think the Hospital found a sadist, and they were like, we have the perfect job for her. Yeah, absolutely okay. So you were diagnosed now, do you have other siblings, any other autoimmune in your family, or die, or type one? Yeah,

Steph 4:21
there's a bit of type one, but it's kind of relatively distant. It's like my mom's great uncle. It's my mom. Wait is it my mom? Yeah, my mom's uncle on one side and my mom's aunt on the other side. So yeah, they're both type one. As far as I know. They were old when I remember them, but apparently they were doing insulin. So

Scott Benner 4:41
how about like, celiac or thyroid stuff like that? No,

Steph 4:44
so there's a bit of thyroid as well in my mum's family. I think my mum her sister and two brothers, and my my my grandma, grandmother as well. There's some undiagnosed maybe rheumatoid arthritis, and I think maybe my grandma. Had, I think it's myelofibrosis, which I think can be autoimmune. Okay, so there's, there's a little bit around

Scott Benner 5:07
there, not a lot that I'm just used to very translucent Caucasians that don't do well in the sun. Usually have more of that going on when I'm interviewing, right? But we don't have a lot of sun here, really. No, no. I know. They don't give you, they don't let you have the sun there. No. So the Queen took your candy and then you what is. What does diabetes look like 30 years ago in the UK? Or do you even remember? Yeah,

Steph 5:29
well, so I started on and I I was cloudy and clear insulin. I don't exactly remember, but it was that must have been short acting and long acting, right? My parents seemed to think it was pig insulin, but that would have been like 94 so I'm, you know, I'm not going to not believe them. I'm not entirely sure. So, yeah, that was manually drawn up into one of those syringes, right? With the looking back, pretty big needle, from what I was told. And I don't really remember this very much, but I was injecting myself from pretty much day one, they my parents would mix, mix the dose together, and then I'd inject it. I think it was probably, I remember isophane being one of the insulins, maybe. But I think that may be mph, yeah, and maybe humulin, so. But either way, it was clear and cloudy, and you start to mix them together. But

Scott Benner 6:21
then your parents were, like, here you're seven, you're old enough to do this. You

Steph 6:25
were, I think I was just super stubborn, or like, Give me that. I'll do it sort of thing, which it kind of tracks,

Scott Benner 6:33
oh, that's held up throughout your life. Yeah, I'd say, so, yeah,

Steph 6:38
okay, gotcha help me out when, when something's actually fallen on me, I'll, I'll try until then,

Scott Benner 6:44
unless the car is on top of me, Scott, I really prefer to try on my own, if you don't mind. Yeah, yep, okay, all right, so we'll call you stubborn and then, but it works for you, right?

Steph 6:54
Yeah, yeah. Pretty much it's gotten into knowing how to control my diabetes, I

Scott Benner 7:01
suppose. Well, talk about that because, I mean, at some point you get off of that, that cloudy and that clear, right, and you move to a faster acting insulin. Do you remember about how old you were when you made the transition?

Steph 7:11
Yeah, I think it was somewhere around so the back end of primary school, so I would have been maybe nine or 10. Okay, pretty soon then, yeah, and I think then that was when the first I don't, I think there were reusable pens were around. I think, I think I vaguely remember having one with dinosaur stickers on it, nice, which sounds quite fun. So, yeah, that would have been around nine to 10, but there wasn't really any gone. Sorry.

Scott Benner 7:41
Okay, how long did you use injections? So

Steph 7:45
I only switched to a pump two years ago. Ooh. So, yeah,

Scott Benner 7:49
28 years Yeah, yeah. What's the process there? Is it just that, like things are going so well, and this is what I'm accustomed to. Or like a lady I interviewed the other day who told me, 100% not joking around, that she was always concerned, and these are her words that China would take control of her pump and give her too much insulin.

Steph 8:09
Oh, I mean, fine, if that's fair enough, hey. But no, I'm not. We

Scott Benner 8:16
joked about it for a while. I said, I'm trying to imagine someone in China going, hey, you know Tanya in Ohio. Let's get her,

Steph 8:23
yeah? I mean, it would you take some, yeah, real commitment to try and track down individuals for that reason,

Scott Benner 8:31
yeah? But, I mean, my point was that she was scared of technology, you know, and sometimes it's just because people are doing great. But what was your reasoning for switching and why did it take as long as it took? I

Steph 8:42
think it was just the way it was done for one thing. And one of my friends was on a pump, and he had tubes. And I couldn't be asked with tubes. I'm I'm clumsy for one thing, and I just couldn't stick the idea of having a tube hanging off me the whole time. So I just didn't really give it any thought, like diabetes nurses or and everything, didn't really ever ask me about it. Just didn't know. And then I started listening to the Juicebox Podcast, and learned about Omnipod, fact that they're tubeless and brilliant, and that got me to change my mind pretty much. I started to look into them, listen to the podcast more, and felt like it was a smart move.

Scott Benner 9:20
Okay. And so it feels like what you're saying is that I'm the reason you changed to a home.

Steph 9:24
Yeah, in a nutshell, all right, thank you. Hey,

Scott Benner 9:28
you're welcome. Are you just here to say thank you? Is the is the podcast over? Yeah, that's it. Can you imagine I could do this for another 10 years and I'm just completely out of things to say, and it just turns into people calling up and being like, hey, thank you. And I go, Oh, no problem. That's over. Do you have context for what about what was said or shared, or what you heard that made you go, I will try this. The contour next gen blood glucose meter is sponsoring this episode of The Juicebox Podcast, and. And it's entirely possible that it is less expensive in cash than you're paying right now for your meter through your insurance company. That's right. If you go to my link, contour next.com/juicebox, you're going to find links to Walmart, Amazon, Walgreens, CVS, Rite, aid, Kroger and Meyer. You could be paying more right now through your insurance for your test strips and meter than you would pay through my link for the contour next gen and contour next test strips in cash. What am I saying? My link may be cheaper out of your pocket than you're paying right now, even with your insurance, and I don't know what meter you have right now, I can't say that, but what I can say for sure is that the contour next gen meter is accurate. It is reliable, and it is the meter that we've been using for years. Contour next.com/juice box. And if you already have a contour meter and you're buying test strips, doing so through the Juicebox Podcast link will help to support the show. You've probably heard me talk about us Med and how simple it is to reorder with us med using their email system. But did you know that if you don't see the email and you're set up for this, you have to set it up. They don't just randomly call you, but I'm set up to be called if I don't respond to the email, because I don't trust myself 100% so one time I didn't respond to the email, and the phone rings the house. It's like, ring. You know how it works? And I picked it up. I was like, hello, and it was just the recording. It was like, us, med doesn't actually sound like that, but you know what I'm saying. It said, Hey, you're I don't remember exactly what it says, but it's basically like, Hey, your order's ready. You want us to send it? Push this button if you want us to send it, or if you'd like to wait, I think it lets you put it off, like a couple of weeks, or push this button for that. That's pretty much it. I push the button to send it, and a few days later, box right at my door. That's it us. Med.com/juice, box, or call 888-721-1514, get your free benefits check now and get started with us. Med, Dexcom, Omnipod, tandem, freestyle, they've got all your favorites, even that new islet, pump. Check them out now at us. Med.com/juice, box, or by calling 888-721-1514, there are links in the show notes of your podcast player and links at Juicebox podcast.com to us Med and all of the sponsors.

Steph 12:27
I think I just didn't know there was cheapest ones for one thing. Oh, okay. And the more I, I guess I listened because, because, I guess the year before I'd switched to pump, I changed insulin, maybe three or four different ones to try and eliminate Dawn phenomenon and and gaps, you know, where your long acting, your basal starts to run out inverted commas, and you can see gaps and stuff. I was trying to eliminate that. And I was really trying to do looking back, what, what a pump kind of does anyway. So I was doing corrections. I was trying to do, you know, I had a half unit pen. I was trying to do quarter units by just pressing it and pulling it out really quickly and hoping that was just a quarter ish,

Scott Benner 13:11
what you were doing, you're like, oh,

Steph 13:14
yeah, in it whilst, like, still removing the needle, yeah.

Scott Benner 13:19
So you're just like, you're judging by how much squirts out at the end, if, like, you did it well enough or not, like, that's a pretty big drop. I might have got it out in time.

Steph 13:26
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that was, that was kind of it, really. But I just, I couldn't get what, I couldn't get the control I wanted, then out of, out of just pens and insulin, that way. So, okay, yeah, I think. And I guess before that, the year before, I'd got on a CGM for the first time. So I only got one of those in about 2019 28 no must be 2018 2019 Okay, which was self funded for a good while. And that really showed me where, like I say, where the gaps were coming in, and where the peaks were, and where I was really crappy overnight. And you know, the morning that Dawn phenomenon, why the hell am I raising I've just put my foot on the floor. What's going on, all those sorts of things. So it really opened my eyes to being like, I can be a lot better than this. Yeah, and then, yeah, tubeless pump was the way to go. Okay, all right,

Scott Benner 14:17
excellent. Well, I'm glad to hear that now, the 28 years in between. What were your outcomes? Like, what were your goals? You know, what blood sugars were you shooting for? What did you consider a spike? Like, tell me about your care.

Steph 14:29
Yeah, I, I can't. I don't really have my like, a 1c results back further than, say, 2015 so I don't have it anything through uni at all. I to be honest, I'm not sure whether all the drinking I did at uni made me forget everything, but I don't really remember a whole hell of a lot. I do remember doing insulin, and I do remember carb counting, and I think the friend I mentioned earlier, he with the tubeless pump, with the tubed pump. Sorry. He. He when he joined uni, he was like, oh, you know, have you ever done carb counting? And I was like, No, so I guess Yeah, at uni. So I'd gotten to age 20, and I'd never done any carb counting or any thinking about it. I just done, I think of six units, say for dinner and six for lunch. So

Scott Benner 15:18
you, you get, like, cloudy, clear at seven years old, but at nine you've got a faster acting insulin. Or what are you using that? Is that just it, just regular, like, or are you like, when do you get, like, human log, I guess is my question.

Steph 15:32
Yeah. So I think it was just before uni, so I was maybe 17 or so, okay, okay.

Scott Benner 15:37
So you were just doing regular and mph, then for those times in between, yeah.

Steph 15:41
And then it was Nova rapid, and I think Lantus, maybe.

Scott Benner 15:44
But when you're saying then is that, when you were given that you weren't also given direction on how to use it? No,

Steph 15:51
not necessarily. I definitely was able to do corrections. Because I remember, you know, getting to say, I don't know, 14 or so, and I don't know what that is off the top of my head, I think that's maybe 250 and being like, I can correct for this now. So I do remember correcting high blood sugars at uni, but I don't think I ever really thought too much about anything that was above a 10. Okay, I

Scott Benner 16:15
want to tell people that at Juicebox podcast.com there's a calculator so you can, like, like, see what she's saying here. A 10, for example, is 180 blood sugar. Yeah, yeah. Okay. I'm trying to understand. I'm always trying to understand, during these conversations, that you go to the doctor's office one day and they're like, hey, guess what? Steph, great news. But they sound more like Mary Poppins, right? While they're saying it to you, and then it doesn't sound like me. We've got this fast tracking in so now you can crack blood sugars now, and blah, blah, blah, and then it's just here it is. God bless, see ya. Yeah,

Steph 16:49
I think so, because if it was around 17, then I was going off to uni. I was out of the juvenile diabetes care. I changed, you know, counties, I moved two and a half hours away from my parents. I just joined the GP, the local doctors practice, and they saw me, I want to say once every six months, maybe. And my a one CS, in fairness, throughout uni were, I mean, I don't remember what they were, and I don't have any record of them, but they were always like, yeah, you're doing fine. But now, looking back again, I must have been like roller coaster in the whole time, right? Like 100% again, I mentioned my drinking. I sometimes don't really know how I woke up, knowing what I know now about how alcohol works with insulin and everything I yeah, I think I made it lucky to get through some of those nights. What do

Scott Benner 17:42
you think your a one Cs were during, during college? I can't say uni. I'm sorry. I mean, I want, I want to, but like, it feels really weird Well, considering

Steph 17:50
they never were worried, and they never told me to make any real changes at all. I they must have been, I don't know, maybe seven or eight. So nothing to really flag. Anything particularly like, I didn't really start getting them, like tracking them, for one thing, until, like, 2015, not that long ago, really, I was well out of uni at that point. What the

Scott Benner 18:11
hell was the doctor saying when you tell him you're doing well, then doing well? What did that mean?

Steph 18:16
I don't know, but I know I always used to leave the doctor's office and be like, you know you've done fine, great, off you go. So

Scott Benner 18:24
you think it's you showed up, I gave you your prescriptions. You're not dead. You're doing great.

Steph 18:30
Yeah, yeah, I do think so, yeah, jeez. And until I really started to pay attention to it, and when I got a real job and finished uni and everything, I think that's when maybe I cite to pay more attention, and that's myself. And yeah. Okay,

Scott Benner 18:45
so let's, let's talk about the drinking for a second. What did you go to school for? What was your major forensic science? It's not important that you understand that at all. Don't worry about it. How many people are in a UK prison right now because you were drunk during class. Do you think,

Steph 19:01
Well, I don't work in it. For one thing, they're safe,

Scott Benner 19:07
let's say from you. Yeah, yeah. So help me a little bit. Did you come from a big family?

Steph 19:11
No, just me and my sister, Catholic? No, no, you weren't

Scott Benner 19:16
like, particularly held down by like, rules or anything like that as a child. Like, why do you go off and just, like, say, like, I wonder how much alcohol I can get in my face.

Steph 19:25
I think I turned 18 in July, and we start uni in September, so I hadn't and I had quite a baby face at the time, so I wasn't able to go out with my friends, you know, illegally when or when they turned 18 or before me. We can drink 18 here. And I think I just went for it. Just really liked being drunk. Can you tell me why I'm not

Scott Benner 19:49
quite I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I'm interested in your answer. Like, because, you know, like, the regular answer going to be back from if somebody's there, they're going to say, like, oh, it's an escape. From something? Did you feel like you were escaping from something?

Steph 20:02
No, I think it was just fun. Okay, it was, it was just fun to feel it's out of control, but it's not quite out of control. I suppose, although, you know, there were get carried home by your friends nights, for sure, it just it was fun. It was a lot of fun to feel free. I suppose other drugs. What it was, No, not at uni particularly, maybe bit of weed, but it, I wasn't really around it that much. So I didn't, I just didn't have the opportunity, I suppose.

Scott Benner 20:30
Okay, all right, do you still drink as an adult? Yeah, not at

Steph 20:34
the moment, but yes, yeah, much less since our son was born, much less before that also. But yeah, now I do still like to get drunk. Okay, not again, not at the moment, pregnant,

Scott Benner 20:45
but yeah, I'm not drinking now. For anyone who's listening, I just want you to just

Steph 20:51
double down, say it again. I'm not drinking because I'm pregnant, okay? But no, I do like to drink. I do, yeah,

Scott Benner 20:58
fair enough. I'm, yeah. I'm just like, you know, for people listening, I'm trying to make sure I I've got the story laid out for them so you were not considering your diabetes while you were, while you were at school, and you were and you were drinking a lot, but you never had an issue. No,

Steph 21:14
no, no, not really. I mean, any lows that I did have I treated myself with, you know, just dextro tablets or jelly beans or jelly babies or something like that. You know, I don't there were, there were definitely some nights that, again, looking back it, it looks like maybe I was spiked. And now, now I'm thinking back. I'm like, yeah, no, I just was having a super low again, yeah, to my reference earlier. I'm lucky, lucky. I've managed to wake up, I think, which I laugh, but it's probably not that smart at the time.

Scott Benner 21:45
I mean, is there a part I know you're laughing because you're alive still, is there a part of you that's sad about it, or sad about having done it? Just that idea of like thinking of your younger self, like being carried home and not sure where their blood sugar is?

Steph 21:58
I mean, I think the whole being carried home. Thing was, was almost part and parcel of what, at least my friendship group did. We took it in kind of, almost in turns. But I'm just, I'm just, I don't know how, how I got through it. I'm just feel incredibly lucky. You know, I'd be drinking like, you know, these you have alcohol,

Scott Benner 22:15
Pops, no. I mean, we might, but I don't know what you're saying.

Steph 22:19
It might be, like, is it West Coast, West Coast cooler? Is that? Do you guys have that

Scott Benner 22:24
I don't drink? I'm lost there? Like, yeah,

Steph 22:28
that they say on the back of the bottle, they come in, like, glass bottles or plastic bottles, and they're really sugary and sweet and flavorful, and they're about 5% alcohol, and they say on the back, don't drink if you're diabetic. Basically

Scott Benner 22:44
yeah, it says on the back Stephanie, this is, you don't do this next

Steph 22:48
to the little pregnant lady sign. There was a don't drink of your diabetic comment. I was drinking a lot of those. For one thing, I like pints of, you know, beer. So everything that was carby and bad. So I must have spiked like crazy during that time and then absolutely tanked overnight, because I'd wake up in the morning and be a perfectly decent, beautiful five blood sugar, which is like 90. So I'd wake up test and be like, great. Carry on with my day.

Scott Benner 23:16
Hey, I'm alive. Let's go well, you, I mean, in fairness, you learned that from your doctors. Yeah, yeah, true. Still standing. Doing great. Let's go. Yeah, absolutely okay. So when do you find the podcast? Is it a couple years ago, or is it longer than that? It took you a while to, like, say, I'm gonna try a pump. No,

Steph 23:35
it's, it's probably 2020, so during COVID and things, because, you know, I started to start listening to start listening to podcasts, and I started to drive more to work. So I had something to listen to. It must have been when I started to look up pumps and or or CGM or something that I came across. It got onto the pro tips. What kind of

Scott Benner 23:53
I don't need to know exactly what you do, but what kind of work do you do that went during COVID? You're like, oh, I now drive more to work. Oh,

Steph 24:00
no. So I we moved, oh yeah. So we moved further away, so I was driving further to get to work. I work for like, a CGM, CGM, fast moving consumer goods company, you know, Unilever, they make Dove deodorant or and, oh no. It's not called dove where you are. This

Scott Benner 24:19
is fun. So you like deodorant, but it's called something, you think of it as something different than what it's called. Where it's here, yeah,

Steph 24:26
it's called, sure here, it's called Rex owner and other companies. And it's called, I think it's degree in America, okay,

Scott Benner 24:32
I know degree. I don't use it personally, but I'm aware of it. Well, do you get it for free?

Steph 24:38
No, that sucks. With those workshop you get it cheaper, but no, no, but they make lots of an awful lot of other stuff. It's a huge company. Okay, I've probably sold out to the big man somewhere down the line. Now,

Scott Benner 24:52
got the man's got me by the short and curlies. I can't get away. Okay, that's

Steph 24:58
it. So, yeah, I. Just I started driving further because we moved so it was, you know, an hour and a half, two hour drives, which I'm probably not that far for you guys, but

Scott Benner 25:07
Well, that's like, all the way across England, doesn't

Steph 25:11
it? It's from the middle to the edge. No kidding, yeah. So yeah, plenty of time my

Scott Benner 25:15
daughter drives, now five and a half hours to get to school, which is only on the other side of the state that's next to us. So that's crazy.

Steph 25:22
Oh, he's crazy. Yeah. Okay,

Scott Benner 25:26
well, okay, so you so you find the podcast. You start listening. You know you're hearing different ideas. You seem like a very pleasant person. I don't know if you know that about yourself, right? Like, thanks. Yeah, no, of course. Do you so does it give you like, do you get angry? Are you like, I can't believe nobody's told me about this stuff for so long. Are you just like, oh, new thing. I'll try it. No,

Steph 25:43
yeah. I think it was, like, new thing. And I just, like, sucked up all the information so I could go and go to the doctors and say, I want this, and this is why can I have it please? Because obviously, here we've got the NHS, so there's a lot of blockers to getting technology and getting new, better, different technology. So you had to really, like tick a load of boxes to fulfill the criteria to get a pump to then next step, it's you have to do a load of classes and learning and things like that. But I basically learned it all through the podcast. So I could go to the nurse and say, I know how to do this, this and this and this and this, and this is what it will help me with. Because we do some, well, we don't, at the moment, we do things like we do lots of different sport, relatively sport, but we do white water kayaking. Okay, so it's like you're in an all covering dry suit so you don't get wet. So things like doing manual injections when you're wearing one of those is impossible. For one thing, the pump, getting the pump, that was one of the reasons for that. Working in a lab was another reason, you know, I can't necessarily be in and out due to doing injections, doing blood tests, you know. So

Scott Benner 26:55
pulling out a controller or a phone or something is doable. Yeah,

Steph 26:58
exactly, yeah. So I just sucked up all the information and took it all to the doctors and the nurse and shoved it all back at them, right? And, yeah, excellent. That's awesome. That one terrific.

Scott Benner 27:11
So you said you just started kind of tracking what your a one Cs were not long ago. Like, what, what have they been since you've been paying attention to them? Yeah?

Steph 27:20
So like 2015 is when, when I sort of started tracking, they were like six low sixes. They had a couple of mid sixes, low, low sevens, pretty much all the way through to just before starting the pump, I was around 5.9 and then started the pump, and then it was coming down the Oh. And actually, just before it was 6.4 like, beg your pardon, then it was pardon, and then it was like 5.7 5.6 4.7 5.7 5.4 so it was, you know, coming down when soon as I switched to the pump, and I'm on a closed loop as well now, so I use Android APs. Oh, cool, yeah. So it dropped from 5.7 where it was hovering down to 5.4 when I started that,

Scott Benner 28:01
learning about carb counting in college, then was a big deal for you. Yeah, yeah.

Steph 28:06
I think meeting, meeting my friend Kenny, he was, he was a, he was a big change for me.

Scott Benner 28:11
Oh, that's awesome. So you feel like you were doing pretty well in that time in between, you just weren't, kind of like you weren't checking on it as often,

Steph 28:19
yeah, yeah. And I think maybe having that other diabetes, literally, and kind of the room next door made you a little more self aware,

Scott Benner 28:24
you know, why? Like, you have any insight, I think,

Steph 28:28
somebody to talk to about it, who actually got it, I guess, and bounce ideas off and be like, Oh, have you ever had this? So try this, you know, that kind of stuff, I suppose, right. Yeah,

Scott Benner 28:39
makes sense when you start thinking about having kids. So I if I heard right, because in the beginning, it always takes a minute to adjust to accents. So I'm pretty sure I heard that you're gay and that you're married to a lady and that you have a baby, but that you're pregnant. So IVF, I'm guessing,

Steph 28:57
yes, yeah. So my wife, Leanne, carried a first son, and this is my go.

Scott Benner 29:04
Did you flip coins or how did you decide?

Steph 29:08
Well, no, so I'm I'm just a year older. I'm like 37 so I'm not that much older, but I'm just a year older. So we started first. With me. We tried injury, uterine insemination first, which is essentially throwing the sperm into the womb and seeing what happens. Wait, did you do it yourself? No, no. So through a, I think is it called a cannula? I can't remember, but

Scott Benner 29:30
you went to, like a doctor or something like that. Yeah. Have you heard the episode about the couple who tried it on their own? I don't think so. Oh, it's awesome. Like she talked all about it. And anyway, it was, I can't, I can't go over the whole thing. It was one of my most delightful conversations. I feel like, okay, yeah. But her and her partner were like, they were like, they had a friend donate, and they were, they were like, just try to together. Oh, I was like, Oh, no kidding. So it was just a very. Like, somehow heartwarming and amusing story at the same time. But, yeah, yeah, it was really nice, actually. So you rock paper scissors, she gets to go first, and then you decide, is the plan always to have two and you're going to do it the way you're doing it here? Or were you like, Let's get one and see how it goes? Yeah.

Steph 30:16
Well, I mean, maybe there's always dies, but yeah, the plan was always kind of have two and try one each. Okay, you obviously never know, never know how it starts. We just got the advantage of having two wombs, so we've got, we're gonna have them quite close together,

Scott Benner 30:32
right? Yeah, you don't have to, like, space them out, like, you don't need the time to recover. No, exactly. It's awesome. She doesn't have diabetes, right? No, no. So was that part of the initial decision?

Steph 30:44
No, no, it was. It was literally just to try me first, and the first three tries of IUI didn't work, and I had to have a fibroid removed. Oh, okay, so in waiting for that, we didn't know how long we'd have to wait for the appointment to the operation, the recovery, so we just decided, oh well, sure, let's go and see how your womb was looking.

Scott Benner 31:03
She's like, I'll take care of this. But I'm imagining there was a sadness there, right? Yeah,

Steph 31:09
I think, I think it was a little bit, yeah, it was. It was probably just like, right? We'll get this fibroid removed, and then we'll see how we go. But, okay, yeah, yeah, maybe there was, but at the same time we, we wanted kids, whichever way. So that was, that's the ultimate goal. Really

Scott Benner 31:26
awesome. And then you, then, now, did you have to have a bunch of treatments and, like, what's that like? What's IVF like with type one?

Steph 31:32
Yeah. So it's, it's no different other than, yeah. So all the drugs and everything are the same. The The one difference is that the fertility company wanted a letter from the diabetes consultant to say it was going to okay to go ahead with a pregnancy, which still annoys me, to be honest, because you wouldn't be able to stop a heterosexual couple trying. Why would you need a letter for

Scott Benner 31:53
me? If someone came in there without diabetes and said, you know, we've got this sperm, I need you to put it in my lady over here and let's make a baby, they wouldn't say, What's your blood sugar? No, right? And that person, by the way, could be walking around with pre diabetes. Nobody would know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, interesting. But they made you prove. What was the proof that they were looking for? Or was it just the doctor to, like, take them off the hook?

Steph 32:16
I think so probably, yeah. But it was just that the control was good enough, essentially, okay. And you were doing great already, yeah, yeah, yeah, because we'd been trying bi UI beforehand, so I'd been cracking down kind of even more so before that. Okay?

Scott Benner 32:35
And you were a pump. You were wearing a pump during the pregnancy. Now, yes, I am, yeah, Omnipod manual, or, like, the dash, or using Omnipod five.

Steph 32:43
No, the dash, and then, yeah, Android APS, okay,

Scott Benner 32:46
oh yeah, I'm sorry, Dexcom, right, yeah. And so Dexcom g7, six. Do they have the seven there yet?

Steph 32:55
I've not seen any around, and I've not heard of anyone in our, like, little WhatsApp groups having it yet? No, there is talk of it, but I don't know anyone actually using it.

Scott Benner 33:05
I'm going to make a left turn here. How do those WhatsApp groups work out? Everybody always tells me, Oh, I'm in a diabetes Whatsapp group. I hear it all the time. Like, is there? Like, is it a few people, are they local to each other? Like, how to like, how do you guys talk to each other? What's it for?

Steph 33:19
Well, I mean, it's, I guess it's like minded people, or like living people. It's just we throw questions. I think there's about 2020 Oh, sorry, I touched the mic. 2025 people. They're actually not local to me. Well, relatively local. They're in, like, Sheffield, and I'm in Yorkshire. It's maybe two hours drive away, but we just throw stuff out at each other, like, Oh, hey, I don't know how to do this. I've got a problem with this on my pump. I've got a problem with this. MDI, any ideas how I can, you know, I've got I'm ill today. Any idea what the Sick Day rules are?

Scott Benner 33:56
Are people kind to each other? Do you ever have problems with what they call assholes?

Steph 34:02
No, no, not really, at least not on this group. No,

Scott Benner 34:05
because I the reason I ask is because I've been approached a lot of times, and people are like, Scott, you should start a Juicebox Podcast, Whatsapp group. And I'm always like, Oh, that feels like more for me to do. But so like, how do you get into it? Can anybody get into it? You have to have the link to get in. Is it moderated?

Steph 34:23
Not moderated? You do have to have the link to get in. But I met, I did a Daphne course. So it's a Yeah, dose, yeah. So I did one of those. Said I was going to get, you know, trying to get pregnant. And one of the ladies on that said, Oh, I know a lady that's been pregnant before, or a few ladies, she has a WhatsApp group and passed me on to her. She did. The lady added me to the group. And yeah, they meet regularly. Actually, I don't because I'm that bit further away, but they meet quite regularly, and it's just, I think, a nice place to be around people that are the same.

Scott Benner 34:56
I'm inclined to get behind it. But. Because the group experts that are in my Facebook are you in my Facebook group? Yeah, yeah. Okay. So there's some lovely people that donate their time to just kind of look after the group. And, you know, flag things that look like they're going wrong so I can see them. And, you know, help people with like, oh, you should try this episode of the podcast. They're really, really great people, but they all have a chat together so that they can, kind of, like, you know, stay connected. And I've been told by more than one of those people that it's turned into, like, a lovely little community just for them. Yeah, yeah, oh gosh, yeah. Do I have to do this? Like, what would I do? I just start it, and then I'd be like, here, don't kill each other, like, like, when you give your kids a BB gun. Is that what I would do?

Steph 35:42
Maybe, yeah, I think I also, I think there's not, you're not allowed enough. You wouldn't be allowed enough people in the group. I think there's a limit to how many people are in the group. So, oh, really, yeah, so I don't think you'd have enough.

Scott Benner 35:53
Oh, yeah, my face, my thing's pretty big. Okay, I'll look into that. Yeah. IVF, not much different. It's not different as far as the drugs you get. So did they impact you, or, like your blood sugars? Is there anything special to do, to do IVF with, with insulin? No.

Steph 36:09
So I thought there would be. I thought I would have to, I thought they would start impacting me, because one of the things you have to take after you've had embryo transfer is progesterone. So I thought that would probably be like a little hidden blood sugar booster. It did eventually, but, but no the drugs themselves. So we had, you've got, like a stimulation drug, which stimulates more follicles to grow, containing more eggs, or containing one egg, but more follicles containing an egg, and then you have, and that didn't seem to have any effect on me whatsoever. Then you have, I think, five days after you start taking that, you have one to stop you ovulating. Because if you imagine you're growing loads of eggs in there, and they're growing nice and well, and then you just ovulate them all out, that would be, be a nightmare.

Scott Benner 36:56
We've got all the where'd they go? Oh, come on, exactly. Yeah.

Steph 36:59
Or if, if you happen to be in a straight couple and decided to have some fun, you wouldn't want all of those fertilized at the same time, right? That would not be good

Scott Benner 37:10
either, the living dead with babies. Just like, yeah, yeah,

Steph 37:15
right. So yeah, you're on those two injections. And again, neither of those seem to have any impact on me whatsoever, which was great. You then sort of get to the point where you're, they're ready to collect all the eggs, and you have a trigger injection to do, which triggers ovulation. But that didn't affect me either. And then 36 hours after that, they collect your eggs. So I'd made a separate pump profile for that, actually, because it's, it's a conscious sedation. The egg collection only lasts maybe 15 to 30 minutes. But I'd made a a separate pump to make sure my blood stayed flat during it, okay, so essentially making it a little more aggressive, all right? Um, so if I did start to peak, just it would, it would hit it a little harder, yeah, but I didn't see the end of the operation because I asked for more drugs, so they put me asleep.

Scott Benner 38:05
Was it uncomfortable? Yeah, I

Steph 38:09
hadn't heard of anyone else being awake properly, awake and able to look at the TV screen, watching it happen. And I think it got to a point where I could just, you know, see and feel, and that was a little too much, so I just Yeah, her nice disc. Grab some more drugs,

Scott Benner 38:24
please. I'm tapping out. That's a good I'm good. I'd like to go to sleep

Steph 38:28
now. Yeah, I've seen the eggs. Thank you. Bye. I watched

Scott Benner 38:32
my carpal tunnel surgery on the monitor. Oh, I didn't get carpal tunnel surgery because I had carpal tunnel I had a bad injury on my hand, and they did carpal tunnel surgery to alleviate the problem. So, but I got to, I got to watch it. I was fascinated by it, so they, and they just blocked, like I just couldn't feel from my shoulder to the tips of my fingers, yeah? But you were like, No, that's okay. I'm good. No, I seen enough. Yeah, that's it. I have a memory. I'm gonna go now, yeah, exactly. How many times did you have to do IVF before you were like, the insemination before you were pregnant?

Steph 39:08
Like, yeah, fortunately, just once, yeah. So we got two, two embryos that grew were able to be frozen. So we did the egg collection in January, and we went for transfer in April. Because if we'd had done it fresh, we would have had Irish twins. It would have been less than 12 months apart. So yeah, we didn't want to do that. Yeah, yeah, we first go, which was very fortunate, awesome, but good for

Scott Benner 39:34
you. Do you think you'll use the other egg one day or no,

Steph 39:36
we think we're good with the two. I gotta tell you, sorry. We've still got another one, but I think we're good with two. Yeah, I have to be

Scott Benner 39:45
honest with you, I was talking to a guy yesterday, was like, one of seven, and I'm like, oh my god,

Steph 39:50
yeah, that I don't understand many things about how more than three, like, how

Scott Benner 39:56
to manage all those kids. Or are you wearing the same sweatshirt? You were wearing seven years, you know, 17 years ago, because you can't afford another one. Well, that's great. So how far along are you? Are is that? Are you far long enough to tell us?

Steph 40:09
Yeah, so 28 weeks today, actually, today. Awesome. Oh, you're getting close. Yes, officially into the third trimester.

Scott Benner 40:18
How about that? You got like, two more months, I know crazy. Nine more weeks left at work. Do we know what kind of a human is in there? A boy or a girl? Yeah, we're having another boy. You're on the podcast today. Steph, could tell me that this little boy's name is going to be Scott. Is that right? We could maybe stretch your middle name. Oh, my middle name is terrible. You don't want my middle name, so you'd have to put Scott. Yeah, exactly. Great. I'll listen, if that happens, I just want you to know you'll be crowned the best listener. You get to come on once a year and talk about whatever you want. It doesn't matter. You know, that's all No please, no pressure. I do have a puppy named after somebody now, also also Arden. Somebody named a baby Arden because they heard the name on here.

Steph 41:03
Yeah, it's, it's not a name I've ever heard of until I started listening,

Scott Benner 41:07
yeah, and then I told Arden, and she was like, Oh, I wish that wouldn't happen.

Steph 41:12
Yeah, it's fine that it is, just don't tell me, yeah, yeah. She's like,

Scott Benner 41:17
I don't know how I feel about that. Yeah, but, oh, but seriously, congratulations. You don't need to name your baby after me, even though, I mean, does sound like I am? The reason why you're using it? Yeah, it's probably not a big enough reason to name Can you imagine? Like, Fast forward 20 years you're 57 years old. You're at your your kids graduating from uni, see, I said it Hey, and he looks at you and he goes, Mom, I've never asked you, where'd you get my name Scott from? And you've got to go, I named you after a podcaster.

Steph 41:49
Well, you know what? Though that might be very cool. Then

Scott Benner 41:51
maybe, I mean, I don't know, like, once again, he'll come back listen to the podcast. Like, dude, there's some old guy talking about diabetes. This is who I'm named after one and he's American on top of everything else. Yeah, I'm sure that'd be fine. Oh, that part's okay. I didn't know, yeah, by the way I looked while we were talking, you can have 2000 people in a whatsapp community. Oh, that's more than I thought. Yeah, it's not enough, but it would probably make it on, like, unruly if there were too many people in it to begin with, though.

Steph 42:19
Yeah. I mean, to be fair, I don't even know whether people would read half the Yeah. We

Scott Benner 42:25
just it would just blow by them, right? Yeah. Like, there's an argument to be made that you make, like, a juice box, Omnipod community, a juice box, Dexcom, like, like, do that, right? Maybe that's not a, I don't know, or even,

Steph 42:39
like, narrow it down further, anyone on loop by anyone on the other kind of loops.

Scott Benner 42:43
Yeah, jeez, that sounds horrifying to me. Does this cost money? Do I have to pay for this? No, no, you say no, but I don't know. There's also a business version of WhatsApp which would let me moderate it, and then I gotta hire a moderator who's paying for that. That Are you? Are you? You want to pay

Steph 42:59
for it? No, like your ads. Get ads for paying my

Scott Benner 43:04
electric bill. You wanted to pay for this too?

Steph 43:08
Yes, you're gonna have to keep going for a few more years. How much

Scott Benner 43:12
more content you want me to make? I'm I'm in this room recording podcast night and day. Oh my gosh. What made you want to come on the podcast?

Steph 43:21
Uh, yeah, well, to be honest, it was, I mean, at the time, when I reached out, it was like, I thought maybe I could offer some advice. That's, that's not necessarily the word I'd use, because it's me, but offer some, some comment on IVF and pregnancy and what it would do to your blood sugars. So, yeah, the drugs themselves didn't really do anything, but when the pessaries, the progesterone PES sort of started that did, that's when it started to kick in, which, in some ways, is kind of to be expected, because that's kind of what happens around a lot of people's periods. They once that started to kick in. I needed to increase my profile, 10% up. You know, 5% 10% 15% up. Then I needed to start doing more, Bolus for meals, correcting after them more. So just all of those sorts of things started to kick in. And those pessaries, those progesterone pessaries, last up until 12 weeks. That whole first trimester is a lot of back and forth. In some ways, because you've got, you're battling with, maybe, well, you've got the progesterone from the pessaries, but you've also got your own progesterone, I'm assuming, being made. So maybe, like a double, double hit, yeah. But then there's also where it starts to kick in. And it did also kick in for me, where you, I don't really know whether you start making insulin. So I have heard it from the podcast, and I've heard it from others too, that, like you, maybe start making insulin again, which I did see also, but not necessarily, until after the pessaries had stopped. So Well,

Scott Benner 44:54
hold on, what do you walk me through that? What are you saying that? So they they give you something. And you feel like your insulin resistance, or like your insulin needs went down, or you because how would you know if you were making more insulin or not?

Steph 45:07
Well, I've read Jenny's book, actually, I I've hired Jenny, actually, to help through this pregnancy, which is lovely. She's an absolute legend. Through her book and some of the podcast stuff, I think I've listened to you're either more sensitive, and it may be that, or you start because your immune system backs off, you start making insulin again, maybe Okay, which I didn't, I didn't expect to happen, because I've had it, you know, nearly 30 years, or 30 years now, and I didn't really expect anything to be left in the little pancreas there, but just kind of around the time when the progesterone pessary stopped, I just had absolutely massive sensitivity. I could eat, you know, you know, a huge ice cream and some jelly sweets and not need to do any insulin for it, which sounds on face value, kind of fun, but you constantly feed, eating and feeding, feeding your lows you don't really want to keep eating. So I think that's probably one of the things that would be maybe a little watch out once that progesterone is like, you stop taking those progesterone the series, then that might start to kick in. And it was quite quick.

Scott Benner 46:19
Yeah. So the theory is that your immune system, which is trained on your beta cells for reasons that you know or whatever are, suddenly, like, there's a baby in here, and then you hear a lot, right? Like a lot of pregnant women don't get sick usually, yeah, right? Like, healthiest time in my life, except for the big thing growing in my belly. Like you hear people say that, right? So is the idea that it's possible that you're the immune attack on, like, beta cells is varied by

Steph 46:48
this, yeah, apparently, yeah, that's crazy. Okay, yeah. And it was, it was always, it was around, like, Bolus. Majority at the time it was, you know, I'd, I'd have to do, I'd do my regular Bolus, so then I'd do less the next day and less the next day, and I'd still be like fighting it. We went on holiday for a couple of weeks in June, where I think I was, I don't know how pregnant I was, then I was able to eat just everything I you know, it was wonderful on one hand, but on the other hand, it was, there was about 10 weeks, I think there, it was hard, on the other hand, because I was just constantly having to have dextro sold. Like, I, you know, do you have dextro solar, the, like, Lucas a tablet? Yeah? Sure, yeah, yeah. I just had, I've never been through so many in that like, sort of two, three month period. I've never eaten some money in all my life, okay,

Scott Benner 47:41
yeah? Because just you needed it constantly, yeah, yeah. Listen. A tiny bit of Googling, I found an article that the conclusion of the, you know, I'm not going to read you the abstract and all the other stuff, but the conclusion is, in summary, we have found that some C peptide secretion that is an indirect measurement, of course, of endogenous insulin production is regained in women with type one diabetes during pregnancy, which might be attributed to elevated peripheral levels of PRL. PR, okay, one or GCG, I mean, look more into that on your own, if you like. But that's the real Yeah. Like, I'm not, I don't pretend to understand it one way or the other. But that's, I mean, that's an interesting thing in general, yeah.

Steph 48:25
And it, it, it definitely happened like I, I was, you know, before pregnancy, I was maybe using 3040, units a day. And by 12 units, I was by 12 units. By 12 weeks, I was somewhat like 26 to 33 units a day, and I was eating more, you know, yeah. So it's, it was, it was pretty drastic, really. I think at one point it went down to because, because of the APS system, you don't necessarily have a fixed basal rate, because it can adjust it. I was down to something like 444, units of basal, right? And, you know, before it was, you know, maybe 12, okay, boy, it's crazy, yeah, yeah, it was, it was, it was huge, really. I mean, now it's completely different at 28 weeks. So I went from, yeah, take 2430 units. Now at nearly, I think I'm, I don't know. Let me just have a little look. I think I'm at some like, I don't even know, yeah, yeah. I think it's like, over 100% more. So which is, yeah. So I'm on about 55 units, say. So I've gone from 24 ish to 55 right? And most of that has been in the last three weeks or so.

Scott Benner 49:45
And then you're expecting that to kind of stay here till you deliver the placenta, right? Well, to be honest,

Steph 49:51
I expect it will probably raise more again. I think you're supposed to plateau somewhere around maybe 36 weeks. You get a little bit of. Leveling off. What

Scott Benner 50:00
are you able to keep your a 1c during the pregnancy?

Steph 50:05
Yeah? So I'm like, 5.3 5.1 look at you. That's awesome. Yeah? I mean, it's taken a lot of work. And like I say, I've got Jenny and Integrated Diabetes on board, which, honestly, she's an absolute rock star, yeah? Just, we can't be NHS here. Just, God loves the NHS seriously, but they don't have the capacity to give the kind of care me personally need, because I feel like I've and again, the podcast has done a lot for this for me, but I feel like I know too much that they can't actually help necessarily give me any advice,

Scott Benner 50:36
right? There's still a ceiling above your knowledge, and you need somebody else to help you with it,

Steph 50:40
yeah, yeah. And then that's where, like, Jenny comes, swoops in, like, once a month, but she's, we have emails maybe once I should week.

Scott Benner 50:50
Okay, I actually just recorded with Jenny this this afternoon already, yeah. But what do you think she gives you? Like, I know her, not like, I set aside her knowledge. Like she, she kind of knows how to react, but like, is she a sounding board, or is she someone who looks at you and says, Let me see this. Looks at your graph and goes, we're turning this up this much. I think

Steph 51:09
both, depending where you are with your knowledge. I think she does both because I and I've learned. I know I've learned as these 28 weeks or 20 weeks I've been talking to her, I've gone on. I know I've learned, because I'll go back with a bit of an analysis of what I think I need to do, and she'll say, Yeah, that sounds good. But do this and it will be stronger, you know, it'll be a bigger change, yeah, and that's possibly a bit of fear, because I'll, you know, I'll be changing my basal point two, or, you know, you know, small amounts, or my insulin sensitivity factor, I'll be changing 0.01 and she'll come in and be like, No, we changed that by one. And I'm like, Whoa, okay, but it works, yeah, so yeah, it's, she's she's just completely made it easy. Just she goes in, looks at your graph, looks at your profile, and says, change this at this time, this at this time, this at this time and try it out, and it's it's been amazing. It's

Scott Benner 52:04
tough. I mean, it's got to be tough. I don't know if it's tough because I don't have diabetes, but it has to be tough to make big changes then. So it must be scary. Like Arden came home for a long weekend last night, and we went to a restaurant. When she got home, there was a bunch of her friends, and and we're sitting there, and I and we ordered, and I'm looking at her, and I'm thinking, she gonna bowl us, like, like, now's the time. Like, you know what I mean? So I wait a couple minutes. I see her talking with her friend. She looks tired from driving home. And I look across the table, and I just, I point to my phone, and she picks her phone up, swipes it, goes to look at it, and just, you could see her face. She's like, here, and she just gives me a phone, just like, you know, like, you know, I bitch at him the whole time I'm at college. Leave me alone. I know what I'm doing, but she was like, whatever. Here, man, take it. And so I made a Bolus. And I mean, she's using trio, so, you know, you're using Iaps, like, you get the vibe, right? So, yeah, I'm like, there's some french fries along with what's on the table. I'm figuring, like, she's gonna hit those fries. I actually entered in carbs and fat and a little bit of protein into the algorithm to give it all like this, this working, and she had, like, a little rise to 150 and came back down. And I thought, okay, I could have put more fat in, and I didn't, but still, 150 like, you know what I mean? Like, she had like, boneless chicken wings and like, fries and some other stuff. Like, I was like, I thought that was awesome, you know? And then I look back at her from like, you know, when she's at school, and I'm like, Are you like, Pre Bolus thing? And I know she's not, like, you know what I mean? Like, I know she's just like, she's too busy and she's overwhelmed, and she's at school, and she's probably running around, running around, sitting down and bolusing as she eats. And I think that's the Now, listen, she's still gonna keep an A, 1c, in the mid sixes at college. If you were here for a night, like we were having dinner, do you think you'd have the nerve to be like, here, Scott, just give it a whirl or to somebody else. Like, if you were with Jenny for a night, I Jenny would be like, Here, take it right? Oh,

Steph 54:06
yeah, take it forever.

Scott Benner 54:10
Imagine if that was her, like, that was her retirement job, like a really rich person with diabetes, like she just hung out with them and managed their diabetes for

Steph 54:17
them. Yeah. I, I think, I think that wouldn't be too far, far of a bad deal, really. Yeah,

Scott Benner 54:22
yeah. Can you imagine I one time somebody contacted me privately and offered me an obscene amount of money to come to their house for a week, for a week, yeah, and teach them how to take care of their diabetes.

Steph 54:34
Some consideration all

Scott Benner 54:37
the people out there who like don't like me, I 100% immediately turned them down. And I said, Keep your money and listen to the Pro Tip series. I basically think it's gonna the same thing is gonna happen for you. Yeah, yeah. And it was an obsession. It was a lot of money. And I was like, that's nice, but you know, no thank you. Now listen. Anybody listening who has a lot, a lot of money? You. Still free. Feel free to reach out, but,

Steph 55:03
yeah, you don't times change. No, I would probably

Scott Benner 55:05
end up just saying to you, that's very kind, but you know, I would just try the Pro Tip series if I was you. Yeah? Plus, I don't want to be murdered in someone's home. So,

Steph 55:14
yeah, big consideration.

Scott Benner 55:17
Most of you are all lovely, but a couple of you are out of your minds, and I don't want it to be one

Steph 55:22
of you. Yeah, absolutely. And it guaranteed would be, wouldn't it? Oh,

Scott Benner 55:26
oh, for sure. There's someone out there like, I can kill this guy for just this much money. I was gonna be great. So your pregnancy has been following along. You've been using Jenny to take care. You got a couple more months till little Scott comes out, and then yeah, is Scott even, like, a British name? No, right? Yeah. Is it Oh yeah. What does it sound like in with your accent, Scott, I might like it better than when I hear it here, because it's a little more melodic when you say it, oh, it's so like Kurt. You know what I mean? Like, Scott, yeah, like, it's a, it's a, two sounds, not great. I don't know. I don't

Steph 56:07
not the point. Well, it's your own name. I think as well, sort of, you don't necessarily have the best of feelings for your own name. I think sometimes I hate mine. So really, do you think that's true? Yeah, yeah, you can pick fault with it, because it's there forever, isn't it? So you're just looking at it.

Scott Benner 56:22
Yeah, I to your point. Meanwhile, I have no idea what I would name myself if I could, like, No, make up my own name. My middle name is horrendous. I will never that's actually a running joke on the podcast. So now there are people like, just say it. But I, I

Steph 56:36
will not. I was just thinking, I don't think I know it. No,

Scott Benner 56:39
you don't, and you're not going to, not from this, yeah, I'm sure there's somebody working at the IRS who's like, I know his name. Yeah, I'll

Steph 56:47
just join the podcast and drop it in one day. There are people another podcast, the WhatsApp group,

Scott Benner 56:51
yeah, yeah. That would be, I'd be like, well, I can't believe you guys figured it out. But there are people who listen that are, like, in the Secret Service and, like, there are people who have all kinds of crazy jobs to listen to this podcast. So it definitely, yeah, it's pretty and it's never who you think. Like when someone comes up to you, they're like, I work for this. You're like, Get out of here. Really,

Steph 57:11
that's funny. You meet all sorts of, like, interesting, fun people through this.

Scott Benner 57:15
I, honestly, I do. It's a, it's a real benefit for me, just, it's a great, great. Like, benefit of the of the podcast, meeting people, as long as they don't murder me in their homes. Because, yeah, I was gonna say, what else do you want to talk about? But I guess my real question is, what are you expecting? Like, what's your expectation for these last two months? What's your expectation after giving birth? Are you going to breastfeed? Like, are you planning ahead for that? Yeah,

Steph 57:41
I think the next two or three months, I think I am, like, sort of said, expecting a lot more insulin to come into need. Like, especially this, this last couple of weeks, just the increase has been kind of crazy. Like, I mean, I don't know what's it's crazy for me, changes of, you know, carb ratios from 14 to 10 and or six to 5.2 for just that, they're big, they seem massive to me. You know, like 20% change is just on a whim overnight. Seems absolutely bizarre. I'm expecting that to kind of keep going, probably Yeah, and then yeah for birth, well, we had a scan, actually, on Wednesday, and he's measuring a little big which is, yeah, I think

Scott Benner 58:25
medical stuff. It was that, like my vagina, or what were you? Are you thinking just now?

Steph 58:32
Yeah, a little and also, the doctor kept saying, and this is definitely not the medical term, but it is what she wrote in my notes. Big baby on board.

Scott Benner 58:41
Did she let you see that? Yeah, yeah.

Steph 58:44
And she used it three or four times. And I was like, Stop, please. Stop saying that. Hey,

Scott Benner 58:49
honey, Listen, can we find another way to, like, jot that down that's making me upset. Yeah, just if you ask Arden about having a baby, the only thing she'll say is like, I don't want that to come out of my vagina. And I was like, okay, so big baby, but your a one, Cs are nice, right? I

Steph 59:05
know, yeah, it's, it's, it's a bit confusing, for sure. Well, not confusing, because maybe it is the way it is. But I think the the obstetric consultant was like, You need to get your diabetes under better control. And then I went over to the next room to the diabetes consultant. She was like, you're essentially, like, top diabetic I have under my care, and offered me no advice. Yeah, thanks

Scott Benner 59:30
for all the help. Everybody. Yeah, Jenny, Jenny, so Jenny is your doctor, basically, Yes, Jenny is basically

Steph 59:38
my doctor, yeah. So I just, I'll keep it going. And I've obviously seen a birth and I understand where it comes from, having also got one, so it didn't put me off.

Scott Benner 59:51
Good to you. What a trooper. Do you know the donor? Like, do you have like, an idea of, like, birth weights from other, like, family members?

Steph 59:59
No. No, not at all. We just, we know, like his weight and his height and stuff like that. But nothing of, yeah, nothing like that.

Scott Benner 1:00:06
Is your donor, the donor from your first

Steph 1:00:09
Yes, so yeah, just about say, and Rory was like 8.5 pounds, so pretty, pretty regular. So yeah, we'll just have to wait and see if it ends up being a cesarean, because too big. Fine. Yeah, we'll just go that way. But, yeah, breastfeed, and I'd like to do that, hopefully that that pans out. I know there's a lot of snacking involved around breastfeeding to keep your blood sugars up, so I'm quite looking forward to that. Now I can't eat carbs in the way I used to be able to do. You miss them. Be

Scott Benner 1:00:41
honest, you miss them more. You miss the alcohol. More. What do you miss

Steph 1:00:44
more? Probably the carbs. There's

Scott Benner 1:00:48
a telling statement from a lady who was like, they used to carry me home.

Steph 1:00:53
I've grown up so much.

Scott Benner 1:00:56
What food do you miss? Probably just

Steph 1:00:58
things like, I mean, not, we didn't have them often. But, you know, like, fish and chips, and English fish and chips, which is horrendous to deal with, like, a curry with, like, all the naan and the papadoms and everything, yeah? Like, there's no way I can eat all of that. Now it would. It's just not worth

Scott Benner 1:01:13
it. You could. You'd be fighting with it with a massive amount of insulin, yeah, yeah. So the fried food, no, and a lot of the bread. No, yeah,

Steph 1:01:22
okay, yeah, gotcha, but yeah. So I'm looking forward to meeting him and having him out, being able to not be as tightly controlled. And I'm pretty sure that first couple of weeks, I'm going to just let it be Well, that was

Scott Benner 1:01:37
my question. I'm always interested in what people do afterwards, because they I've had a lot of ladies tell me that, like that placenta gets delivered and your insulin needs just change and and so. And normally, very much they go down, yep. But then you're gonna you start breastfeeding and burning those calories and making the milk and everything. And now you could be fighting with lows. And then what they mostly, what I most remember from the conversations is people telling me that it's like, look, I paid such close attention to it for all this time, like, it's and now the baby's here. You're paying attention to the baby, and you're the easiest thing to give away. Oh, yeah, when you don't have time, you know, yep. So is that a concern for you? Or do you almost looking forward to it? Or how do you think about

Steph 1:02:19
it? No, it's, it's not a concern. I think I'll probably leave it be, not leave it be, obviously, I'm doing something, but I'll, I'll definitely not worry in the first couple of weeks, I think, I think I will eat a donut, maybe every day and and just be like, Yeah, sure. I'm sitting at 14. It's, it's fine for now, I think I've learned so much over this period of time that I don't really want to give it away. What's the point? You know, I thought I was pretty bold with insulin, relatively anyway, but I now see that I'm not. I could be a lot bolder. So, yeah, I think probably a couple of weeks I'll just not really give a crap, and then then get it back in line, back

Scott Benner 1:03:02
and you don't. I mean, listen, for my money, like I obviously don't know. I'm not a woman, and I have no idea what any of this is like, other than I've watched a one girl go through it twice, but I would hate for you to give it away when you're when you can do it, because it's going to be less intervention and less help. It's going to be less than it was while you were pregnant. You're doing it now. You'll be able to do it for yourself. And then you get to stay around for a long time and watch the baby grow up and stuff

Steph 1:03:26
like that. Yeah, exactly. And I get to keep my eyes and all the

Scott Benner 1:03:29
other good stuff. There's a, you know, it's funny, you and I are gonna say goodbye in a moment, but I have, like, a message in front of me that there's a Facebook post that I should go look at, and it's from one of the group experts. And he's, he's basically, he's going to tell the story in this long post about, you know, what his control was like prior to the podcast, finding the podcast, pulling himself together, and then, you know, which is great, because he's doing great now, but it was not in time for for his eyes. And so he's just gone through treatments. It's crazy. But for the last couple of weeks, he's been blind. The last couple of weeks, Oh, wow. So he, he had, you know, like, a catastrophic thing happened in his eyes that they're, I think, thankfully, able to help him with. And, you know, he's over, he's regaining a site. But for that time, like, it's, it was that bad, yeah, you know, so that's crazy, yeah. And it's a thing you don't talk about a lot, because I'm not, I'm not a real like, in favor of, like, scaring the hell out of people like to get them to take care of themselves, person, I think, generally speaking, that doesn't really work unless you're in the right head space for it, which is, you know, I don't know how to tell who's in what headspace when I'm talking into a microphone, but it isn't, it isn't, not to be brought up. You know,

Steph 1:04:45
no, no, for sure. It's, it's, it's like, that thing, you know, is there, but you don't necessarily talk about, yeah,

Scott Benner 1:04:53
yeah, no, exactly. But still, it's, you know, there are plenty of people also don't know. You. Know, yeah, yeah. Nobody ever tells them like they this could be the outcome of this, if you don't you know XYZ. So anyway, I appreciate this very much. Thank you for doing this with

Steph 1:05:10
me. No worries. Thank you very much.

Scott Benner 1:05:19
Us. Med, sponsored this episode of the juice box podcast. Check them out at us. Med.com/juice, box, or by calling 888-721-1514, get your free benefits check and get started today with us. Med, I'd like to thank the blood glucose meter that my daughter carries the contour next gen blood glucose meter. Learn more and get started today at contour next.com/juicebox and don't forget, you may be paying more through your insurance right now for the meter you have than you would pay for the contour next gen in cash. There are links in the show notes of the audio app you're listening in right now, and links at Juicebox podcast.com to contour and all of the sponsors I can't thank you enough for listening. Please make sure you're subscribed, you're following in your audio app. I'll be back tomorrow with another episode of The Juicebox Podcast. The Diabetes variable series from the Juicebox Podcast goes over all the little things that affect your diabetes that you might not think about, travel and exercise to hydration and even trampolines. Juicebox podcast.com go up in the menu and click on diabetes variables. Hey, what's up, everybody? If you've noticed that the podcast sounds better and you're thinking like, how does that happen? What you're hearing is Rob at wrong way, recording, doing his magic to these files. So if you want him to do his magic to you, wrong way, recording.com, you got a podcast. You want somebody to edit it. You want rob you.