r/GestationalDiabetes

I don’t really know why I’m posting, I guess to vent or share or just to express how I feel in hopes of someone telling me I’m not crazy 😅 I feel crazy

I’m a FTM, 28w, and last Saturday took my 3-hr glucose test. Results come back on Tuesday, and lo-and-behold, I failed all three post-glucose blood draws. My OB sent a message on MyChart basically saying “you have GD, we’ll chat at your next appointment.” I see her on Monday. I’m disappointed, sure, but know it’s a temporary diagnosis that sucks but is manageable. I thought I was okay with it.

Since then, I have been diving down the GD rabbit hole of recipes and advice and what to eat and what not to eat and anecdotal evidence and blood testing and etc etc etc. I’ve been trying to educate myself on all things GD prior to seeing my OB. I’ve learned that GD is something that seems to be very trial and error in figuring out what causes blood sugar spikes and what doesn’t. High protein, low (but not no) carbs. The plate method. Everyone’s body processes differently. Since Tuesday, I’ve really been conscious of what I’ve been eating. I’ve switched to Dave’s Killer Bread, I’ve stopped eating processed sugar, I’ve cut back on the amount of fruit I was eating, I’ve increased the amount of protein I eat. I feel like I’m in this unknown limbo state where I know generally what is recommended to eat, but I don’t know how my body reacts exactly yet, so I’ve been playing it safe in terms of what I’m allowing myself to eat. I’ve thought about going out and buying my own blood sugar test kit this week, but figured she gonna prescribe me one on Monday and if insurance will pay for it, why spend my own money if I don’t need to.

Fast forward to last night. It’s Friday night. My husband and I are both exhausted from long busy work weeks. We already ate all of the meals we bought on Sunday. Let’s go out for dinner. I look up GD friendly things to eat while out. I find a few restaurants that post their carb information online and we decide on going to SuperChix, a chicken place near us. Their 3-piece breaded tenders have roughly 40g of carbs, and a lot of protein, which is roughly where I’ve read recommended per meal carb intake should be. A lot of their sauces are super carb heavy too, except the buffalo sauce. It only has 1g of carbs. Perfect, I’ll get that. Great.

We show up. I let my husband know I can’t have the French fries, but he’s welcome to get some. We order. I get the 3-piece tenders. He gets a sandwich and fries and a fountain drink. We usually share a drink. We head over to the drink sauce station and the only sugar free drink they have is Diet Pepsi. I tell him that’s the only one I can have but to get whatever he wants to drink because I don’t want him to have to drink gross Diet Pepsi. He gets Root Beer. I turn to get sauces for my tenders and of course, they’re out of the buffalo sauce - the only one that isn’t packed with sugar and carbs. Ugh.

We get to our table and SO UNEXPECTEDLY I can’t help but start crying. I can’t drink anything, they don’t have the one sauce I wanted, I can’t have the French fries, and I already feel like I’m risking eating here because of the carb count of the tenders. In that moment I just felt so overwhelmed with having to think about food in this way that I’ve never had to think about it before. I think the unknown of not knowing what will spike my blood sugar yet and what won’t, along with the realization that this might be my next 12 weeks, hit me like a brick. I can’t stop crying so I go to the bathroom and of course they’re out of paper towels too so I can’t even wipe my tears away.

I get back to the table after pulling myself together, and my dear husband has swapped his root beer for the gross Diet Pepsi. I eat my plain unsauced tenders and we leave. I feel defeated.

I was not expecting eating out to be so emotional. I was not expecting to have a full on break down in the middle of a SuperChix over freaking soda and buffalo sauce and French fries. I feel like an idiot.

I know that once I do start testing blood sugar regularly I’ll have a better idea and find out what my body can and cannot tolerate. And that will hopefully make this whole thing easier mentally and emotionally. I’m just… frustrated. Disappointed. I don’t want to mess up this pregnancy or this baby’s health.

Despite getting the root beer (😅) my husband is very supportive. He’s learning too. We had a long talk on the way home and he expressed concerns about me getting too obsessed with what I can and can’t eat and not wanting me to take things so extreme where it borderlines an ED. I truly appreciated his input. I’ve always had a healthy relationship with food and love eating in general, so this is all such new territory for me.

Anyways, if you’ve made it this far, thank you for listening to me vent. I don’t know how to feel. We’ll see what my OB says on Monday.

Don't read this if you need to read positives stories but I wanted to put it here because I would have liked to know to better prepared myself for this.

I was diagnosed with GD at week 14. It was my pregnancy number six but the first one with GD. I have been diet and exercises controlled until around week 32-34. Because of my baby projected birth weight, I was put on strict targets (under 4.6 fasting and under 6.0 after meals.) I wasn't able to get under the fasting one so I started insuline at night only.

The last week of my pregnancy, I had a lot of hypoglycemia. We were lowering my insuline every day. I haven't hand expressed colostrum because I had pre term labour.

In September, at 37 weeks and two days, I was at the hospital to induce the birth. On the 36 weeks growth scan, the baby measured already 8lbs and 4 ounces. The birth was supposed (from what they told me the weeks before) to be induce in the morning for him to be born in the day because the baby had 1/2 chance of having hemophilia like his brother.

Finally, we only got a room in the labour's yard at dinner time. We had the best labour nurse in the world. I was induced around 5-6pm with pitocin, upping the dosage every 30 minutes. It was quickly intense. He was born at eleven. I was able to nurse him and keep him with me for one hour and fifteen minutes. Then, we were separated because they said he needed to remain in the baby unit until he saw a pediatrician and there were no available before the morning shift around 8-9 am. First regret here, I would have refused the induction at night have I known it would prevent us from being together.

I was not allowed to go with him at first because I had to be set in a mother and baby's room, the first cares and all that. I was able to go see him more than two hours later. He had his first low glycemia reading. Right after that, I hand expressed colostrum for him and my husband gave it to him. His glycemia was then ok.

When I finally got with him in his unit, we did skin and skin and on-demand breastfeeding and his glycemia was very good. We stayed in the unit until the ped came. He said the baby could go to our room around nine, and could do the remaining test needed from our room.

So the nurse said, go to your room I will bring him to you. We said yes because as I was still in a wheelchair, it would be simplier.

Like fifteen minutes later, the baby is not there so my husband go back. They tell him the nurse is in a break. So he stays there. I make the big mistake of staying in my room, still thinking he will soon be with me. I get his things ready for him.

Eventually the nurse come back and said she decided that despite the doctor's said he could come back, she wants to wait for the test (it's lab imaging, preventive for hemophilia). The test was done like in ten minutes for my older son so I think it will be fast. They bring the baby on another stair (with my husband following) for the test but finally it's just so long. The baby shows hunger signs, my husband writes to me. I go to the unit to be there when he will comes back. When he arrives, he hasn't been nursed for like 2-3 hours because everything seems to move so slowly. Then a new somewhat low glycemia reading. Here I want to add something.

Their glycemia machine is not made for babies and very inaccurate. So each time they have to make a second test to the lab after it and the results are often completely different. Another big regret, if I haven't trusted them and followed him, he could have nursed more and probably avoid the hypoglycemia. I have read it is one of the things to do when you have diabete, skin to skin + nursing more.

I nursed him (still in the unit). The nurse still doesn't allow us to bring him in our room for no clear reason stated. I get upset and talk to another nurse about the fact we should have been in our room hours ago from the doctor's order.

She finally get him in our room around like one or two pm. She does one glycemia reading, low on the often inaccurate machine. Sends one to the lab. We agree to give him a little bit of formula with a syringe in the waiting time. Then she comes back, without waiting the true result from the lab and says now she will bring him back and put him on tubefeeding now but the doctor say we will get him back during the night (this too was false).

Later we learned the true lab test result was far from alarming....

And then we lost control over our baby. Back in the unit where we can't be with him 24/24. They say no breastfeeding at all.

We were supposed to introduce the baby to his siblings via facecall but we can't in this unit. We have no idea when he will come back and we have to left him alone there. It's a nightmare emotionally, we cry a lot. I know there's worse and all that but for us, it was very hard.

After almost 24 hours of tubefeeding they say we have two choices: either we accept to put him on bottle-feeding only or they will keep him tubefeed and he won't be able to come in our room. We ask for SNS, she laughed saying they haven't use it since twenty years ago! In this unit, strangely none of the babies (all newborn) were breastfed. They were all put on bottles, it seemed like it was how they liked it in this unit.

Of course, we accept even if breastfeeding is important for us. We just want our baby back at this point.

So finally like three hours later, they say he can go in our room, another nurse get him in our room (it took like five minutes this time!). We are then another day in the hospital, having to call the nurse at every feed to say how much he drank. But the nurses of this unit are far more welcoming of breastfeeding and finally allow me to breastfeed before using bottles to top up.

So this was how my story with GD ended. I felt robbed of my first days with my baby. Of my breastfeeding journey also. I don't know if it's the GD "trap" that made all of this happen. Maybe it could have been without GD but I know the hypoglycemia can be related.

Also I don't know why but the doctors didn't seemed to use the numbers for hypoglycemia I see online for baby under 72 hours. Maybe it depends of every country as it does for GD target.

Now we are home and we are working toward exclusive breastfeeding. all is going better everyday.

I was just diagnosed earlier this week. I haven’t met with the diabetic educator yet so I’ve been treating this as a total shot in the dark. However, I can already feel such an emotional tole of it all. I have gained quite a bit this pregnancy, and I won’t deny that. But if I hear one more time how this is going to be “good for me,” I think I may lose it.
Am I just being dramatic and over sensitive… I get from the outside it just seems like all I have to do is eat healthy, which shouldn’t seem like such a taxing thing. But man, I’m emotionally struggling.

Hi friends! I’d been expecting to be induced last weekend at 39 weeks however my hospital was completely booked up and I didn’t end up hearing from them until Monday night. Went in at 8pm to start a dose of cervadil at 1-2cm dilated and instructed to come back the following morning at 10 am.

We got home just before midnight and I had already started to contract, my husband joked that we likely wouldn’t make it through the night LOL 😂 this is our second baby but I for sure thought we’d be going through it for longer.

The contractions started ramping up but weren’t long enough but they were painful enough that I couldn’t sleep through it. At 3:30 I heard a crack sound from inside me and I just knew it was my water. I waited and then on my next contraction it gushed out but luckily I’d been wearing a diaper in case. Then it was go time so we got to the hospital by 5, I was 6cm dilated. They admitted me and I got the epidural in at 6am. Within half an hour I was at 10 cm. I pushed for 9 minutes, just as she crowned my fricking epidural wore off and I felt every single agonizing push of her head coming out and then bam she slid right out lol.

Anyways! It was SUCH a fast night I couldn’t even get my thoughts together lol or have enough time to put on my own birthing gown. She was born at 7lb and 3oz, passed all her sugar tests perfectly and I had no external tears, just a minor internal tear but that’s it. It was a wild ride but I also passed all my glucose checks and my endo gave me the clear. Still wearing my CGM since I have a few days left and I’m just curious to see my numbers but all is well! Can’t wait to get rid of all the insulin. Good luck to everyone on their journey and sending positive vibes from the other side :)

Hello every one. I wasn’t able to finish my three hour glucose test because I had thrown up halfway through my test. Instead of making me retry it, my doctor got me on a CGM, specifically freestyle libre 3 plus to monitor sugar for a couple weeks. My meter constantly is telling me 70-85 sugar range all day. Whenever I eat, it will go up to around almost 130 at one hour later and then it goes back down to 70-85. I was not sure if my meter is messed up and running low, or if this is normal? My blood sticks are always <120 an hour after meal when I check it too double check but I am not sure. Is it normal for blood sugar to do that if you don’t have diabetes? I guess I just imagined it would be higher and maybe for longer. I just don’t know if my meter is messed up or if maybe I don’t have gestational diabetes and this is just what normal blood sugar does. I just get so nervous I want my numbers I report to be accurate so I don’t hurt my baby on accident :(

Hey guys! I just wanted to see if anyone has had an experience similar to mine. I had gestational diabetes with my first. This is my second baby and I'm 30w today, and this time I'm having occasional hypoglycemic episodes. It happened when I hadn't ate for 3 hours after breakfast one day, and then these were the results of my 3 hour test after failing the 1 hour.

Fasting- 89
1 hr- 187
2hr- 127
3hr- 48

I received a call from my ob office saying that I passed, as only one reading was high, but I'm still worried I have gestational diabetes due to the strange way my body is behaving in regards to blood sugar. I have a finger stick monitor and I'm checking it some throughout the day, after carby meals and if I start feeling bad. The highest I've had since my test 3 days ago was 137, and the lowest I've had is 76, which was 3 hours after breakfast. Should I just trust my ob, or push further?

I have medical anxiety, so these things stress me out and was just seeking some advice.

Ate the exact same thing for lunch today as I had for dinner last night—cut up cucumber, ribboned carrot, shrimp, brown rice noodles, homemade peanut sauce (unsweetened peanut butter, soy sauce, sriracha, rice vinegar). Walked after dinner last night and lunch today. 114 last night, 149 today!!! Obviously I know that an occasional spike isn’t going to concern my doc, and I’m learning what works and what doesn’t (clearly less tolerant at lunch) but so frustrating because it’s my first mealtime spike since I was diagnosed and started checking sugars on 9/15! Stupid placenta