20. Gestational Diabetes

The tests came back positive for Gestational Diabetes, GD. My first thought was "oh god, not this as well". But then I remembered we have had absolutely no complications up to this point. It's just been me feeling rubbish, the babies have been a dream! 

What does this mean?

I had my first appointment this morning, and as usual, it was information overload! 

I got the call on Wednesday morning to inform me about the diagnosis. I had had another terrible night's sleep with back pain, so it did feel like kick in the teeth at the time. She told me to expect a call from the diabetes clinic, which came on Thursday. 

She talked me through what to expect and what it means. From what I understood, remember and have learned from today's appointment. GD isn't uncommon during pregnancy, and more common for multiples pregnancies due to not producing enough of the hormone insulin. A normal, non diabetic person produces insulin which takes control of sugar and glucose in your body, and distributes it to where it needs to be, all excess is peed out. Pregnancy, however, produces anti-insulin mechanisms to make sure there is enough sugar travelling around the blood system for mother and baby, or babies, in my case. Diabetes means there is not enough insulin being produced to manage the sugar and glucose. Therefore, being too much sugar, more than can be processed by my poor overworked kidneys.

What's the problem?

If my body is not controlling insulin and sugar, it can become dangerous for the babies and it means I am now at higher risk of developing pre eclampsia. It can start to effect the placenta, our babies lifelines. So it needs to be monitored and treated. There is a chance that if it is effecting the babies, they will be brought out earlier than planned.

Stage one, diet

I have been given a finger prick blood testing kit to take home and test my blood sugar 4 times a day until the babies arrive. It has been linked up to an app on my phone and I have been booked in for another appointment a week Wednesday, 8 days from now to assess the results and figure out the next steps. 

I have also been given lists of foods to avoid, and alternatives. 

I watched a video on the diabetes app last week where a lady separated a pile of foods into refined carbohydrates and low GI foods. 

Carbohydrates? I hear you say. Yes! I was assuming sugar and processed foods would be the main foods on the list. But its actually very much carbohydrates based. Breads, white flour based foods, potato foods, then the obvious ones, processed foods, drinks including fruit juices, jams, sugar anything, sweets and ready meals. The video even showed fruit, which concerned me a little, but I asked about fruit today and only dried fruit, pineapple and unrinsed tinned fruit is bad. Oh, and melon, which of course I have just bought.  

It's best to eat wholegrain bread, rice and pasta, which I tend to eat already anyway. 

Basically, this list isn't at all bad, I don't tend to eat a lot of the foods to avoid, and for those I do, I can easily replace them with an alternative. I'll miss chips, but I don't eat many of them anyway, and small portions of steamed or boiled potatoes are fine. My snacks of biscuits and pieces of white chocolate will be missed, but they are very small quantities anyway so it won't be a problem. I'll just find an alternative quick snack. I'm thinking hummus, ryvita, corn crackers and cheese. 

So now I'm assuming that for me, it's probably not dietary. But let's see how the blood tests go this week. 

There are two types of medicine I can take for this if my finger prick tests show that result next week. 

I do my tests first thing in the morning before food, after breakfast, after lunch and after evening meal. I also make a note of what I have eaten. 

I'm happy that I don't need to live on chicken and broccoli for the next 6 weeks, but I'm also a little disappointed that I don't think it will be diet controllable. I'm hoping I am wrong about this and that I had had large amounts of carbs in the run up to my blood tests. 

Anyway, time will tell, and it's mostly treatable no matter what the results. The babies are already looking like they are going to be a good weight when they do arrive, which puts my mind at rest a little. However, my protective instinct is screaming "don't let them come soon, stay in and stay safe little boys!!"  Family members and James watching me puffing and panting just sitting down having a conversation, in fairly constant pain and struggling to get out of bed are saying "get them out sooner!" Haha!