Hey friends!
I am always interested in listening to others’ diabetes stories as each one is truly unique! While I’m only about 18 months into being "diabetic," a lot has happened in that amount of time.
My diabetes journey really started in August of 2013. I was about 28 weeks pregnant with my first kiddo. I went in for the glucose screening and failed the initial test. I don’t even remember how bad I failed, I just knew I had to come back and drink more of that nasty juice! So I went back in, took the long test, and was told before leaving, “No news is good news. We’ll call if we need to.”
To be honest, I really hadn’t read that much about gestational diabetes and I assumed I’d be fine. Everything else in my pregnancy had been going so smoothly. I was gaining the normal amount of weight, relatively no morning sickness (other than when brushing my teeth, toothpaste was awful!), and I felt good overall. Of course, I got the call saying you have gestational diabetes and we want you to meet with a diabetes educator and start using diet to control your blood sugar. I obliged, thinking about how much I didn’t want to have to deliver a giant sugar baby!
I was able to get through the rest of my pregnancy being able to control the diabetes with my diet and I delivered a healthy, 8 lb and 6 oz beautiful baby girl! When I went in for my 6-week appt, I had to do a glucose test again and results came back in the normal range. I thought (and hoped) that would be the end of my experience with diabetes.
Fast forward to the end of December 2016: it was time for the 28-week blood glucose test during my second pregnancy. Again, I failed the first test miserably. I went in for the longer test and failed those even worse. Welp...here we go again I thought. I was able to control my blood sugars with diet and a prescription called Glyburide that I took twice a day. My highest glucose numbers while watching my diet were in the 110-120 range. I stayed between 70 and 100 pretty regularly. Looking back, I would kill for those high numbers now! In March of 2017, we delivered a bit bigger, yet still healthy, 10 lb and 2 oz, handsome baby boy.
Again, I had to take the glucose test at my 6-week check up. The numbers were a little high (in the pre-diabetes range) I was told. My OB/GYN suggested I go to a family doctor and have them look into my blood sugars, maybe do some tests, just so that they can watch it in the future and make sure I stay healthy. I followed through and met with our family doctor. He had me track blood sugars for a couple of weeks and I sent them in. He said he wasn't concerned with my numbers at this point, but told me some of the warning signs of diabetes: being thirsty and having to go to the bathroom frequently were the two I remembered. He also advised me to check my fasting blood sugar once a month, just so that I had some data to watch. I really didn't follow through on that last one. I mean, I had a newborn baby - my sleeping and eating patterns weren't always normal! Any mamas out there that can relate?!
Stayed tuned for Part 2!
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