Part 1

Anyone who’s regularly on our Hellobee boards knows that I LOVE FOOD. I love thinking about it, reading about it, talking about it, and of course, eating it! In fact, the thing that brought me through the last tedious weeks of my first pregnancy was eating delicious food every day. The idea of having to limit my food choices as well as monitoring what I was eating and when, all while in my third trimester of pregnancy, working, and planning meals for my whole family (which includes a pretty picky 2 year old), was simply overwhelming. Even after receiving so much support and encouraging advice from other GD moms on the Hellobee boards, I’d still have regular moments of “I just don’t want to do this” and “why me?”

Looking back, I realize I went through a very light version of the 5 stages of grief.

  1. Denial. I feel fine! I didn’t even feel sick after the glucose screening or glucose tolerance test. Maybe it was the two servings of french fries the day before the first test? Maybe it was due to not carbo-loading before the 3 hour test? But I’m so healthy; how could this have happened to me?
  2. Anger. I didn’t have GD with my first pregnancy and I wasn’t high risk. I never had sugar in my urine and my blood pressure has always been fine. Why this time and not last time?
  3. Bargaining. Maybe I just won’t do any of this. It’s just three more months; what are the negatives of having GD anyway? It can cause a baby to gain too much weight, therefore causing problems at delivery… I can always have a c-section.
  4. Depression. At this point I just slept. I went to bed right after putting Wagon Jr. to bed, totally shut off to Wagon Sr. and slept and slept and slept.
  5. Acceptance. Others have gone through this just fine, and this is actually a great way to control my weight gain for the rest of the pregnancy. This is a much healthier way to eat anyway, eating six or seven times a day and limiting carbs. It can probably help me to lose the baby weight after delivery as well. I’m not a big carb person anyhow, so I should start researching low carb meals and snacks.
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Armed with advice from the very supportive community on the Hellobee boards, I sent Wagon Sr. on a huge low-carb, high-protein grocery run, purged our house of sweets and non-whole wheat carbs, and made my appointments with the endocrinologist and nutritionist.

I can do the diet. I can even do the finger pricks to test my blood sugar levels. But please, dear God, just don’t make me need the insulin shots, which may be required if I can’t manage my GD with diet and exercise alone.

How did you react when you found out you had gestational diabetes?

To be continued…