Gestational Diabetes part 3 - the testing results

Saw the doctors for my follow-up appointment today.  I've spent 5 days tracking all of my eating and stabbing myself 1 hour after eating anything to get blood glucose readings.

The results?

Things are actually pretty darned good.  Over the 5 days, I only had 3 instances where my readings were above the desired numbers.  The desired number for 1 hour after eating is anything below 130.  Well, one reading was 131 and another was 142.  So nothing astronomical, just kind of technical fouls that they had to call out.  Usually a bad reading goes into the range of 200 and something so my minor infractions were practically nothing.  And all of this with no diet change of any sort, just me eating whatever I felt like eating.

But one number was a little concerning.  I have to test as soon as I wake up.  Before eating, drinking, or really moving around.  We want this reading to be below 90.  Most of my readings were in the upper 80's with one reaching 92.  They should be in the 60's or 70's after going so long without eating.

So we're going to continue testing upon waking and then full days of testing every other day or so since it's likely that the numbers are going to creep higher as the pregnancy goes along.  And if my morning numbers don't improve by eating a small dose of protein right before bed, I'll need to go back on metformin.

So here's the good news of this situation, at least for me.  As I said before (did I say it before?  I forget), diet plans and structured eating are really emotional for me.  I fail.  Over and over again.

The numbers show that when I eat exactly what I want, when I want to - my numbers are perfectly fine.  Nothing to worry about.  My natural cravings are managing to keep things pretty even keeled without me having to think about it.

And the numbers show that the (currently very small) problem occurs when I have absolutely no control over what my body does - when I'm sleeping. 

So it's official.  It's strictly the hormones that are doing this and NOT anything I've done wrong, haven't done, done too much of, whatever.  Even if I were perfect in my eating from day 1, my hormonal makeup with 2 placentas made the gestational diabetes inevitable.  It's not my fault.  I've done nothing wrong.  I have numerical and doctoral proof.  Obviously this is a very important fact to me because I've been feeling REALLY guilty this week.

And looking over every other blood test they ran, they said I'm very healthy.  I've never had a doctor say that to me before!  I'm really healthy!

And they tell me I should probably eat some more carbs.  And temper it with a bit of protein.  Wow, that's another thing a doctor has never said to me.  Eat more carbs.  Ha!

I'm eating pretty well, but I'm not eating a whole lot according to my food log.  I'd just like mention that when you have to stab yourself 1 hour after eating, every time to you eat, it kind of makes you wonder if you really want to grab something from the fridge or not.  So I've probably not been eating as much as usual over the last week.

We do expect the problem to slowly increase as the placentas grow and the hormones get stronger.  But we're catching it really really early and we'll be keeping an eye on those numbers so we can slowly combat it as needed.