Warning – this is another post about pregnancy so if you’re not interested you may want to log off and check in for the next post. Disclaimer – I don’t plan to write about pregnancy again for a while so don’t log off indefinitely

So I hit 14 weeks today on the pregnancy front, which is officially the end of the first trimester (depending on what book/website you’re reading, some say earlier).

Things I have learnt about having diabetes and being pregnant:

1. At the very early stages of pregnancy, your blood sugars tend to go up.

2. By about week eight, all of a sudden your blood sugars take a dive downwards (mine did overnight especially)

3. You definitely go through guilty (or even panicky) stages when your blood sugar is high (whether it’s because of something you did wrong or something completely irrational/inexplicable). All of a sudden the rise in BG is not only something which will affect you, but can have bad consequences on the rapidly growing fetus inside you.

4. Morning sickness is definitely not just in the morning, and it’s a bitch. Particularly if you’re diabetic. I was super fortunate never to actually have any vomiting (which would have really thrown insulin/BG levels out especially if just after a meal). But all of the books and information sources tell you to eat small amounts, often to quell the nausea. This is fine if you are a non-diabetic and don’t have to worry about BG hikes every time you eat something. However I really tried not to eat more than every 2.5 hours because it takes a couple of hours for your blood sugar to settle again after eating. There were also times when my blood sugar was elevated before a meal (e.g up to about 13.0) and I didn’t want to eat til it came back down because I didn’t want to risk it going even higher.

5. You will have some high blood sugars that scare you (I’ve had a few in the 20s), but you just need to get over it as quickly as possible and not worry about it – there is nothing retrospectively you can do so there’s no point worrying about it.

6. If you go online to research diabetes and pregnancy, make sure you’re prepared to take the hard knocks. No-one’s got all that much good to say about it – all they want to bang on about are the extensive risks. I like to try to rise above it and hope they are being extremist… I have been as tight as poss with my BGs and like to back myself that everything is ok with junior in there.

7. No worries about setting your alarm in the night to do BG tests. You’ll be up to go to the loo a couple of times anyway, no matter how little liquid you consume in the evening.

8. If you’ve already been through a rigorous regime change/attitude overhaul/increase in diabetes management to get your HbA1c down pre-pregnancy, the workload is not going to increase all that much. I’ve been testing my BG at least ten times a day since August last year plus writing down BGs and consulting with my midwife regularly, carb counting and generally being strict and responsible (yawn) with my diabetes. This was a great dress rehearsal for the real thing.

9. If you are lucky enough to be referred to National Women’s, you will be looked after amazingly. I am so grateful for the time and effort they’ve put into my care since I’ve been seeing them, and consider myself very lucky to be under their care until I have my baby. In fact I am going to be a little lost without them when I have to go back into the normal diabetes system – I’ve learnt so much.

10. People’s ignorance of diabetes doubles when it comes to pregnancy diabetes. Firstly they’ll ask you if it’s gestational diabetes, to which you have to explain to them, no – I’ve already had diabetes for 15 years so it’s not related to the pregnancy. Also, if they know someone who had gestational diabetes they’ll assume it’s exactly the same as what you’re dealing with and tell you at great lengths that the person they know had to do lots of exercise and watch their diet and take as many as FOUR blood sugar tests a day, plus by the last month they had to take two injections. Depending on how tired/grumpy/hormonal you’re feeling that day, you’ll be tempted to say something really short, like “hold on while I break out my violin”. Also, if you mention that your blood sugar levels have dropped they’ll compare it to their wife’s/sister’s/cousin’s pregnancy where their energy levels dropped and think it’s the same thing. I’m being a bit mean here though because for every person like this (who actually means well anyway) there are about ten people who are really interested in learning the ins and outs of what is required of you and how you are going to straddle the two conditions effectively.

11. Another question you’ll get is: “how likely is the baby to have diabetes”? To which I have not found the answer yet…. does anyone out there know? I’ve done a short burst of internet searching but to date have only found yet more depressing stats about the birth defects my baby could have.

12. It is totally AWESOME if you know someone with type 1 who has successfully given birth to a baby. God bless you Lucy for inspiring me and being my confidant!

13. It is also brilliant if you can find someone who’s a type 1 who’s roughly at the same stage of pregnancy as you. Even if you’ve got a “normal” friend (i.e one whose pancreas actually works) due around the same time as you they are not going to understand if you start talking your double dutch diabetes chatter.

14. You will be ever-indebted to your partner for helping you out with cooking and carb counting and understanding the extra frustrations that diabetes brings when you are at your lowest level of energy. A huge thanks to my lovely Q for being such a great “wife” and providing nutritious and yummy food when all I wanted to do was come home , eat a bit of marmite toast and go straight to bed.

15. Your workload unfortunately is not going to magically change to accommodate your tiredness. In fact, the day I announced my pregnancy at work I got thrown a huge hospital pass of a project and last week ended up working minimum 12 hour days every single day to get through it all, plus a bit of work this weekend. (now it’s your turn to sigh and say “break out the violin”)

Anyway – my overall message is – if you’ve put the hard work in on your diabetes before the pregnancy, that really acts as your rehearsal for the pregnancy itself. Sure, it’s harder when you’re also feeling sick, queasy and a bit emotional, but if you surround yourself with the right people and information you’ll cope no problems. I’ll keep you updated with how the second tri affects the diabetes!

Have a good week all.

Nic

NOTE – if you want to see a list of all of the posts I did about my T1 pregnancy, go here.