Pregnant and struggling!

[diabeticmom001]

Hello everyone! Type 2 diabetic here and I am an expecting mama of my very first baby. I’m having some issues with dieting and keeping my sugars in range during this time. Before pregnancy, I was depressed and not really taking care of my diabetes, but I was taking quetiapine and Prozac which shot my a1c to 14! Embarrassing, I know I’m ashamed of it and not very proud to say. When I found out about my pregnancy in September, I QUICKLY started to take my insulin and got my dexcom G7 ASAP. I’ve been taking care of myself and got my a1c down to a 10 (still not very good, but very much some progress!)but I’m having troubles with having access to better foods at the moment and sticking to a healthy diet. I’m always having either very lows or some moderate highs, it’s super hard to stay in range and I’m disappointed in myself daily sometimes. Anyone else have this problem?

 

[Antje77]

Hi @diabeticmom001 , welcome to the forum.

First, congratulations on expecting a child, that's wonderful!

Second (or maybe this should be first), please don't be embarrassed or ashamed for struggling with diabetes!
Very well done on getting your hba1c down from 14 to 10, that's no mean feat.

I’m always having either very lows or some moderate highs, it’s super hard to stay in range and I’m disappointed in myself daily sometimes.

You've only recently started to try to match your insulin to your food, which isn't something you learn in a short time, and you also have all those pregnancy hormones thrown into the mix, which can mean the amount of insulin you need can change very quickly.
From your post, I get you're doing all you can to make things as well as you can for your pregnancy, to me this sounds like you're doing pretty amazing really!

Let me tag @EllieM for you, she's had pregnancies with far from ideal numbers, and her mother has too, a long time before glucose meters or hba1c tests.

 

[EllieM]

Thanks for the tag @Antje77 and welcome to the forums @diabeticmom001

My pregnancies were before cgms and my mother's ones were before glucometers, so people do manage to have successful pregnancies with less than ideal levels. I actually mostly kept my bgs down during pregnancy but had some spectacular hospital inducing hypos and would probably have gone for a third child if cgms had been around to help me.

Hopefully your diabetic team are giving you as much help as they can? ( I see you are in the US so medical care may be slightly different but wherever you are diabetes is diabetes. Just remember to multiply blood sugars mentioned here by 18 to get to mg/dL from mmol/L and that hba1cs here are measured in mmol/mol instead of a % https://www.diabetes.co.uk/hba1c-units-converter.html )

I won't lie, your levels were quite high, which does push up the risks, but please don't feel guilty or ashamed because the medication you were on pushed up your levels. We are all human and very few of us manage to control our diabetes perfectly all the time. (Well, I certainly don't manage it)

I'm guessing you are still in your first trimester? Have you had a scan yet? Were you on insulin before the pregnancy?

Congratulations and good luck.

 

[EllieM]

Oh, and I should stress that I'm T1 so although I was also on insulin during pregnancy treatment may differ slightly.