Hi Jessie - yes I am being induced in two weeks time at 38 weeks. Although there are some risks with induction I'd rather this than wait for the baby to come out naturally as I kind of want to know he's okay and everything. I think I am giving myself a hard time because I conceived with a highish Hba1c due to it being unplanned, and have never really forgiven myself for this, although I was unaware how much it could affect the baby until I fell pregnant. I was following a low carb approach then, so thought it was ok not to test very regularly - once a week if that - and then I read up far too much on the intranet in my early days and scared the living **** out of myself! But although the risks are higher, still the vast majority of diabetic ladies give birth to healthy babies. Also I am by nature a worrier and a bit of a pessimist which doesn't help in this situation!
Also i think the targets given by the doctors are quite unrealistic especially for those of us on insulin, maybe it's not so bad for people with gestational diabetes who are just using diet or metformin. Eg my doctor wants me not to go above 7.0 - ever! which means I'm constantly tempted to over inject my novorapid, which as we all know means hypos. It's just impossible to go low enough without going too low! I know they say all this becuase they want the best outcome for the mum and the baby but working to an unrealistic target just gets me frustrated and fed up with the whole thing. Then because the pregnancy hormones are fluctuating, this makes the ratios fluctuate sometimes on a daily basis, so I end up with no idea how much to inject and just guesstimate. What I do do, though, is test every 1-2 hours (this is more than you need to but I can't seem to stop testing!) and then I can get on top of any highs pretty quick. Also and I am probably not helping myself here, I can be quite an erratic eater and we all know that pregnancy can make a lot of ladies want to eat more than usual, particularly stodgy/carby foods, so I just inject more when I do this rather than cut out those foods, which works in a sense but can lead to insulin build-up = more hypos.
In answer to your question about MODY - well I was incorrectly diagnosed as type 1 for ages and it's only recently that MODY has become better known and I got correctly diagnosed. I always knew I was not type 2 or type 1 though as my diabetes came on slowly and I didn't need any insulin for the first 8 years, I used metformin and other tablets. Also despite quite prolific abuse of my illness in my teens and early twenties (due to diabulimia) I never got DKA or into any serious trouble even though at times I would miss my injections for up to a week at a time. The way I understand it, my body has the capability to produce insulin, and will produce some background (less and less as time goes on) , but the message to tell the pancreas to produce insulin, particularly in response to food intake, is switched off due to a defective gene. It's autosomal dominant, which means I had a 50-50 chance of inheriting it from my mother (which I did, one of my brothers did and one didn't) and, unfortunately, the baby will have a 50-50 chance of inheriting it from me. But it doesn't appear until adolescence so at least I won't have to worry about having a diabetic baby (can you imagine?)
Sounds like your pregnancy went ok- did you end up with an ok birth? Were you induced? I'm excited but nervous about the birth itself, although can't wait to meet the baby and get the diabetes back to normal, it really is ruling my life at the moment. Last night, after a bad hypo and then over treating to correct, I kept waking up to do more tests every hour and I think in the end my brain decided I needed to rest so I began to actually dream I was doing tests instead...how sad is that!!