Just visited my Endo yesterday and my a1c is a 8.6 ugh… me and my husband are wanting to get pregnant and just wanted to know if others are going through the same…
My endo made it clear that if I wasn’t under 7, she would hospitalize me if I ever got pregnant. I started getting aggressive with my control once my husband and I became engaged and was finally under 6.5 a year after we were married. I’ve kept it under 6 for the whole pregnancy and am planning to deliver a beautiful baby girl a week from Monday. The high risk OB said she looks perfect. My BG control has been very good throughout the whole pregnancy, but despite all my efforts, baby will be delivered via c-section at 38 weeks, just as they originally predicted b/c she was already over 7 pounds at the end of week 35.
To get your A1c in place for a healthy first trimester, consider the following:
- if you are not already striving for aggressive BG targets, change your mindset and targets now. Allow 60 to be the threshold for lows (generally) rather than 70, work to be below 100 before meals and below 140 at 1 hour post-meal. You may have to adjust portions of food, timing of insulin dosing, etc.
- gather a great team - a supportive endo and CDE, an OB that has experience with diabetic pregnancies other than gestational
- if you do not already use an insulin pump or a CGMS, look into using them for additional control
- test, test, test. I was testing up to 14 times per day trying to catch high trends and previously unnoticed spikes. If you can control the spikes, the average (what is reflected by the A1c) goes down. Your meter doesn’t catch them all in it’s averaging, so you need to find out why your A1c is higher than you thought. You’ve got to be having highs post-meal or pre-dawn that you aren’t catching.
And, most importantly, know that we are here for you. When I joined here two years ago, I was miserably depressed about not being able to start trying. You CAN and WILL be successful.
I am trying to get ready for pregnancy as well. My A1c was under 7 for a year then jumped up to 8. It went back down to 7. Now I’m trying to get it down under 6.5 again so that we can start trying. It does matter to get a handle on those blood sugars before trying to get pregnant. It is tough, but it is worth it!
I’ve have been told to be as close to 6 or under as possible. I would try to work closely with your endo to figure out what is causing the high blood sugars. You need to have good blood sugar management when you are pregnant and it will also help give you peace of mind.
You can make sudden improvements in your blood sugar. So you may be able to be there soon, but it involves a lot of effort and time investment. You are not alone in this!
I was diagnosed with diabetes (diagnosed as gestational, but after pregnancy I now know I’m T2)very early in pregnancy. I had tested a year before getting married, because just about everyone in my extended family has diabetes, T1 and T2, and did not have it.
At 14 weeks my A1C was 8.5. I just worked with the endo to increase insulin and I stopped eating anything more than 30g of carbs at a time (I also exercised a lot until 3rd tri, when I got pre-eclampsia and couldn’t do anything). Although the pregnancy obviously made my insulin resistance huge, I highly doubt I was under 7 when we conceived.
At 22 weeks my A1C was already 6.5. After pregnancy I was down to a 6.2. I have a very very healthy 5 month old baby. I completely agree with the testing frequently (very) and for me, spacing out my carbs really makes a huge difference. It was really hell in that first tri to have the high sugars and not know. As soon as I started bringing them down, I didn’t feel like total crap every day. But as I understand now, it’s a lot easier to bring them down before pregnancy than during!
I wanted to add, like the first responder said, that I delivered at 38 weeks, via c-section (they tried induction but it didn’t work after about 20 hours). As a rule of thumb, a diabetic pregnancy in the US looks to me at about 60per cent c-sections…I tried so hard to get around that and it just didn’t happen, so I had started to make peace with it around the last few weeks. My baby was 7 lbs 13oz at 38 weeks, which I don’t think is that big, but they are just too afraid of the risks.
Good luck!
What a cutie!
Thanks Melissa for your comment !
Thanks!
Thanks…what a cutie!
Yes, it can take some time to get it down but it’s worth it.(so my endo assures me) I’ve been working on this for several years(yes, years) at 7.6 I’m not there yet but I know I will be one day. You can do it!!
My picture is actually me at 4 years old when I was diagnosed with T1!
You were a cutie 
Hi, I got pg on a number a bit higher than 8.6 and suffered a bad case of preeclampsia which the docs attributed to the T1. Second pregnancy 8.0, lots of focus on my sugars and a healthy 6lb3oz girl (born at 34wks but not due to the diabetes and no preeclampsia). I’d REALLY try to get under 8 if you can 
I think like the others have said, the key to a good number is test, test,test - but do remember that the a1c is only part of the story - you can be swinging like a yo-yo and that number won’t tell you that - so you need stable sugars too.
Can the endo or their team give you more intensive support? That was the key to me achieving a1c’s in the 6’s.
Good luck
Hi saffy did you have blood pressure problems before getting pregnant? Other than the preeclampsia did you have any other complications? I’m really working hard on getting my blood sugars stable and a almost perfect a1c…
Hi Sharray, no bp problems at all before the preeclampsia, but yes went into number 2 with slightly elevated bp. I swear by the baby aspirin and lovenox/clexane injections for getting me thru this time nice and smoothly Nice work on the sugars!
Thanks!