A1C was not where they are wanting me to have it. Blood sugars are all over the place. Baby Mason is growing fast. I am very pregnant for only going to be 27 weeks on Monday. My cervix is stitched so I can make it to 37 weeks. I am currently waiting at the OB office to get Mason's official measurements and his approximate weight and then back to the Endo to see what is next. I have been a type one diabetic for almost 15 years. He thinks that the reason that Mason is growing so big so fast.. Needless to say this momma is stressin!
Sorry that you have to go through this. Try not to be too hard on yourself and what is already done. I'm sure you've been working hard to get where you are, there's only so much control a person can have. Especially a pregnant person! Just focus on what the doctors have to say about what the best way to move forward for the healthiest outcome.
I know I also have a tendency to fixate on size but it seems to me that there are so many other, more important indicators of the baby's health. Have you had your anatomy scan yet?
Wishing you the best!
Ditto... 27 weeks, last a1c not quite where I want it.
This is my second pregnancy though and I feel like I'be got a little more perspective than last time... Last time I worked *SO* hard --- eating low carb, testing every 30 minutes while I was awake and every 2 hours while I was asleep, dealing with constant horrible lows from trying to keep my numbers in line. Then, at the end, my baby was still huge, my a1c was still not quite where my doctor wanted it... I remember crying in the OBs office when his abdominal circumference can back at > 99 percentile around week 34. I felt like I'd failed and I was hurting my baby. In the end, he was fine, I was able to deliver vaginally anyway, and is healthy / happy / stubborn 2 year old.
This pregnancy, I've made the decision that I'm going to relax a little. I don't let myself go low as much. I let myself eat when I get hungry rather than trying to control all the time. I figure there is only so much we can control, and the first trimester is the most important as that's when all the organs develop. The funny thing is that my numbers are almost exactly the same as last pregnancy, and my baby is showing the same (fast) growth as last time -- even though I'm relaxing a bit this way.
What I'm saying is that when I compare my last pregnancy with this one, I realize how hard it is to control your blood sugars when you are type 1 and your insulin resistance is increasing every few days. All of my extra angst and stress last time just made me unhappy, and really made no difference to my control compared with now. Many OBs don't understand how hard it is (especially now when insulin resistance is skyrocketing) unless they've had many Type 1 patients. We are not the same as GD and T2 and the standards can't be the same. I just take it one day at a time, and if this baby is big, well that comes with the territory and is not my fault.
On a positive note, OBs don't often emphasize enough that big babies are way better than too-small babies -- diabetes can cause placenta problems that mean the baby doesn't get enough nutrients and has restricted growth. Marshmallow-man-baby is way better than a baby who has growth problems as far as health and outcome, so macrosomia is definitely the better problem to have.
Hope this helps. It's awful and terrible the stress we put ourselves under, but the most important thing is to do your best and take care of yourself!
My current endo is fantastic and gave me some great advice. Basically she said that you should eat normally everyday and test so you know your numbers were for that day. So if you see crazy highs, don't freak out, just give a sensible correction bolus along with insulin for whatever you are about to it --- and then eat if you are hungry. Then, at the end of the day, look over your numbers for the last 24 hours and change your insulin doses if they aren't looking good (or email your nurse/doctor to advise). Then do it the next day, or every other day. The idea is that one high doesn't matter, it's the overall numbers across days and weeks. And when you are constantly chasing the numbers over the course of the day, you end up bouncing all over the place and being really stressed. So I use my carb ratios, correction factors etc., just note the highs and lows without getting too stressed about them, but then review and adjust at the end of every day. My endo is satisfied that as long as I'm doing this -- there's not much else you can do without adding unnecessary stress or making the highs/lows even worse. Good luck at your endo appointment!
Sorry to hear it Kels! I remember being exactly where you are right around this point in the pregnancy. I was so stressed about him "being big" and blaming myself for not keeping my sugars good enough (though they were good, I never got an A1c under 6).
I went for ultrasounds every week and they looked at him and shook their heads and reminded me that he was still far too big (and scolded me about my sugars, even though they were good). I always wondered how they could be surprised week after week -- were they expecting him to shrink??? However no one ever measured my belly or tried to estimate his weight, they just kept track of his head and abdomen circumference.
The end of all this stress was a perfectly healthy, beautiful 4.2kg (9lb5oz) baby. He was born via planned c-section when I completed the 38th week.
When pregnant, I hated that he was big and wished that he didn't have to experience any negative effect of my diabetes. Once he was born, I forgot all about those feelings. For the first 3 months of his life he was off the charts for size. Since then he is average or even below average weight. You can no longer "see my diabetes" on him :)
So take deep breaths, do the very best you can to avoid highs, and know that many of us here who did everything that we could ended up with big, healthy babies.
One small point, if you are still taking a multivitamin, you might ask your doctor about stopping that, as it can contribute to a fast rate of growth by oversupplying many nutrients.