Finding out I have Gestational Diabetes Again | Using a CGM to Manage
Hello! I’m Christina, owner of Aligned and Kind and Shaw Photography Co. I am currently 23 weeks and 5 days pregnant with my 3rd baby.
present feelings…
It’s been a strange time for me as we weren’t planning or actively trying for a third baby so it took me almost two weeks to come to terms with the reality that I might be pregnant!
Last spring the desire of three kids came and passed suddenly for me and as we moved into summer I was feeling so satisfied as a mother of two and as a family of four. When I realized we were actually expanding again, I surprised myself by not really syncing up to the excitement of that desire immediately. Maybe it was the drop in energy, the flooding of hormones, or the change of daily habits (falling asleep at 7 pm, no more alcohol, less physical activity, dietary changes, and so on), but I felt more sadness than excitement those first weeks. Around week 18 I started to feel the sadness lift, and by the 21-week sonogram, I was feeling a bit better.
Around week 22/23 weeks I started self-monitoring for gestational diabetes again since I experienced it last time, (and my weight gain has insulin resistance written all over it). The self-monitoring confirmed my fastings blood glucose numbers were high again), so over the last 4 weeks, I’ve been adjusting to the keto diet for blood glucose management. (I used this diet successfully with my second baby to stay off insulin, which was a personal choice of mine).
The thing about switching to a keto diet, (or any drastic lifestyle change for that matter ), is that your brain will completely freak out when it thinks it can’t handle something. The first few days of adjusting to the diet were easy for me because I’d done it before and knew all the tools, but then the following days and weeks, (when it really settled in that cake and ice cream were off the table for 16-18 weeks and cravings started to hit), felt like living with a rebellious, angry and panicked child! The first two weeks I found myself negotiating cheat days and cheat meals around the clock! I’m currently 28 weeks as I re-write this introduction and finally settling into the keto diet as my way of life for the next trimester, but I wanted to share my experience over the weeks to help those of you who might also be struggling with a gestational diabetes diagnosis and your options for stabilizing your blood sugar!
Before you dive into my blog, I want to take you back in time before gestational diabetes was ever even a concern of mine!
a little bit of background…
In my first pregnancy, I passed the gestational diabetes test and had my baby at 41.3 weeks via c-section. Even though I was hoping for a birthing center, natural birth, after 64 hours of labor and 10 hours of pushing, I was exhausted and asked for a c-section. After she was born it was confirmed she was in a posterior position which made her a tad more difficult to push out.
It took me a while to make peace with my c-section only because I had so much desire for a natural, out-of-hospital birth. But, after time, I came to realize my even bigger desire was a healthy baby and the baby will ultimately choose the birth path (even if you do your best to prepare for natural labor and birth.
A little over a year after giving birth to my daughter, Vera, I became pregnant again. Even though my biggest desire was a healthy baby, I really wanted to try for a v-bac. I kept my desire to have a v-bac private, (except to close friends and family), because I didn’t want to welcome others’ opinions and I also didn’t want to feel like I had anything to prove. I simply wanted to give my birth experience the best chance at having no unnecessary interventions. I even signed up for hypnobirthing to help ease some of my own worries and fears about another long labor, posterior baby, or even a breech baby.
At 29 weeks into my second pregnancy, I failed my first gestational diabetes test. My midwife prescribed me a glucose monitor and I started tracking my fasting and after-meal blood glucose numbers myself. It quickly showed that my post-meal numbers were fine but my fasting numbers were always in the low 100s. I quickly removed any added sugar from my diet and fruit and then finally bread when my fasting was still high, but I still couldn’t manage to stay consistently under 100. Around that time I returned for the 3-hour glucose test around week 33 in which it was confirmed I had gestational diabetes. Un-controlled gestational diabetes would put me on insulin and make me a high-risk pregnancy likely resulting in an early induction in the hospital. (I desired an out-of-hospital v-bac). Knowing my first baby came after 41 weeks, I absolutely did not want an early induction unless it was medically necessary.
That’s when I remembered back to a tv special that was talking about how the Keto Diet could help manage type 2 diabetes without insulin. I thought to myself, if it could manage type-2, then I bet it could manage gestational diabetes as well!
I cut carbs even further and embraced the keto diet more strictly for weeks 33-41 remaining.
Soon I was able to steady the majority of fasting numbers below 95, with the occasional 2 to 3 times per week fasting number between 95-103. I was able to stay off the insulin and was able to try for the home birth I desired. In the end, my second baby ended up coming quickly- in 5 hours or less, and no one made birth except me and my husband. My baby was healthy and I had a pretty normal post-partum recovery. I did not stay on the keto diet and stopped testing my fasting numbers soon after. I did have my midwife check my blood numbers to see if I was showing signs of being pre-diabetic. Those came back fine, but I was also left wondering if that’s because the last 14 weeks I had been on a low-carb diet, and it’s reflective of the last three months of your blood levels. (The A1C test, also known as the hemoglobin A1C or HbA1c test, is a blood test that measures your average blood sugar levels over the past 3 months. It's used to diagnose prediabetes and diabetes)
Either way, 6 weeks after my baby was born I started to shift my lifestyle a little bit and incorporated a running practice and a 16-18 hour fast. Using both of those strategies I was able to lose my baby weight and feel a lot better about my relationship with my body and food for the years that followed.
fast forward back to this pregnancy:
I found out in September 2021 I was surprised pregnant with our third baby. When I say surprise, I mean we were not trying and it did catch us off guard! It took me almost 10 days to tell my husband I had missed my period because I still couldn’t believe we were maybe pregnant again! A positive test was confirmed about 2 weeks in, and then seeing the heartbeat at my midwives office at about 10 weeks let me settle into the fact THIS WAS HAPPENING AGAIN.
My initial fears were having to deal with my body shifting again and managing gestational diabetes. I already had gained about 5 quick lbs by week 10, and by the end of the first trimester, I was up 20 lbs. My body literally felt like it was blowing up! My last two pregnancies were the same as well; gaining 60 in my first pregnancy and 50 in my second. Gaining 20 lbs so fast again made me realize that I was likely showing signs of insulin resistance.
At 22 weeks my midwife prescribed a glucometer again for me. Right away my fasting numbers were all above 100 again, (not too high but between 101-108). My after meals were always within a safe range, but the fastings were never below 100. I knew I’d be starting a restricted carb diet again and likely moving back into the keto diet (under 50 carbs/net 25).
I’ve decided to document my journey as much as possible including :
what I eat to stay within a keto diet
my fasting numbers for the second trimester
my fasting numbers for the third trimester
the feelings that go along with this drastic change in diet
and much more!
My hope is that my journey can help open you to more options for changing your diet to control gestational diabetes!
