Living With Gestational Diabetes

My wife has taken to regularly injecting drugs.  Don't panic, she isn't mainlining heroin.  She is injecting insulin.  Unfortunately, she has been diagnosed with gestational diabetes.  As I have confessed previously, I am not any kind of medical authority.  I don't know how well I am able to explain this condition.  But I will give it a go.

Several weeks ago, because of a family history of later onset diabetes, my wife undertook a glucose tolerance test during a visit to the midwife.  I received a text later that morning from my wife saying that I should phone her when I had a minute.  Everything was fine with our baby, but the results of the test showed that my wife had gestational diabetes.  We were prepared for this because of her family history.  However, it still worried me enormously.  I was worried for my wife and for our unborn baby.  I didn't know much about it, so I promptly Googled it.  This is a dangerous thing to do.  It often leads you to finding the most severe facts about the condition which only served to worry me further.

I know the NHS is often criticised, but we have received some incredible support, care and attention from everyone we have met during the pregnancy.  We found out about the diabetes on the Wednesday before the May Day bank holiday.  The diabetic nurse insisted upon seeing us before the weekend and opened her clinic half an hour earlier on the Friday morning in order to see us and get my wife started on testing her blood sugars.  This is indicative of lengths people in the NHS have been prepared to go to help us during the pregnancy.

We were initially told that my wife's blood sugars might be controlled with diet alone.  However, they weren't.  So within a few days she started tablets which help to lower blood sugar levels.  This had a positive effect for a few more days before it became obvious that even this wasn't helping.  This was an incredibly frustrating and upsetting time for her.  She was doing everything she could do in order to control her sugar levels for the sake of our daughter.  It was yet another point during the pregnancy where I have felt utterly useless.  I was worried and I couldn't do anything to help because she was doing everything possible and it still wasn't helping.  As it turned out, the insulin, which was a last resort at the beginning of the process, was quite a relief to my wife.  Through injecting insulin, she has seen her blood sugars reduce and feels happier that our daughter isn't getting too much sugar.  She feels happier, which means that I feel happier too.

As part of the extra care you receive when you have gestational diabetes, you attend an antenatal clinic where you meet with the diabetic team, including a dietitian, a diabetic nurse and a diabetic consultant who check how well you are getting on with the drug regime and diet restrictions.  You also see an obstetric consultant (or a 'baby doctor' as the diabetic consultant referred to him as).  They check on the baby and how well mother is doing. You also have a scan to check that baby isn't getting too big.  This is the one of the real concerns with gestational diabetes.  Because my wife's body isn't able to control her blood sugars properly, there can be too much sugar in her blood.  This could lead to our baby taking on too much sugar and becoming too big.

We have been to two clinics now.  Our first visit was arranged last minute so we didn't have a scan.  Everything seemed well and my wife's bump was described as 'perfect' in size by the consultant.  In case you are wondering he didn't just have a look, he actually measured it!  The scan at our second visit showed that our baby is progressing well.  She isn't too big.  This is a relief.  In fact she sits very nicely in the middle of the upper and lower percentiles on her growth charts.  We need to return to this clinic a week on Monday where we will have another scan and meet with all of the wonderful healthcare professionals once again to check how both my wife and daughter are keeping and progressing.

Our baby is actually due on 21st July but because of the diabetes and complications which can occur if the pregnancy is allowed to go on past the due date we will be offered an induction at 38 or 39 weeks even if our daughter isn't too big.  On finding out about the induction, largely due to my medical ignorance, it wasn't actually me who was fretting this time, it was my wife.  I don't know much about the process.  I have read about it since finding out and it seems like it could be quite difficult for my my wife.  I now understand (in a very simplified way) what it entails and, therefore, why my wife was panicked.  But what I also know is that she will be given the very best care by the 'baby doctors' and the midwives at Gloucester Royal Hospital.  And I will be there every single step of the way to act as her personal punchbag!  So she needn't fret either!