Diabetes School

Dearest Baby,

Yesterday afternoon your Dad and I attended a two hour class on how to manage my gestational diabetes. First of all, I want to tell you how proud I am of your Daddy for going with me to class and taking this problem seriously. This disease effects our whole family. The changes we are making will stay with us for a lifetime and it would be extremely hard to do without his help. He was the only Dad in the room and it just proves how much he cares about us! The first hour of class was devoted to learning about our eating habits and what my body is currently doing with the food I eat. Our teacher, Miss Maggie May, gave us guidelines on what to types of food eat, what portions, what foods to eliminate, and which foods produce sugar. She explained how gestational diabetes works and how diet/exercise will help eliminate the problem. It was very interesting and she was really informative. I wanted to know specifics on how much to eat, what to eat, and when. Now, I know how to control my sugar levels without medication. The second part of the class was devoted to teaching us how to monitor sugar levels. It is a really simple process which involves a finger prick 4 times a day and a glucose meter.

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Every morning, I will take a reading before breakfast. This number is considered the fasting rate and should be between 60-90. This morning I clocked in at 85. That's within normal range. Then 2 hours after every meal, I will take another reading. It should never be above 120. During our class demonstration I measured 89, after dinner last night was 165 (Yikes) and after breakfast came in at 119. Not so bad for my first day, but I learned that having a Jimmy John's sandwich for dinner is probably not in the cards for a while. Bread has a huge effect on blood sugar. So for the next few months, I will carry my little meter and notebook with me. I have begun charting the times/levels for myself and will report back to my doctor regularly. I will also follow up with Miss May next week to let her know how things are going. I know this will be challenging, but I really feel much better about the whole process and being able to monitor it. We have a plan in place and I am in control of what happens to us. I know that it doesn't seem like it now, but I think this diagnosis is a blessing in disguise. It has really forced us to examine our eating and exercise habits. We have needed to make some changes in our lifestyle and this might be just the gentle push (or rather forceful) that we needed to do so. Hopefully all of us will be on the healthy road of life for a long time! Love, Mom