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Pregnant and panicking

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SophieCz

New Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 1
Hello all,
I am 4 weeks pregnant - just found out and its a total accident. I haven't told my husband yet because he (and I) have always been super keen that I get my HBA1c down before we try, my last result was 8 (I don't know what that is in the new system!) Over the last 4 weeks I have had a pretty awful time with my blood sugar, had a couple of awful highs (above 25 - where i felt really unwell) as well some hypos. I have just bought some libre sensors to try and do closer monitoring , but i'm terrified i might have hurt my baby already. And what if I can't keep it under control all the time - I'm already worried about my increased risks as a diabetic. i feel worried that my husband might not want the baby if i can't keep things under control.
i hope i am over reacting but i can't stop worrying or bring myself to share the news with my husband yet.
 
SophieCz said:
Hello all,
I am 4 weeks pregnant - just found out and its a total accident. I haven't told my husband yet because he (and I) have always been super keen that I get my HBA1c down before we try, my last result was 8 (I don't know what that is in the new system!) Over the last 4 weeks I have had a pretty awful time with my blood sugar, had a couple of awful highs (above 25 - where i felt really unwell) as well some hypos. I have just bought some libre sensors to try and do closer monitoring , but i'm terrified i might have hurt my baby already. And what if I can't keep it under control all the time - I'm already worried about my increased risks as a diabetic. i feel worried that my husband might not want the baby if i can't keep things under control.
i hope i am over reacting but i can't stop worrying or bring myself to share the news with my husband yet.
Click to expand...

Hey now don't be hard on yourself as this is a shock but you should be fine. Try and get those sugars down now, and manage it closely. You will now need to speak to your diabetes team so they can help you and help manage your glucose levels and provide you with folic acid.

what are your average sugars?
 
Congratulations. You will have lots of support. Call your diabetes team next week and see what they put in place. Good luck. It’s early days and even without diabetes nothing is certain at the beginning so just try to roll with it and do your best with your glucose levels and see what happens.
 
@SophieCz Don’t panic. You won’t be the only person this has happened to. I know at least one other lady and her baby was fine. She improved her control and everything was ok. The good news is that you’ve found out nice and early.

The important thing is to get the high dose folic acid. You’ll need a prescription. Get this ASAP.

Be positive and now work towards keeping tight control. Test after meals and correct if necessary. Contact your team as a priority and look after yourself. Try not to stress. Even without diabetes, many ladies get pregnant in less than ideal situations eg after major alcohol binges, etc. You have the advantage of a specialist team waiting to support you. XX
 
Welcome to the forum @SophieCz

Congratulations. As others have said contact your team and they should be able to refer you to the specialists who will support you through your pregnancy.

As you know it is important to manage your levels and the Libre will definitely help you. The arrows showing the direction of travel of your levels are so useful and can help you head off highs and lows.

Keep in touch.
 
You now get shedloads of help & support from the NHS once you're pregnant and already diabetic - really specialist teams, more scans and everything planned properly - so do contact your clinic asap! You will absolutely NOT be lambasted for high BGs by them right now - you won't be the first person they've had to help - and your body is currently being bombarded with shedloads of hormones that don't happen until you're preg, so you're firefighting and need all the help you can get, to get to grips with it - so don't you dare feel embarrassed!

Good luck!
 
Welcome to the forum @SophieCz

First of all CONGRATULATIONS!!!! :D :D :D

As others have said you aren’t the first this has happened to and you certainly won’t be the last!

Get those lines of communication open!! the longer you wait until you tell your husband the weirder it will get, so have that conversation now, if you haven’t already. You both had a plan - and that was great - but sometimes life intervenes!

It’s fine to be worried... it’s fine to be nervous... and uncertain... it’s fine to not really know how to start the conversation... but you need each other, and you are going through this together and you‘ll need each other’s support.

And lean on your clinic for advice, support and technology too. CGM are now (or will be very soon) being made available for all oregnant T1s, so get yourself a gadget to help you fine-tune your BG levels, and act earlier to head off the wobbles.

Good luck! And keep asking questions here too. Pregnancy plays havoc with BGs and it will really help to have others who’ve been there / done that to ask 🙂
 
Hello and welcome.
The first sign I was pregnant was my levels going nuts.
From what I was told hypos are not a problem from baby (hopefully someone else confirms) highs, and very high for a longer time is the thing to watch out for.
Hopefully you have told him now.
Contact your team and they will get you sorted with what you need asap. They really look after us when we are pregnant.
Please ask any question or moan about it as much as you like.
It's going to be a hard 9 months I won't lie, but it is not impossible. My HB1AC was 7.5 when I fell pregnant and this now 9 year old is the healthiest child I've known, unlike her mum!
 
Hey, congratulations on your news. I feel your anxieties. I will say from my own experience that you won’t find much support here for pregnancy. I had a still born baby and reached out for help on this group but very little was given... I’m not sure why? However I am now part of a few groups on Facebook who are amazingly supportive try Type 1 diabetes and pregnancy and women’s support group for Type 1 diabetes.
 
Montima said:
Hey, congratulations on your news. I feel your anxieties. I will say from my own experience that you won’t find much support here for pregnancy.
Click to expand...

@SophieCz hasn’t visited the forum for a week or so I’m afraid @Montima - hopefully she will pick up your message soon.

The pregnancy board isn’t the busiest part of the forum, but I hope we can still offer valuable support and encouragement.

We are very proud of all our forum babies and their awesome supermums.

Sorry that you didn’t feel you got the support you were looking for :(
 
I'm very sorry that you feel this way about the forum.

To be fair Montima, you did not ask for help directly, though you did initially say you wondered if anyone else had relevant experience, to which merrymunky responded, saying that she had and immedately offering to correspond with you privately if you did not wish to discuss things with 'all and sundry'. Everyone else who responded was just like MM, sympathetic. The forum hasn't heard from you at all since then, until now.

We offer everyone as much support as we are able to, remotely, though most of us are no more medically trained than yourself - so in the main we only have our own personal experiences of life with diabetes to rely on, to inform our responses to anyone that asks for assistance.
 
I couldn’t have got through my pregnancy without this forum. It was a total godsend.
However there isn’t normally a lot of pregnant T1s on here at all, maybe a handful if that.

Searching old posts can be very useful.

If you have found something that works for you that’s great. I always make an active effort to check the pregnancy section to see if I can help, normally I am not that useful as I only have my own experience
 
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