Sorry you have to deal with this. I had it with my first - controlled it with diet and exercise. Second, I had to start 4x daily insulin injections upon a positive HPT! Get thee to a dietician who specializes in GDM and you'll get all the nutritional support, including menus and tips and tricks, you'll need. I had to record daily food intake and blood sugars (I had to check my fasting sugar, and post-meal sugars with each pregnancy. Finger sticks are a pain in the ass, but not too painful. )

No, you will not have a gigantic baby if you control your sugars. Eat three meals plus three snacks daily - it's like a reduced carb diet. I did it as a vegetarian and it was no problem. Exercise helps lower sugars, too, so it's good to go for a walk after meals. You'll get lots of growth scans - done by the perinatologist - and, yes, the pregnancy will be medicalized. With both my kids the ultrasounds showed the babies bigger than they actually were...so go with your 'gut' on size as they will most likey want to induce you a week or so early. My first was 8 pounds 13 oz, my second was 8 pounds 4 oz (the perinatologist thought he was going to be +10 pounds but I knew he was wrong!).

You are indeed at increased risk to develop Type 2, so diet and exercise are going to be key for you for the rest of your life...you can most likely avoid it if you are a healthy weight and exercise regularly. Have regular HbA1c blood tests to be sure (that measures blood sugar control over a three month period - I have on every 6 months now).

Eggs for breakfast with one piece of toast (butter, no jam).

Let me know if you have any specific questions.

Please don't panic, you'll do great.

I checked my sugars before each meal and did a very careful diet.  I second the good nutritionist recommendation.  I couldn't exercise due to a high risk pregnancy but my GD was completely controlled with diet.  Our little girl was perfectly healthy and of a normal weight.

As for the risk of developing diabetes later on -- take this in with all of your other risk factors.  I, for example, do not have a strong family history of Type II diabetes and am actually quite slender.  I plan on watching my weight and staying active, but I don't lose sleep over it.

Make sure you find out whether they care about monitoring your fat intake.  Sometimes with GD, unlike regular type II diabetes, they don't really worry so much about fat -- just lots of carbs on their own.  I did high protein & fiber breakfasts with lower carbs, lunch & dinner had more carbs but still balanced with protein and mid-morning & afternoon snacks, equally balanced between carb & protein (apple & cheese, peanut butter & bread).

with almost all of my pregnancies.  Always able to control it through diet.  After being diagnosed with it the first time, I quickly found out how much better I felt with the diet change!  My energy levels were much more even and heartburn and indigestion were GREATLY reduced.  

Don't let a doctor treat you as if you are a tragedy waiting to happen.  This wasn't something that caused me to change my delivery plans greatly...ruled out a planned homebirth, but other than that, nothing changed.  Not interventions during labor, no drugs, etc.  Very natural.

My babies were on the large side, but not unbelievabley-too-large.  The were mostly between 8 and 9 lbs and I tended to deliver two to three weeks early.  They would have been larger had I gone to my due date, but I guess they decided to come on their own when they reached a certain weight.

A couple of my babies did have low blood sugar at birth.  This is common with gestational diabetes, however, its easily remedied.  In a small, very "low-tech" hospital, it was remedied by giving my daughter a bottle of glucose water.  In a larger medical center, a neonataloligist was called in just so she could order an IV to drip the glucose into my baby over the course of two hours.  They slipped that one on me....its not something I would agree to, but that's what you get when you neo-natalogists on staff.

to have all these terrific moms who have been there and are able to give advice in the blink of an eye.

I have no experience with this other than watching a friend go through it, so no advice to give. I just continue to love the fact that you can post a question and within a few hours have such a great, supportive response.

as my 10 year olds would say, MotherTalkers rock!

With both of my pregnancies I managed to stay gd free and then went on to have the largest children on my pregnancy boards.  Definitely take care of the diabetes but it's not guarantee that you will have a monster baby like me.

Oddly enough, with this pregnancy they are going to check me more frequently for gd which I find weird as I managed to have huge children without it.  When I asked if there was anything else to be done about the size, my midwife suggested that maybe I am built to carry large children as my labors and deliveries were relatviely easy-not really what I was hoping to hear.

Anyway, if you have a large child after all, make sure that you are in a practice that will let you take the delivery in the direction you would like.  Mine has a non-intervention policy as much as possible and I delivered a 12lb 3.6 oz baby with hardly a tear.

Flunked the one-hour test, passed the three-hour test, so I didn't have to deal with any diet restrictions. My daughter was 7 pounds 6 ounces.

Then, I somehow conceived and gave birth to her gargantuan sister four years later -- 9 pounds 1 ounce! Neither her dad nor I are huge people -- in fact he's quite thin and I'm quite short. The GD test for her had come back normal, but I still wonder if I didn't have a touch of it -- there's just no history of big people in either of our families. But our little one has never been little -- 99th percentile all through her infancy, and as a 4-year-old people are always asking me when she's turning 6! I say, "after she turns 5."

Not sure if this has been any value to you, except to say that who the heck knows with these tests. I will say my one friend who definitely had GD had to follow the diet and thought it was great: "Everyone should be eating this way," she said. Good luck to you and your pregnancy!

I had GD - my numbers were terrible - not even close to borderline. I had a very strict yet supportive set of nutritional people who put me on a diet called Sweet Success. I believe it is a "franchise" of a program - in CA at least. Absoluetly informative with concrete diet plans, very easy to follow, available immediately on the phone if my numbers were off, frequent follow up visits. You need to find people like that.

My doctor did get nervous and wanted to induce about a week or two early - but I talked her through it and we didn't induce. She did say first thing, absolutely no suction or whatever it's called, which did indeed lead to a c-section in my case. My baby was 8 lbs 11 oz, but the thing is, even with the extra ultrasounds you get, there is no good way to know the size of the baby. My doc said the meausurements can be up to 20% off, so there is no real way to know the baby's size. I went with a fetal monitor, and had a big distress incident which put my doc on alert. She didn't freak though and I labored for at least an hour after that. I wasn't willing to do without the monitor, and this oftentimes leads to c-sections, as you know. Anyone's guess whether any given c-section is "unnecessary."

My doc and all the diet people assumed I would end up on insulin. That just made me more determined to beat it with diet, which I did. The diet itself is insanely healthy - and it became kind of a fun challenge, to keep the numbers within normal. Weird but true. I use the diet now as my gold standard diet. I learned a ton about nutrition and my own physiology, which was an unexpected bonus.

Intense stress and anxiety have a negative impact on blood sugar, so if you find yourself having sleepless nights or long bouts of anxiety, ask for a referral for counseling in addition to diet and exercise.

It'll all be fine. And the finger sticks don't even hurt - half the time I couldn't even feel them.

RachelD

Thank you so much for your comments! There is a lot of good advice, and I feel less intimidated by what is around the corner. Like my last pregnancy, I have been attended by my hospital's midwife group. It's through the OB/GYN practice, so it is more of a medical slant than other midwives might be. But, I feel like it is a happy medium, and all of the midwives have been great (I'm convinced if it weren't for the midwife I had during my delivery, I would have ended up with a c-section the first time). I just wish one of them would have mentioned that I should be monitoring my diet specifically because of my elevated 1-hour glucose with pregnancy #1 -- instead I was told with #1 that the 1-hour has a high-rate of false positives, leading me to think that it was an error, not an omen. Obviously we're supposed to eat really healthy when pregnant anyway, but in reality...I'm sure I'm not the only one who ever indulged in the wrong foods while pregnant. The hardest part for me is eating small amounts often. Between working from home and caring for my 3yo, I am usually eating what is quick and easy. Hence, here I am.

I've been following a sample diet I found online, and eating every 2-3 hours for the past 2 days. Ironically, now that I am eating more often I am hungry all the time! My appointment with the diabetes doc on monday will hopefully provide me with a real menu. My goal is to eat really well in any case, so that when I get blood drawn again on Monday he'll say it is very minor and will be easy to manage if I keep it up. One of my midwives said that some people see him just a few times and then don't have to go back because they have managed the blood sugars -- so, my goal is to be one of those people!

Thanks again everyone!

Girl, I am so sorry about the gestational diabetes. It sucks to be a pregnant woman and not know what to eat! (or eat what you crave.)

FWIW, I gained an enormous amount of weight in a short period of time with Ari -- 17 pounds in one month! -- and my midwife thought it was GD. It wasn't, but she still put me on a diet, taking away all the things that I like: Mexican food (too much lard in the food), ice cream and other sweets. I would still sneak in the occasional chocolate chip cookie, but it was VERY limited -- like a weekend sort of thing. She made me eat my greens, which I hate. From then on, my weight gain was more incremental.

I had two large babies, and the deliveries were both normal vaginal ones.

Keep us updated...I hope the rest of the pregnancy is as smooth as possible. (BTW, I can't wait to see you all in Chicago this summer! I am hoping the baby arrives early so that I can see him or her. :-)

I met with the diabetes specialist today, and I came away feeling much better. He was very laid back and said that I did not need to do the monitor every day unless the diet doesn't end up working. I'm seeing a dietician on Wednesday, so that will be really helpful since I have just been following a sample diet I found online. He echoed all of the risks that have been talked about here, but said that if I am vigilant with eating well, none of those risks are likely. They'll test my blood sugars once a week for a few weeks, and if all is going well, that will be it (though I do need to maintain the diet through the birth).

Thanks for all of the support!