The scariest day of our pregnancy happened late in the first trimester. We were driving from West Virginia to Charlotte and Deanna was napping in the passenger seat.
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She woke up and checked her blood sugar. Deanna was diabetic even before pregnancy, but pregnancy can do two things to diabetic moms: it’ll totally change the ratio of insulin they need to give themselves after eating. It’ll also change their own sensitivity to their blood sugar levels. While Deanna can usually keep good track of her sugar based on how she feels, pregnancy messed with that.
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She woke up and checked her blood and the monitor gave us an alert- sugar dangerously low. Not even a numerical score to go with the warning. We’d never seen her monitor say that. We also knows it will tell you your level when it drops as low as 30. What was it now? 20? Something in the teens?
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Blood sugar that low could trigger hypoglycemic shock- or even worse, a diabetic coma. How did she not feel anything? Slipping that low without feeling it was scary. That definitely wasn’t good for the baby. We held our breath for the next three days. We had no answers. (Though I did spend a lot of time online that week on a British forum for pregnant diabetic moms, and their posts- some as old as 2012 were comforting.)
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The next ultrasound was the biggest relief I’ve ever experienced. And it reminded me that this baby wanted to be born. I realized he would inherit his mom’s fighter spirit, and I couldn’t have asked for more.1w
The Carolina Scare
