After a previous pregnancy with a lot of complications in the first trimester, in this pregnancy, when I passed the 13th week, the truth is that I relaxed a lot, I thought everything was going to go smoothly until delivery. In fact, I started to get informed about the birth plan places where to give birth. And suddenly, the second-trimester blood test came back: BOOM! Gestational diabetes. 

I remember that I went to tell my partner in tears; my words were “they are not going to let me give birth the way I want”. I had read a lot about it and the shadow of induction was hovering over my head, in fact, I imagined the worst… In my head I was already thinking about c-section, separation from my baby and so on.

Once again I am thankful for the wonderful environment I have. My dear trusted midwife helped me to calm down a lot, I only managed to stop crying when she told me that yes you can have a natural birth with gestational diabetes (GD).

But one goes with the flow.

You are classified as a high risk pregnancy, more check-ups, more scans, estimation of the baby’s weight. I was very strict with my diet and exercise. In fact, at the beginning it was hard, but then I felt very good, I eliminated all sugars from my diet and I signed up for pregnancy yoga classes… I felt great.

Even so, I could not control my blood glucose levels in the morning, so I had to take insulin, I was going to give birth with a private medical team, and then they told me that things were getting worse, that I would be on a drip all the time, that I could not use a birth pool… so I changed to another hospital. 

At the second hospital, they told me that I could have a natural birth, but that they would give my baby glucose serum if the baby had low blood sugar at birth. Another thing I did not understand, so I started to do prenatal colostrum harvesting, to have it on hand if needed and avoid the serum. 

It got to 40 weeks and no way I was going into labor on my own, my little one wasn’t ready to be born, but they told me, they had to induce labor, there were no other options. Luckily for us, I had already been having contractions for a few days, it seems that things were already getting ready, and we had to do little to induce labor, which lasted 8 hours, I received an episiotomy as a gift, and in the end we used a syringe of frozen colostrum that I had, because my baby had a little trouble latching onto the breast at first. 

Actually, my experience of this pregnancy was not bad, as physically I felt better than ever. I gained 9 kg ㅡwhich I lost very quickly in after birthㅡ, I was strong, I was exercising daily, I was eating very well, my constipation caused by pregnancy improved. So it was not difficult to get something positive out of everything I was going through. 

But of course, as always, my biggest ally was the information I found; without it, I would most likely be telling a completely different story.