I stood in front of the turkey bacon, ready to burst into tears.
A worker at Whole Foods politely asked me if I needed help.
“I just found out I have gestational diabetes and they told me I can have turkey bacon, but it says there’s sugar in the ingredients and I’m not allowed to eat anything with sugar in it,” I blurted. The worker stared at me, confused but with a sympathetic look.
This happened on Day 2 of joining what I’ve dubbed the “G.D. Club,” whose members are pregnant women who have elevated blood sugar that the body doesn’t process correctly. In short, it means they have the cake slapped out of their hands and the spoon of ice cream ripped from their mouths.
There are several factors that can increase a pregnant woman’s chance of being diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and I had three of them: I was 37 when my baby girl was born, putting me in an older age bracket; I’m ethnic, which also increases the risk; and my own mother had G.D. when she was pregnant with my sister.
Gestational diabetes starts when your body is not able to make and use all the insulin it needs for pregnancy. When I got the call from the doctors that my glucose levels were high and I’d need to be put on a strict diet, my heart sank. I’m a foodie who cherishes meals, and the gestational diabetes diagnosis paralyzed me. The list of foods I couldn’t eat was limited, to put it mildly, and finding the right balance was like a delicate dance – everything had to be calculated and precise, and slipping up could throw everything off.
It was more than just not eating sweets, though that’s a big one. Anything with sugar, honey, corn syrup or other disguised sugars was out of the question.
I also had to eat every two to three hours: three meals and three snacks.
No fruit or milk in the morning. Lunch and dinner each needed to have 45 grams to 60 grams of carbs, but those had to come from various food sources. I could have a small measured amount of fruit with lunch and dinner. All that on top of having to prick my finger to draw blood four times a day to check my blood sugar levels. When a blood check came back higher than recommended, my mind raced back to my meal. Where could I have gone wrong? Did I overdue it with the bread?
Throughout my pregnancy, I never perfected my meals. If my numbers had stayed high, I would have had to have insulin shots in my stomach. Thank goodness it didn’t come to that.
By the second week of soaking in my diagnosis, I was feeling better about it all. I remembered something: I love to cook. So I got creative and wasn’t doomed after all to three months of a bland diet.
My daughter decided to arrive early. I was in the Angeles National Forest for a camping trip at Crystal Lake, away from civilization, with no cell reception and a 2-year-old in tow when a little voice in my head convinced me that being there was a bad idea so late in my pregnancy. So I decided not to stay overnight and came back down the windy hill. Thankfully, I did not have to give birth in the woods. My daughter, Liliani Lan Perino, was born Sept. 29.
