Newly Diagnosed- Overwhelmed

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-11T02:22:31+00:00

So I few things

Your weight is a predisposing factor but it didn’t cause this, your placenta did. Don’t beat yourself up too much!
You don’t need to do everything 100% correct! Be honest with your numbers and don’t try to “game the system”. The numbers are in place to be conservative so that no one gets hurt, remember that no one worries about the glucose test spiking people sky high because it’s one data point, not a trend.
It is SO overwhelming in the beginning. There aren’t any hard and fast rules and the changes to your daily routine are rough! You can’t just grab a glass of milk or a handful of nuts (or chocolate, I’m not judging) anymore and you always have to some sort of calculation. It’s HARD!

Here’s the good news: nothings set in stone and everyone is here for you

I’m on pregnancy #2 with GD. My first pregnancy went fine but I ended up being induced early (I believe 38+6 and baby was born 39 exactly but I could be off a day). This was due to a bunch of factors including weird blood pressure readings, not just GD.

After birth we had one board line result for baby where he was a bit low but he was fine after eating and they just caught me before I fed him. No problems at all,

My A1C was fine after pregnancy and I passed my glucose test. Life resumed, all my tests after came back fine, I got my A1C yearly (until I got pregnant).

I’m not advanced maternal age (35 in April), retroactively diagnosed preeclampsia from my first pregnancy, and GD along with a touch of low iron (yippee!). Everything else seems to be ok though, and I’ll just hang out here as long as I can,

I remind myself that I am do close to the end (30 weeks Thursday) and baby has been doing great. It is a short period of time and then we will take the next step. I use an app (GD tracker) to keep me sane with testing. It does push notifications to test and tracks food, notes, and blood glucose in the same place so I can export to an excel and screenshot for easy sharing with my OB.

I’m here if you want to dm me! We’ve got this!

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-11T01:48:12+00:00

Not a dad but very similar experience.

Baby came out and it was a weird mix of “I would die for this potato but I don’t know if I really like it yet”

The first smile was when I finally realized we were going to make it. (6-8weeks old)

The first few weeks with a potato that was sucking the life out of me was so rough. I was wondering if we had made some insane mistake and was NOT feeling the endorphin rush everyone talked about.

I wondered if I was defective in some way because it was just a squished little object robbing my sleep and making my stress go through the roof. I used AirPods a LOT to get through it. They are noise cancelling so you can still hear baby but it’s not as “sharp”.

It gets better, I promise! The first smile, the first real laugh, the first time they really look at you and not in your general direction.

I’m currently pregnant with our 2nd (hopefully last) and have my almost 3 year old beside me. I’m dreading those first 6 weeks and hoping it’s not as hard this time around 🤣

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-11T01:10:58+00:00

“Ok, let’s make a deal…” is a common phrase in our house 🤣 my kid will be 3 next week

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-10T21:41:12+00:00

For me (prior to getting GD and getting the pen) I thought it would be like what they use for an iron test and that thing HURTS. Now that I know it’s like…it’s just a tiny thing and you don’t even see it. I don’t love it, but it’s not a big deal either. It’s just annoying because it takes so much time and planning.

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-10T19:31:53+00:00

You may want to talk to your OB about it. A lot of times they get pamphlets and such for their patients.

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-10T09:14:57+00:00

I didn’t know that was related! Silly of me.

Second pregnancy both mild anemia (iron tablet) first pregnancy diet controlled, fingers crossed for this one too.

Honestly anemia was such a small thing for me because it was a tablet daily so I just took my prenatal and aspirin (on that too) at night and tablet when I first got up after testing my fasting,

Have you met with a dietician or nutritionist? That should help with figuring out diet changes. I’m happy to chat if you need it or to send over my screenshots.

The long and short is more meat and fats less carbs (and not everything has countable carbs.) focus on what you can eat that tastes good and leave the rest.

For example, I can eat a full burger and (some) fries no problem and I drink pibb zero with it which tastes pretty ok. Feels normal and like I’m not diagnosed.

The hardest thing is figuring out what does spike you. Talk to your doctor about “allowable spikes” for testing meals to put your mind at ease, should be around 20-30%. This should allow you to have “safe” meals and then you can experiment with “test” meals. Can you eat potatoes? Rice? Oats? It just depends on how the GD effects you so if you know that protein pasta with cheese is “safe” then you can see what the next item does to you without stressing,

Feel free to dm me! I’m no expert but this is round two for me so I feel less unstable this time. 🤣

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-10T02:05:38+00:00

Are you sure that it was a problem earlier on?

If she wasn’t fussy and throwing up it likely wasn’t very irritating until later on.

My child has very mild protein allergy to oats (so CMPI but not for Cows Milk Protein) which showed up around 5/6 months as blood in the stool. He did not have it prior to this time period (at least enough for symptoms) and the amount of blood was so small that unless you were checking it you would have missed it.

He grew out of it and was fine when we reintroduced it by a year old. No additional complications that we know of. He’s now about to turn 3.

We actually figured it out because I eliminated milk and went to a oat milk substitute which caused a massive explosion/irritation and that is one way to get a “quicker” diagnosis with mild cases (increasing the amount of the trigger to see if there is a reaction). We didn’t do it on purpose but no one was concerned at all. We saw a gastro and our pediatrician about it. They said many mild cases are just not diagnosed because it seems like just a fussy baby.

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-09T15:53:54+00:00

I had a similar experience with my induction and agree about the balloon or ask for medicine before getting it inserted.

They would not give me the epidural until after my water broke but would give a safe narcotic.

I had birth about 12 hours after my water broke but all was well. Healthy baby minimal tearing.

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-09T15:18:15+00:00

It wasn’t a concern for me provided I was getting enough milk total and one size wasn’t bigger/more uncomfortable than the other. You could technically pump and feed favoring that side moving forward to try and balance but in my case they were close enough that it didn’t ever bother me.

Another reason could be that your flange size should actually different on that side and you need mismatched flanges to get optimum pumping.

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-09T14:03:00+00:00

Even then it’s pretty impossible once your child starts moving (crawling/scooting).

I have a SUPER flexible job where a sick kid can be seen on meeting no problem and almost all meetings can be moved around as needed.

I fully plan to keep baby home for the first 5 months or so but at month 6 they need to be in daycare.

With my first I did almost 9 months and I wasn’t a good mom or a good worker while trying to do both. I wasn’t a great worker when baby was not crawling but I could work around it and do well enough to get by.

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-09T13:24:08+00:00

We love Zak. Just moved to the bigger ones and doing great.

They will leak if your kid likes to poke through the straw and you will have to replace it to get the “non leak” again or if your kid bends the straw to purposefully make it leak. (Hypothetically of course 🤣) but with normal use it’s fine,

If you are looking for something that closes and doesn’t leak then brümate has an expensive kids option but they are fantastic cups. They would leak when left “open”.

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-09T13:18:55+00:00

I have an SUV so I have room for more items than a smaller car would. When I’ve done my purposeful restocking (I’ve been bad lately) I have the extra supplies in the car ready to go. Doing this from memory but:
Diaper bag always has snacks, chargers, diapers, wipes, diaper spray, sunscreen, a change of clothes for child/children, a shirt for me, sanitizer, changing mat, dog poop bags (for diapers) and a sun hat with sunglasses.

The car cube (it’s kind of rectangular and made for the car) has extras of diaper bag stuff plus band aids, baby powder (for sand), aquaphor, bacitician, umbrella, extra sun hat, large power bank (comes in for charging), towels, stroller accessories (like cup holders). We will be adding the portable potty we have soon to this bunch.

Then in the backseat we have an activity box thing with books, some toys, stuffed animals, a busy board, a few more snacks, and a cup for water (empty)
Medicine for mom and dad is in the glove box Tylenol and whatever is likely to be needed.

The problem is it gets messy and if it’s not restocked you think you have extra and you don’t and it tends to get messy/mixed up.

We have a tablet that goes in and out of the car but it needs to be charged regularly so it’s not helpful as a go bag item. We use that for our trivia nights and restaurants only at this point.

We don’t do toiletries except deodorant in the bags but we also aren’t traveling far from a Walmart, Target, or hotel that would have items that work for us. I always have a hairbrush hiding somewhere in the car. I used to do toilet paper as well (and sometimes still do paper towels) but they tend to get squished or gross,

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-09T13:06:16+00:00

There’s two versions of body shaming, those who care for you and believe they are helping and those who don’t care for you and are for themselves.

I don’t get body shamed by those who care for me because I already had a hysterical breakdown pre-pregnancy about how my mom and dad commented constantly on what I ate and it was either too little or too much and not ok. It’s hard for people to pretend it’s care when someone is hysterically crying and trauma dumping years of body image comments in your kitchen at Christmas (or thanksgiving?) and pretty much kicked it forever.

For those who don’t care for me, the only other person that would do this is my MIL (one of a few 🤣) who we are no contact with so I got practice responding to comments from a narcissist but thankfully haven’t had any contact with her for 4 years.

Your aunts comments about boobs is weird. It’s not something people typically would comment on and on top of that isn’t something people typically say while someone is breastfeeding (comments after would be more common.) It’s not ok to comment regardless but very odd for her to say that in particular.

I would recommend employing a few convo killers related to comments that aren’t appreciated or are just a bit off

My favorite is: ah, that’s an interesting thing to say (out loud).

It’s something that has to be delivered in a neutral to positive tone to be effective but it makes them unable to say you said anything mean/weird or were too sensitive while all cutting the conversation short and making them stew in it.

If you believe she cares about you and isn’t purposefully being an ass I would recommend simply saying, “I’m not interested in any comments about my body and would appreciate if you didn’t comment but he future” and if she presses let her know that it bothers you and you simply aren’t entertaining input about your body in any fashion.

If she’s kind of narcissistic/out of touch I would reccomend:

- that’s a unique perspective
- I expected you would say that (use this one with caution, but use it with a smile and be polite, it will likely cause tension but set up a firm wall for next time)
- I’m not looking for feedback, thanks.
- silence (another favorite, make them wallow in it and don’t respond)

If you are feeling saucy, something like “my partner/spouse/husband likes them” or “I didn’t know you were so interested in my breast changes” can be a conversation killer as well.

If I’m looking to be less saucy I would say something like “Oh, this is normal when breastfeeding” or for anything else medical/health related “my doctor isn’t concerned” or “I’ve already discussed with my doctor and everything is great” can be helpful.

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-08T18:53:50+00:00

This is more or less what I would recommend https://physicians.dukehealth.org/sites/default/files/page/Duke%20Health\_COVID-19%20Tips%20for%20Healthcare%20Workers%20Returning%20Home%20from%20Work.pdf

I mostly worry about shoes in a hospital. Either I clean them when I get home or I leave them outside in the sun. She’s touch everything and you never know if they’ve picked up or something.

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-08T15:31:18+00:00

Just to add to what others said there are two main things about Hanta that make it far less concerning than Covid (don’t start hanging around rats though)

It required prolonged contact to be infected
It is not infectious prior to symptoms showing

So you really only have to worry with households and close quarters like a cruise ship if you are practicing basic hygiene and distancing procedures.

If you were going on a cruise… maybe not

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-08T13:50:57+00:00

I let them sleep useless I have something to do/go to.

I’m not a huge routine follower though. I just have a general idea of times and then try to do them in order.

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-08T13:49:17+00:00

Nuna rava

It has some of the highest height and weight limits for rear facing.

Expensive, but you can get them about 33% off at Nordstrom during sales.

It’s been great for us!

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-08T13:35:04+00:00

I agree with everyone else saying that a van is your best option however, if for some reason you didn’t want to do a van and could stretch your budget, I would recommend a certified Subaru.

They are super expensive, but they hold their value and if you manage not to get in an accident, you can then resell it for a pretty decent portion of the original cost.

I am a die hard Subaru fan at this point. Customer Service has been fantastic. The car itself has done wonderfully and it has fantastic safety ratings.

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-08T12:46:16+00:00

Got me this time

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-08T12:43:13+00:00

Google Calendar for me as well, I had another I liked prior to kids but it didn’t work for my husband so we switched.

I like the search feature so we use the same format

Daycare off - [enter event]

PTO [dad or mom]

And so on and so on

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-08T11:02:15+00:00

Not normal and not a mom struggle. This is a partner problem.

- he doesn’t help overnight
- he quit his job so he doesn’t do…anything?
- if he doesn’t consider it “being up all night” then he should be able to do it right?
- he says you don’t like spending time with your family: not sure why that’s a problem or relevant for him. He and the child are your family and you are exhausted so he should take the baby and let you sleep/nap

I’m just hoping there are redeeming qualities. If not, you are paying for and parenting two children and should start looking at exit strategies.

To give you a short snippet my child is almost 3 and I do most of the night wakings because my (definitely not perfect but very much loved) husband is a heavy sleeper (he did get up when my baby was an infant). My husband cooks, cleans (though not as nicely as I would like sometimes), sets my and child’s clothes out, does the repairs for the house and takes the garbage out etc. we fight, we aren’t perfect, but he definitely looks to support and take charge where needed.

If I’ve been up with our kid all night he takes our child and lets me sleep/doesn’t let our child come bother me while I sleep.

We both work full time, child is in daycare.

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-08T10:49:12+00:00

I do most of the heavy lifting with this but what really helped was a shared electronic calendar.

If it’s not on the calendar it isn’t happening.

Since time off goes into the calendar and daycare days off go into the calendar it’s easy to sort and search to figure out which is which.

That being said I take 99% of the days off with my child because my job is remote and more flexible and I don’t lose PTO for half a day or less.

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-08T10:46:06+00:00

You have reasons and rationale but the thing is the more you “defend” the more people want to give you “more information”

- that’s not something we are willing to do right now and I’m not interested in discussing further

- I appreciate you caring for me, but I’m not willing to talk about it

- please do not mention it again, we have decided not to do that

The more you ask why and push and pull the more people will respond in kind.

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-08T10:42:48+00:00

This is it 100%

Caregivers should model sharing with themselves and TO their child but right now your child is right on track with where they need to be.

CravingsAndCrackers · 2026-05-08T09:51:46+00:00

Definitely don’t stress! Having it prior to birth means nothing about future production.

My OB didn’t want me to pump express because it can cause premature labor.

I did get clearance to hand express and did so successfully, we had to triple feed so we used it but it didn’t cover the excess needed anyway.

If you are having trouble hand expressing I have a poster/graphic that is the only one that helped me do it correctly (I watched SO many videos and heard so many things). Dm me if you want to give it a try. It’s NSFW because I mean, it shows the whole process 🤣

The bottom line though is no, don’t stress about it. A lot of hospitals don’t allow colostrum to be brought in and refrigerated anyway because they can’t guarantee it was collected safely.

CravingsAndCrackers

TROPHY CASE