Welcome Debs,
Thanks for the good wishes Ruby, Choc & Marmite - still waiting - 40+8 today, induction looming on Wednesday....really thought things were about to happen this afternoon after two hours of contraction, 15 mins apart lasting 30- 45 secs, even rang MW, who also got very excited. Took her advise and had a bath and a nap, now nothing but many kicks and punches - arrrgh!
i think I may indeed be setting a record between show and birth - I think my show will have been three weeks ago tomorrow. MW is due to visit tomorrow morning, I think will go for a sweep as last exam showed I was already 3cm dilated and 75% effaced. Will let you know how I get on.
Someone mentioned they weren't eating fruit because of the sugar - please try some low GI fruit before you cut it out, I seem fine with any fruit, as long as I don't eat it in the morning, but generally things like pears, apricots, blueberries and raspberries are lower in sugars than other fruits, I find braeburn apples are good too, but the very sweet varieties I steer clear of. Tropical fruits like bananas, mango, papaya and pineapple are very high in sugar, but I find if you chop it up and eat just a little, like a chunk or two an hour, it's fine - but that could just be me...... If you do have to cut out fruit altogether up your veg intake to compensate, chunks of cucumber. slices of pepper, cherry tomatoes, carrots etc all make easy snacks, you need the vitamins and the fibre!
Marmite those NICE guidelines state that even the impaired glucose tolerance figures that would apply to non pregnant folk count as gestational diabetes in pregnancy, very annoying, i have only had three readings over 7.8 (highest being just 8.1) in five weeks eating pretty much whatever I like, except no bananas or smoothies in the morning and I am still battling with the hospital about induction due to my diabetes - I keep saying 'what diabetes look at my readings, look at my scan, the baby is one the small side', but it doesn't seem to make any difference what your self monitoring readings say, once you fail the GTT, that's it - even if your level wasn't over the levels set to diagnose diabetes in the non pregnant population. It sucks! Glad you found the Michel Odent article interesting, he really is an amazing guy (he delivered my god child and trained my birth doula) and he has certainly eased my mind on health risks to my baby and given me confidence to argue for the birth I feel is right for me and my baby.
Once I get this baby out I am going to make it my mission to have gestational diabetes removed from my record as I really don't think I have it and fundamentally believe it is impossible to diagnose in late pregnancy (I was tested at 36 weeks due to measuring large for dates on fundal height which turned out to be nonsense). I wish I had been routinely tested earlier, when you are meant to be tested between 24 - 28 weeks, as I'm sure I would have passed the GTT at that point (in fact knowing what I know now, I could pass it tomorrow - if I had only walked to the hospital that morning, rather than taking the bus and drunk some water in that two hour wait.....) and not had a stressful last few weeks racing against an induction date that I have had to fight tooth and nail to put off to term plus 11 days.
I think the big fuss about GD in the NHS at the moment is due to the number of babies being born very large and more women subsequently requiring ECS, or babies being damaged on their way out either due to SD or forceps and ventouse, They are associating large babies with undiagnosed GD, too much sugar going to the babies, but it seems to me there are a lot of women out there that can tolerate an awful lot of sugar in their diet (perhaps because manufacturers seem to add it to just about everything!) without being diabetic, their babies are still growing too large - maybe they should coach more on diet overall for all pregnant women - the gem of not eating' empty calories' ie food laden with calories, but no useful nutrition should be shouted about more. Plus we should all be warned to read all food labelling more carefully, as added sugar crops up everywhere, in the healthiest looking yoghurts, breads and prepared salads.
Sorry for yet another shockingly long rant!