Zeza has had type 1 diabetes for 14 years and she lives in Croatia.
She had a beautiful pregnancy and delivery of her son by cesarean.
She is an accountant in her family business.
She works at home and loves to spend her free time
browsing the net, reading, spending time in nature and
going to her small apartment at the seaside.

My pregnancy was great. It was planned and I even spent ten days in the hospital before I got pregnant as preconception. My doctor team was also wonderful. I don't have enough words to describe how professional, kind, and helpful they were.

I live in Croatia. This is a small country in Europe, northeast of Italy. In Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, there is only one hospital where you can go to if you are a pregnant diabetic. I wasn't happy about not having a choice in selecting my own doctors, but now I thank God I had such good doctors by my side.

The doctors said I should have my HbA1c less then 7% before getting pregnant and mine was 6.5% so it was ok. During my pregnancy it came down to 4.8% so they were very pleased. I was very happy, but had to measure my blood glucose 10-11 times a day to achieve such good diabetes control. I took insulin five times a day, sometimes even six, because I had diabetes dawn phenomenon and had to take short-acting insulin around 4 am but only for a short time.

The only problem I had was with severe hypoglycemia during my 1st trimester. I went to see the doctor every two weeks for my blood sugar management and had an ultrasound every month.

At 36 weeks I went to the hospital and they told me I would be there until I gave birth, which would be at week 38 by cesarean. When it was 38 weeks, they did an amniocentesis to see if the baby's lungs were mature enough for birth. However, it seemed I wasn't 38 weeks pregnant but two weeks less. So I had to stay in the hospital another two weeks.

When the time finally came, they did another amniocentesis just to make sure and this time I was ready to give birth. I was scheduled for cesarian the next day. Before the cesarian I had to go through all the preoperative preparations, which were:

• Choosing an anesthesia (I chose regional anesthesia or so called "spinal block" where I was awake during the operation)
• Shaving
• EKG

On the day of the operation they gave me an IV and inserted a urinary catheter. They wheeled me to the operating room where I got the anesthetic and then had a quite severe hypo, which scared me more then the operation itself.

They gave me some glucose and we were ready for the operation. I was awake the whole time and it wasn't scary at all. Of course you don't see anything because you have an anesthesia screen in front of you. The whole thing lasted about 20 minutes and I got to see my precious baby right away. His APGAR was 10/10 and he was great. They even let me kiss him before they took him away.

After the birth I stayed in the hospital for seven days and went home after they took the "staples" out. They didn't use stitches. The staples are a lot better and the scar looks better later.

All in all, everything was fine. When I look at my baby boy, it was worth the effort. I will probably do it again in 3 years time.

Good luck to you all!

Diabetes and
Pregnancy:
What to
Expect
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