By: Clara Chow

LIFE is ironic.

When I got pregnant, I rejoiced at the idea that here's my get-out-of-jail-free pass to eat whatever and however much I liked.

Hello, midnight suppers, unending streams of chocolate dessert and big portions of carbs!

After all, conventional wisdom has it that mums-to-be should give in to their cravings, if that's what the baby wants.

For a while, my eating streak was good. Apart from a strange Coke addiction I had to battle with (I was never a fan of the brown, sugar-laden, fizzy drink before pregnancy), I was chomping my way through proteinfilled grilled Wagyu beef dinners, drinking tom yam soup by the gallon, and munching through enough pasta to feed a small Italian village.

Then, recently, I went for a routine blood-sugar test and was diagnosed with gestational diabetes (GD). It's a condition that affects 3 to 10 per cent of pregnant women without previously diagnosed diabetes, impairing their tolerance for glucose.

Babies born to mothers with gestational diabetes can end up with low blood sugar, jaundice, or being too large, leading to complications during delivery.

The mothers, too, are at risk of developing type 2 diabetes mellitus after pregnancy.

All this was not new to me. During my first pregnancy with my son Julian, now three years old, I was diagnosed with the same condition. But, back then, it was a milder case and I got through the pregnancy without incident.

This time around, my test results were more alarming and my impaired ability to process glucose, more serious.

I consulted a dietitian, who drew up a detailed meal plan for me. Soft drinks, sugary food, super- sized meals and fried food were banned.

Instead of three square meals, at which I tend to stuff myself full to the point of bursting, I was told to take several small ones a day, at two-hour intervals, to make sure my bloodsugar levels do not go into peaks and troughs.

I was issued a blood-sugar monitoring meter and a lancet, to prick my thumbs or fingers for droplets of blood, in order to test my sugar levels before and after every meal.

After two days of following the strict diet, I was extremely grumpy.

"This meal plan is impossible! I'm always hungry!" I moaned to the Supportive Spouse. "If I follow it, I will be eating constantly, and then snacking on horrible things like fat-free crackers and salad. "I don't have time to prepare healthy meals and eat round the clock. I have a toddler to look after and many other things to do!"

Instead of sympathy, however, he - in typical He-Man fashion - offered what he thought was a practical solution: "Then don't follow any more, lor."

"Don't follow! Do you want me to die?! Then just get diabetes for life, lah!" I exploded at him. Outburst over, we proceeded to share a low-fat, steamed Japanese dinner together - his way of showing solidarity in my quest to eat smaller meals.

It's been more than a week since. And we're still grappling with the experience of living with GD.

It seems like a horribly cruel thing to do, to make a pregnant woman go on a diet. Oh, well, it's just another 11 weeks before I pop.

Hopefully, if I behave myself now, I can go back to having a (relatively) sweeter life later.

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