In October, 2007, I was twenty-eight weeks pregnant with my second child. My husband and I were healthy and active, ate a primarily vegetarian diet and worked out at the gym five or six times a week. An avid cyclist, I continued to ride my bike throughout my pregnancy. I was stunned, then, when my midwife called to let me know that I had failed a routine Glucose Tolerance Test to screen for pregnancy-induced Gestational Diabetes. She broke the news gently, letting me know that my results were "slightly elevated." I would later learn, however, that my blood sugar was dangerously high.

In those first moments, I was buried by the weight of the diagnosis. I feared for my precious child. I felt the burden of an enormous guilt, as if I had done something to create the illness within me. It seemed a personal failure, indicative of some bigger shortcoming. My focus, however, quickly shifted to the baby for whom I was responsible. I found a doctor who specialized in treating women with Gestational Diabetes, I ran out and bought arm fulls of Diabetic Cookbooks, and I poured over literature on the disease. In the process, I began down a path I never anticipated walking and found, to my surprise, that the diagnosis was not a condemnation but, rather, a gift.