Tag: 27 weeks

Not!

The story of taking my glucose test, which luckily is not that dramatic!

As you might recall from this post, I wasn’t all that crazy about drinking the orange drink. I actually called the lab and my doctor to see if I could drink regular juice, eat candy or a measured amount of glucose from real food, but both said no I considered skipping the test – not because I think drinking the orange drink is going to harm me or my baby – but because the whole shebang, including needles, is just unpleasant. I have no risk factors for GDM and no symptoms. However, ultimately baby’s health is most important and I feared that despite having low risk, I could have extreme blood glucose that was doing harm and would never know. So I consented.

My test was considered non-fasting, which confused me. I called my doctors office and asked them what exactly should I eat before. I knew I wanted to set myself up for the best case scenario. They said some people go on a regular day after lunch, but they would recommend going first thing in the morning and having some protein before – such as scrambled eggs.

“What about plain greek yogurt?” I asked.

“Ehhhh….” she responded. “Eggs would be better.”

So I knew if she wasn’t wild about a high protein yogurt (which does have some natural sugars) then I should take this seriously. [Not sure what a vegan would want to eat – perhaps a handful of nuts?]

I settled for a hard boiled egg:

Upon arrival, I didn’t have to wait at all before I was handed an ice cold orangy drink and placed in a waiting room with 2 other expecting mamas. The other woman in the room chugged her drink in less than a minute, but I decided to take the whole 5 minutes to hopefully not make myself faint or anything [it happens!]

The first sip wasn’t bad. Just like a really, really sweet juice. But my gosh the last sip was horrible. I nearly gagged. Perhaps the chugging woman had the right idea…

[I took this lovely self portrait while I was drinking glucose in a lab waiting room – a bit embarrassing but for the love of the blog!]

Right after I finished I felt kind of drunk…..first time feeling drunk in 7 months! But luckily I didn’t feel sick or nauseous or faint. And surprisingly, I don’t think the baby liked it that much. The nurses told me he would be kicking up a storm, but I think he decided he would rather take a nap. He prefers oatmeal for breakfast ; )

I was told to then go wait in the waiting room where someone would call me “to register.” I wasn’t sure what this meant, but after 10 minutes of playing on my phone, I was called back by a friendly nurse and signed a few delivery consent forms in preparation for birth.

She then told me I had about 25 minutes left and that I could go take a walk around the swan pond if I would like.

Because nothing about the test says you can’t walk, I decided this would be an excellent way to burn off some of my glucose! That is, after all, what I would probably do if I drank too much sugar in real life.

Unfortunately I thought this would be the longest hour of my life and brought a really heavy bag with my laptop, book, peanut butter, water bottle, etc. I didn’t want to leave it, so I just walked with it, but it was heavy!

I only walked for about 10 minutes – and the swans were very friendly!

This hill was the kicker at the end that got me out of breath.

Then it was time for the dreaded needle of torture. It hurt. A lot. Two vials of blood later…I was on my way home.

When I arrived back home, I decided to eat that peanut butter after all – a heaping spoonful straight from the jar. Breakfast complete.

I called my doctor later in the afternoon and found out….I PASSED!!!

My blood glucose was a 64. 129 is the high end of what they’d want to see, so mine was even on the low side. That’s some hard working insulin!

On the downside, she told me my iron was on the low end of normal: 11.9 for Hgb (normal: 11-15) and 34.1 for Hct (normal: 35+).

I noticed about a month ago that my prenatal vitamins (Whole Foods brand) said in a tiny fine print: Serving size: 3 pills. TINY print because I never noticed this before. I had only been taking ONE a day the whole time! Minor freak out until I remembered food is where most nutrients come from 🙂 Since then I’ve been taking 2 a day and hoping my diet fills in the other 30% of needs (as it should). But low iron is very common in late pregnancy, so I’m going to bump it up to 3 pills a day AND increase my red meat intake as best I can as well (I already feel like I eat a good amount of greens). The nurse said that would be her recommendations as well. I doubt I’ll have my numbers tested again, but I think those changes would be enough to pull me up to the middle of normal range. (Note: I will not be eating liver – eww!)

Over and out!

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