Failed With Flying Colors.

Pour some sugar on me, baby! I guess if you’re going to do something, you might as well do it full-force. I didn’t fail my glucose screening by just a point or two – I failed it by a full 32 points. Go me!! My Dr.’s cutoff is 129 – I checked in at 161. I know some doctors have a 139 cutoff, but I still would have failed miserably. Lovely – I may as well have eaten a nice big breakfast (or a candy bar?!) before the test instead of being hungry on Thursday. Now I get to go next week for the wonderful 3-hour test. Blah.

The test was your standard glucose screening test. I went in and drank some very sweet liquid that tasted like flat Sprite with four times the sugar, then I waited an hour and had my blood drawn. The time went by quickly since I had my regular appointment scheduled for the same day, so part of the hour was taken up by that. The appointment itself was brief and uneventful. I am now supposed to start counting and recording how many kicks I get in a 3 hour period each day - I am supposed to count at least 10. I think I counted 10 just waiting to have my blood drawn, probably because Butters was hungry, then got nothing but a rush of sugar and was like "What the hell mom!? What are you doing to me in here?!" Well, get ready Butters... it's going to happen all over again next week! My next OB appointment is on August 21, and I get another ultrasound! Yay!

Back to complaining.....I know, I know…. the screening often yields false positives, but to have a reading of 161 after not eating all day? I did eat normally up through the night before the test, since I did read that limiting carbs in the days before the screening can actually cause your blood sugar to go up. With a number that high, I am concerned that I do indeed have gestational diabetes (GD).

Of course now I’m going to start bitching, even though I really shouldn't complain - after all, I am actually 'p'. So far, I haven't had (knock on wood) any problems.... and again, the fact that I am actually 'p' makes me feel like I shouldn't complain about anything. I know how many people would do anything to be in my position right now. So while I am still going to complain.... I never forget how lucky I am.

Stop reading now if you don’t want to hear my hormonal griping! I am a very healthy eater, if I do say so myself. I eat a lot of fresh salads, grilled chicken and fish and fruit, and I rarely eat anything fried. I still exercise regularly, and there is no family history of diabetes, gestational or otherwise. From what I have been reading, the treatment for GD is to cut out sweets and to exercise. I don't know what other exercise they would have me do, since I still lift weights (have modified my routine of course) and do cardio. I guess then even the treats I've been allowing myself will now be out of the question if I fail the 'big' test. I will admit that my eating habits are not quite as good as they were before I was pregnant… I do allow myself to eat more sweet stuff than I normally would, (ice cream! Yum!) and I do have a weakness for bagels. However, I know I am not ‘eating for two’ and I am still careful, since gaining too much is bad for the baby, and I know how easily I gain weight. DH thinks I am too worried and says I am actually more careful about what I eat than most pregnant women.

(Long "weight rant" removed here)

So of course, I’m not happy about the possibility of having GD, (Butters, I hope I'm not inadvertently pumping too much sugar into you!) and now I wonder if maybe I really not eating right, or am gaining too much weight…. though I just can’t really believe that I have gained too much. (11 pounds since my checkup at 9 weeks) Yes, I know you can be a healthy eater and still get GD, but it still pisses me off, and I feel like going and eating a nice big bowl of ice cream right now...wait, if I'm not processing sugar right, that would be a bad idea. Can't have a beer (well, duh!) so I think I'll go guzzle an O'douls. Hopefully this was just a false positive and my biggest gripe at the end of the day will be that I had to do the 3-hour test for nothing. My test is scheduled for July 31 at 8am, and should be a breeze, since I went until 3pm without food for the first test. I just know I'll get ancy, sitting around for 3 hours, plus that’s just time I have to make up at work.

I know my hormones must be a little wacky, (thus all the above whining) because things that normally would not have brought me to tears have done so in the past few days. I was tearing up after getting the "You failed your sugar test!” call. I mean, come on... tears? Even though I knew it was irrational, I still then called my mom and cried about it, then I called DH and cried! Then of course I wrote this big, whiny post! This past weekend, I was having crying fits over computers I was trying to fix (part of my nesting has included fixing/updating some of my multiple computers, because we all know you can’t bring a newborn into a house without a perfect, multi-computer network set up!) Tears over computers? This better be a hormone thing because these are certainly not things to weep over. I think I'll have to play the 'p' card on this one - it's the hormones!