Pregnancy Bummer

Today I had a lot of firsts. My first "pregnancy fail." My first pregnancy hormone outburst. My first frustration toward my doctor's office.

I am 27 weeks and went in for a standard glucose screening. For those of you who don't know, you have to be screened around this time for gestational diabetes, or diabetes you only get when you're pregnant (your pregnancy hormones can block your body from being able to breakdown sugar normally, so you can get diabetes for the short period of time you are pregnant). It's a simple test- you chug like 6oz of this orange liquid (mine actually tasted pretty good, like orange soda) then wait and hour and they prick your finger to test your blood. They told me less than 140 was the goal and when my results came back they were slightly elevated, 155 (200 is the high risk range).

I was really surprised! I thought for sure I would pass it, but she started filling out my paperwork to go take the THREE hour test at the hospital which would tell me for sure if I have gestational diabetes. Then she says to me, "and remember, you need to fast after midnight and not eat anything until you take the test, just like you were instructed to do for today's test." WAIT, WHAT? NOBODY TOLD ME THAT. I just sat there in shock as she gave me paperwork to check out. While I was making my next appointment I mentioned to the receptionist that I had eaten breakfast this morning and failed the test and she just shrugged and said, "looks like you'll be taking the 3 hour test." I just kind of nodded numbly and walked out to my car.

It didn't take long for first #1 to happen: complete, hormonal breakdown. No matter what I told myself (it's not a big deal, you can't help it, 3 hours isn't that long), I just could not stop crying. I'm sure people in traffic were slowing down to stare at my ugly cry face and figure out what was going on in my torture car. Reasons I was crying related to my other firsts:

1) Why did they not give me proper instructions? I know that banana may not have thrown me off, but what if it did? I'm a first time mom, expect me to be ignorant! No one, not my doctor when we talked about this at my last appointment, or my nurse before I took it, or the receptionist who booked by glucose test, told me not to eat. So lame.

2) Did I just fail my first mommy test? I know I can't help how my body processes sugar, but it still feels like I'm losing a competition.

3) I don't want to go to the hospital for 3 hours and not eat all morning!!

I finally pulled it together enough to place a rational phone call to my doctor's office and when I explained about eating the nurse told me that could definitely throw my numbers off. I asked if I could retake the 1 hr test instead of doing the 3 hr and she said she'd called me back. Another nurse called and said fasting doesn't effect the numbers so I just needed to take the 3 hour test.

So on Friday I will go to Willow Creek for 3 hours and sit in the waiting room by myself and be a guinea pig for people to poke me. Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with doing anything I need to for Titus' sake, but I can't help feeling like this is going to be a waste of time since I only missed it by a few points. In fact, I did some research almost 25% of women fail the 1 hour screening while only about 1% of women actually have Gestational Diabetes. 

My thoughts are either we should just all skip to the 3 hour test so I don't spend a whole day on the verge of emotional collapse or figure out a way to make the 1 hour test more accurate. Hear hear!