An acquaintance who recently found out she was pregnant for the first time asked me for any advice I had to pass along.
I thought for a long moment and there was really just one thing I could come up with: NEVER EAT A BAGEL BEFORE YOU HAVE TO TAKE THE GLUCOSE CHALLENGE TEST.
Let me tell you all about my struggles with the glucose challenge test.
What? (you’re probably asking yourself) You mean she’s going to talk about herself again? Where’s all the nursing stories? Does she actually work in the MICU any more?
And the answer would be yes, I am still working in the MICU but I don’t think you want to hear any of my MICU stories. Most of them would involve everything you ever wanted to know about dying a slow death on life support, like the way your bodily fluids ooze out of big peeling blisters on your skin, or the way your face turns a charcoal-purple-waxy-yellow color, or the way your stool becomes nothing but water and little bits and pieces of the lining that formerly contained it…
What? To gruesome?
You want me to stop?
Hey, no problem. Let’s just talk about me for awhile.
So I was “diagnosed” with gestational diabetes in my 34th week of pregnancy. That’s not quite the problem. The problem is that I just don’t believe it.
It started back at week 25 with the glucose challenge test. Basically this involves ingesting 75 grams of glucose in 5 minutes. Yes, it is as disgusting as it sounds. The challenge is to drink that syrupy goop and then your blood sugar is measured 1 hour later. Your blood sugar must be 140 for you to pass.
Mine was 144.
Okay, I ate that bagel 1 hour before drinking the goop. So sue me! I was starving. You try not to eat breakfast when you’re pregnant. A week later I was informed that I would have to take the glucose tolerance test. This one involves drinking 100g of glucose in 5 minutes. Then they draw your blood on the hour for the next three hours to see if your blood sugars fall appropriately. So here’s what I was thinking:
What good is this test, anyway? I would never ever ingest that much sugar in one sitting. Of course my blood sugar could go through the roof. So I started testing my blood sugar randomly at work. It was always between 80 and 110, which is normal. So I procrastinated in scheduling the test and waited for my next OB appointment so they could yell at me.
Instead of being scolded I was pleasantly surprised. I told the OB that I had been checking my sugars at work and he said, “That’s fine. You don’t have to take the three hour glucose test. Just keep track of your sugars and give me the data on your next visit.”
Now that is my kind of doc. He actually listened to me, believed me, and came up with a reasonable solution.
But then I switched teams.
I told the midwife about the glucose test results, thinking that she would be in total agreement with me. Many of the pro-midwife books I’ve read have expressed skepticism over routine diabetes screening in pregnancy. But alas, she insisted. I had to take the three-hour test and pass it in order to be able to give birth in the birthing center.
So I took the dreaded test and surprise, surprise, I failed! But again, only by a few lousy points. It didn’t matter. I now have the privilege of seeing a high-risk OB for my new diagnosis of gestational diabetes.
NOTE: Gestational diabetes can be a serious complication of pregnancy and I don’t want to imply otherwise. I was just miffed because my numbers were ever so slightly off and yet this has now created a cascade of interventions for me that I believe are somewhat unnecessary. I urge anyone who is interested in this topic to go to the ADA’s website to learn more about this condition.
On my next post I will tell you all about my adventures with the high risk OB who is now treating my “condition”.