At my last appointment I popped up really high on the urine dipstick test for glucose. We then did a finger prick and it was 226, about 1.5-2 hours after eating. I had a bagel, cream cheese and orange juice. Before the dipstick the plan was to do the finger stick and see the level before deciding to move on to the one hour or three hour glucose test. The one hour test has a high false positive rate. For example, my mom failed with each of her pregnancies but passed the three hour one. Even now it will pop high on a finger prick but she'll be fine on the fasting one. I suppose we don't process glucose well or something. There's a possibility that it was so incredibly high by mistake on that one finger. Diabetics report sometimes getting a very inflated number and retesting on a different finger and getting a more normal number. Well, it's doubtful that even with retesting it would have been under 120, which is normal. In the end, high is high and on to a three hour test I went.
We tried calling the lab to find out if I needed to schedule an appointment, the general information says no. So the plan was that I would test last Wednesday. They finally called back Misty that morning and told her that I would need an appointment, so it got pushed back to Thursday.
The test itself wasn't so awful. The drink didn't taste too bad. At the end (10 ounces worth!) it tasted sickeningly sweet, but originally just like super sweet deflated orange soda. The nurse told me not to drink a lot of water right away as it can vomiting. For the next hour or so it didn't sit very well in my stomach, so I was glad for that piece of advice. Teddy seemed to love it though, he was going wild!! The hours passed fairly fast, I ate lunch at Panera bread, went grocery shopping and then went home and rested before revival service. After waking up I felt a little sick and dizzy though. I thought I was ok, and then just kept feeling worse all day Friday. Doug thinks we also ate something weird because he had the same symptoms. It wasn't usual food poisoning though. We were both really dizzy, bad stomach cramps and fatigue. The only thing we ate in common though was some ham I made and a frosty (we shared) from Wendy's. I don't know which is worse, to know that something I made may have made us sick or that frostys could!
Anyway, I'm still waiting on my results. Misty said she hadn't heard anything but I had called the lab on Thursday and they told me they faxed it to her on Friday. She gets her faxes converted to pdf files downloadable on her computer and double checked and she didn't have anything from them. Nothing for me or another client who tested last week. She was supposed to call today to find out what's going on, but I haven't heard from her. I'm getting annoyed. Not with her, but just the situation. I'm prepared for being positive, I'm trying to eat right but it's something that needs to be addressed by the right people, not just me and google. At this point I'm really praying it's negative. Most women test between 24 and 28 weeks and I didn't test until 29 weeks and now I will be 30.5 by the time I get results. I'm sure it doesn't make that much of a difference, but it worries me that I could be harming Teddy! And if I'm positive I should be checking my levels, but that's expensive and I'm not going to buy it unless I really am positive.
So what would gestational diabetes mean? Well, if I can control it via diet and excercise and my fasting numbers are ok then I will not need insulin. It also means that I could keep Misty. If I need insulin I'll need a prescription and would need to find a doctor willing to have Misty continue prenatal care and delivery, if he/she thinks it's medically advisable. This is obviously not ideal. But GD can also mean large babies, so there's an even higher chance of needing extraction help or a c-section. With any birth there's a chance it can't be done vaginally, but this is raises it. A few weeks before my due date I'll get an ultrasound to get an estimate on his size and position. That's standard care for an OB with a GD patient, not sure about midwife but it's something that I think would be good to do. If it just seems crazy to try to deliver him vaginally then knowing a week or two before would be nice rather than laboring and trying to push and then finding out and having to be transported to the hospital etc. Other concerns for unmonitored GD is that there's a chance babies can be born with hypoglycemia, which has to be treated right away, and usually disappears. But no matter what this will be monitored so that's not really a concern. Women with GD are also at a higher chance for pre-eclampsia but very few headaches right now, no swelling since I'm not stuck in a car all day, no protein in my urine, and my blood pressure is ok. So far, so good on that end.
So I was wanting to wait to post until I knew the results but it's been so long. I hope to be able to post good news soon, but now a days gestational diabetes isn't awful, as long as it's being treated. No matter what I'm sure Teddy and I will be ok.
Other than that, my appointment went well. Heart rate in the 150s and my blood pressure was ok. It was a little high, but we think that was just due to some mild dehydration and the fact that it was a new cuff. It wasn't high enough to be alarming, so no worried there.
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