and I am a plucked chicken.
I had hoped that my glucose tolerance test would turn out to be a never-you-mind sort of deal, but sadly, my “number” was too high. 149, vs. the nice 130 or below my doctor would have liked to see.
I’ve been crying off-and-on about it for two days, and I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe I’m just plain tired. Maybe I’m a little hormonal (a-hem). Maybe I’m frickin’ sick of being tested. Maybe I’m sick of how inaccurate everything seems to be. Thanks for enduring that last horrible experience, now here’s another unpleasant test we need you to take because we don’t really trust the results of the first one. No results are actually reliable. But please, do keep testing.
The woman whom we bought the used crib from a few weeks back confided in me, as we were chatting after I’d written the check, that she’d had gestational diabetes, but “they” had missed it — it hadn’t been diagnosed. And her baby weighed over 10 pounds.
Not that long ago, we were worrying that my baby would be too small. Now he’s at risk for being too big. Macrosomia: too fat, shoulders too broad; bad things can happen at birthin’ time.
My doctor now wants me to take a longer version of the Glucose Tolerance Test, involving a total of 12 hours of fasting, a higher initial dose of sugar, and four blood samples taken at 1 hour intervals.
I ran into my friend again this morning, the same one I’d seen at the diner right after I’d done my first GTT on Tuesday. I asked her what had happened after she did the longer test. She said it had reversed the diagnosis. That everything was fine. She recommended taking the test at a lab near the home of someone I know — so that I could walk to their place and nap between blood draws. That’s what she did: walked home for a nap in the between-times. She said the last walk was the hardest though.
My doula suggests that we skip the test and just go straight to the medically supervised diet management and glucose monitoring program, cheerily entitled “Sweet Success.” She feels the second test may negate the results of the first, but why not be safe and take the precautions anyway?
What will I do?
Oh sweetie. You told me about this in person – I couldn’t log on today so had missed this. I’m sorry you’re worried and distressed about this.
Hey, you did the amnio, which has to have been more gnarly than this fast. Nobody likes to fast (I hate it) but you can get all the support you need for it.
I do sympathize though about not wanting yet another test. They really do put us through it, and nothing is certain in any case.
Be well…love to you. You are so glowing and lovely in person – I just didn’t “feel” your distress over this while we were together tonight at dinner.