The Glucose Tolerance Test

As I'd mentioned in my last post, the results from my glucose challenge test weren't so favorable, so I had to go for the 3-hour glucose tolerance test.

This test had to be scheduled, and I scheduled mine for this past Wednesday. Since this test requires fasting for ~12 hours, I stopped eating at 6:30pm the night before. My appointment was for 8am the next morning. When I got to the lab, there was a HUGE lineup - and the lab wasn't even open! Interestingly enough, most of the people in line were senior citizens. I guess they wanted to get their tests over and done with as quickly as possible. Why they would opt to wake up so early for blood tests and whatnot is beyond me, especially since I gathered that most of them were retired. Maybe they were fasting too. Anyway, I digress.

By the time I got started with everything, it was 8:45am. They made me give a urine sample first, and then they drew some blood (right arm) before I drank the orange drink. They gave me the drink soon afterward, which was a relief to me, because I was already starting to feel faint. Rather than feel better after consuming that drink, however, I felt worse. I guess not eating since 6:30pm the previous night didn't help. And now the waiting began. After downing the drink, I had to have my blood drawn once every hour, for 3 hours. This brought the grand total of needles poking my arms to 4. OUCH!

I found it a bit difficult to get comfortable. It didn't help that I had my backpack on me, complete with my Yoga mat (Wednesday is Yoga night), making my backpack extra-heavy. All of the technicians seemed pretty horrified that I was lugging this thing around at 6 months pregnant.

I brought 2 books with me to pass the time. One was The Omnivore's Dilemma, which, by the way, is an excellent read, though you'll probably never look at food the same way again. The other book was the HypnoBirthing book, which I got as part of the HypnoBirthing classes that we started taking. I hadn't opened the HypnoBirthing book yet, so I decided to read that. It was a great read, but waking up early that day plus fasting started getting to me, and within 30 minutes, I fell asleep. I woke up in time for the 2nd drawing of blood (left arm).

The second hour was not so painful. I was well-rested and got some good reading done. The HypnoBirthing book is a fascinating read, and really helped to calm me down. That morning, when I woke up, I had a bit of a "What the hell am I doing having a baby?" moment. I guess I'd been so busy with classes and work lately that I didn't even really have time to freak out. That morning, however, something got to me. Maybe as I looked at myself in the mirror and saw my big belly sticking out at me, realizing that life as I know it now would be over in 3 months or so. That, coupled with the fact that I have NO IDEA on what to expect as far as parenting goes just made me feel really uneasy all of a sudden. I'd told the hubby about my little freak-out morning, and he managed to calm me down somewhat. The HypnoBirthing book, however, helped calm me down further. Any bit of anxiety that was still lingering from that morning was gone. It put me in a good headspace and made me realize that having PK around will be an exciting time, even if it will be challenging at times. Right now, though, I needed to focus on having a successful pregnancy and labor.

After the 2nd hour was over, it was time to draw more blood (right arm again). The third hour went by really quickly. The blood lab was ridiculously busy the entire time I was there. I'm glad I found a seat after each time I had blood drawn, because I was tired and felt light-headed. Finally, the 3rd hour was done, and blood was drawn one last time. The vein on my left arm was pretty swollen, so the lab tech had to poke my right arm a 3rd time. If you'd looked at my arms that day, I'd probably look like a drug addict. Oy...

Now I sit and wait. My next doctor's appointment is on Monday. My test results were supposedly in sometime today and I haven't gotten any calls from the doctor's office. I don't know if it's because they'll wait to let me know about the test results on Monday, or if there's nothing wrong with me. Hopefully it will be the latter. Stay tuned!