For those of you who have never had to experience the "glucose test," consider yourself lucky. For those of you who have never had to experience the 3 hour glucose test, consider yourself extremely lucky! At my 28 week appointment, I had to endure the routine one hour glucose test to check for gestational diabetes. You have to drink this incredibly sweet drink and then have to have your blood drawn an hour later to check your blood sugar level. If your numbers are below 140, you are totally in the clear. My nurse told me to not expect a phone call from them...in case I didn't pass. That afternoon my phone rang. It wasn't the nurse. It was the lab. The lab lost my blood.
Two days later, on a Saturday morning, I had to get up before 8:00 to head to the hospital to get my blood drawn again. The lady who did my test was in training, so every step of my test was explained out to her. I was fine with a new person being trained, until the trainer told the
trainee to just "eye ball" the amount of glucose drink they gave me. Once again, I had to sit in the waiting area for an hour until my blood was ready to be drawn. On Monday afternoon, the phone rang. It was my nurse this time. My level was 148. I
didn't pass. I had to plan for the three hour test.
Later that week, I endured what were perhaps the worst four hours of this pregnancy. I think I would rather have 4 hours of my morning sickness back instead of being so bored. To start things off, I had to fast before this test. So, after 8:00 PM the night before, I couldn't have anything that would throw off my test. This is not easy for a
preggo to follow! I showed up at 8:00 but due to a slow computer, they couldn't see me until 8:30. Finally, they found me in the system, but realized they hadn't done my baseline draw they were supposed to do immediately upon my arrival. So, vial number one got drawn. After waiting 30 minutes just for that, I was lucky enough to finally get my perfectly measured, double the sweetness, double the amount, bottle of glucose. And the wait began. One hour went by and it wasn't too bad. I read the newspaper and had small talk with some of the other patients sitting in the lab waiting area. (Once again, I couldn't leave the waiting area...with no
TV, by the way.... so they could monitor me in case I got sick) 10:00 AM: Blood Vial number 2 got drawn and I returned to the waiting room. I was starting to get
antsy now. I was thankful that I had brought my own magazines to read. I read all the way through my Taste of Home magazine and half way through my Rachel Ray magazine. I had to move to the other waiting room because boredom was over taking me. 11:00 Blood Vial number three got drawn. The nurse commented that my arm was going to have a mark after I got done. Perhaps if the lab wouldn't have lost my blood the first time, I wouldn't have had to be stuck five times in the same arm, within a week. I returned again to the lab waiting area, extremely hungry and very
antsy. By now, I was able to direct patients who looked lost to the place where they could pick up their number for the lab, how to find the internal medicine clinic instead of the lab and how to get to the cafeteria. I was not enjoying my seemingly permanent new home. That last hour took forever to pass. Finally, 12:00 rolled around and my poor arm endured one more needle stick. I truly felt like a user at that point since my arm was pretty beat up.
Later that day, the phone rang...it was my nurse... I passed my test. I didn't have gestational diabetes and my numbers were considerably lower than my original one hour glucose test. It makes me wonder just how much glucose I got in the first place when it was just "eye-balled." Maybe this was just a
foretaste of motherhood: hurry up, wait, worry, wait, shed a little blood, wait and then celebrate small successes. Baby Wogs is worth it all.
