About fifteen minutes ago I drank what tasted like extremely concentrated lemon-lime Gatorade. It wasn't as bad as I had been expecting.
This is the first step of the scientific version of the glucose test, typically undergone at the start of the third trimester. It's to check whether the mother's body is processing sugar efficiently - a process that can be disrupted by the placenta. If it isn't, the mother has to make some dietary changes to try to keep her levels steady.
Last time around, under midwife care, the glucose test took the form of "eat a sugary breakfast, then wait an hour and use a diabetic test strip to test your sugar levels, then test them again after another hour". I think there was a first-thing-in-the-morning fasting test too. I got kind of a D+ on those tests...not failing exactly, but I ended up having to change my diet and track my sugars for the rest of the pregnancy. "Pre-gestational Diabetes", it was called, otherwise known as insulin resistance. It's like a red flag that there could be a problem in the future.
As much as I like the midwifery model of care, the engineer in me does prefer the medical glucose test, 10 fluid ounces, 5.0g of glucose per fluid ounce. It's much more scientific and the results would be comparable to other women, or other instances, rather than eyeballing a bowl of Cocoa Krispies and saying "eh, this looks like a good helping".
I've got an OB appointment this afternoon and I am hoping that maybe the results will be back already by then. I also need to talk to her about switching over to the new midwife. I don't know how that will work out financially yet; I had thought I would be covered both ways around but there's a possibility that the secondary insurance won't pay the midwife if the first insurance has paid the OB. Why can't these things ever be simple?
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