03 February, 2020

Three Hour Glucose Test

So, you failed your one hour glucose test? Yeah, me too. If I am blessed to be pregnant again, I will not change my glucose test unexpectedly and do it around noon.
My husband and I debated how I would the three hour glucose test several times. Because my clinic is an hour away, doing the test would take a minimum of five hours. He was really dubious about me taking our daughter. When I did the one hour glucose test, I felt very shaky and unwell. He was worried that I would have to entertain or deal with a toddler tantrum while I was in poor health myself. I struggled with the idea of finding someone to watch my daughter for five hours while I was gone. We discussed several options and I finally decided to head up with my daughter early this morning (28 weeks, 1 day). I got her really excited to hang out with me today and I prepped my purse as though I was going on a three hour plane ride with her. I had around a dozen activities for her to do and she was pretty stoked to go to the lab with her mom.
I woke up at 5:30 and gently roused my daughter at 6:15. She immediately jumped up and gave me a big hug and kiss which swiftly calmed my nerves. She was a gem in the car on the way there. She ate her breakfast and made small talk with me. I encouraged her to sleep, but she told me she was not sleepy.
We made it to the lab just before 7:30. Every time I was called back to have my blood drawn, my little girl stared intensely at everything that was going on. She looked intrigued at the glucose drink, but when the phlebotomist told her it was gross, she immediately lost interest. The drink, with double the sugar from last time, was so sweet it made my throat itch.
We hung out in the waiting room the entire time. I was told that I could leave this time if I wanted, but I knew we would not.
We watched the waiting room fill and empty several times. My toddler rotated through the activities and never once was unhappy or upset over anything. Several older patients tried to start a conversation with her, but she was quick to ignore them and inch closer to me.
After I drank the glucose, I felt normal the entire time we were there. I did not feel any negative effects of my blood sugar and did not feel hungry. I have been trying not to read too much into if it was a good thing or a bad thing that I had no negative side effects while we were in the lab.
When I was done, we had a quick lunch and I felt very shaky and light headed so we sat in the car for five minutes until I felt safe driving. As we drove home, I was extremely tired and was even more happy that my toddler was in an agreeable mood.
I am planning on calling my clinic tomorrow afternoon to see what the results of the test are. I am assuming and hoping that the test comes back negative for gestational diabetes. The first test was not completed in favorable circumstances so I hope it was just a fluke. We will see tomorrow!

Update: The following day, I was too anxious to wait until the afternoon to call. Instead, I made the call shortly after their office opened in the morning. The sweet nurse took quite a while to look up my information. After she tried entering in my birthday a couple times and had me spell my last name over and over, she finally typed in my social. "I've talked to you dozens of times! I know you are a patient. I am not sure why I cannot look up your info." She gave me the disclosure that a doctor had not looked at the results, but she said she saw no yellow or red numbers. She said it looked like I passed with flying colors. When the results were uploaded to my patient portal, I was quick to examine the results for myself. None of my numbers were even close to the upper standard range. I am kicking myself for scheduling the one hour test when I was not ready for it, but am very thankful that I was able to check and make sure that the baby and I are both healthy.

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