Wednesday, March 19, 2014

#ThirdTrimesterProblems Spiked with Good News: Week 28

Wow. This week has really turned out to be a doozy! 
Let's start with the 3 hour glucose tolerance test, AKA cruel and unusual punishment for pregnant women.
First of all, I was coming off a stretch of work days, so my sleep schedule was jacked, which contributed to my awakening in the middle of the night before my test. It didn't help that I had to be fasting for 12-14 hours, so needless to say I woke up painfully STARVING. I laid there in bed, counting the hours until I could eat.......only 480 more miserable minutes
What's worse than being a grouchy pregnant woman who has to spend 3 hours at the doctor's off by herself? A grouchy pregnant person who has have to her blood drawn on an empty stomach, is then forced to drink 8 ounces of fruit punch filled with more sugar content than any one person should consume in a week, and is then kicked out to the waiting room to be surrounded by well fed overly perfumed happy people.
"You know, if I DO have Gestational Diabetes, it doesn't seem like this would be the best thing for me or the baby to do."
"Yeah," replies the lab tech, "I've been thinking that same thing for years. By the way, until your 3 hours is up, you can't have anything to eat or drink. I'll call you back here for 3 more gallons of blood, once every hour, then you're done."
For the first 1.5 hours, I really thought I was going to have to let it all go in the toilet and start over (note my "trying not to throw up face"). Terrified to burp, too sick to laugh, one episode of Portlandia was all I could handle before having to switch to something more somber to pass the time, like Girl Interrupted, while also being entertained by all the dancing I could see from the outside of my belly.......little Cotton on a sugar high?
When it was all over, the tech asked me if I'd like a juice box or some crackers. 
"Are you freaking kidding me?!?!? Simple carbs and more liquid sugar is the last thing I'd ingest right now after that kind of torture." I immediately headed to Snappy Salads for my favorite Artisan, hoping it would help me recover, but it turns out spending the rest of the day feeling like I was back in my first trimester of pregnancy was unavoidable.
Little did I know, I'd really be spending the next week feeling like I was back in the first trimester. 
Flash forward a few days to me waking Patrick in the middle of the night by uncontrollably moaning and groaning in pure agony. I had the worst heartburn I'd ever felt in my life, accompanied by extreme nausea, abdominal cramps, and back aches. I tried everything and it wasn't waning. He fed me Tums and stayed by my side until about 8:30 or 9:00 am (Thank goodness his bossman loves him; I probably would have broke down in tears if he left me!), when I finally had enough relief to at least fall asleep. 
**Insert here, a very vivid dream about me actually being in labor and delivering a 28 weeker in bed and yelling at Patrick what do to. It was a girl, and due to the delayed cord clamping she did extremely well, and we named her.........(Just kidding, we actually FINALLY have names picked out, but we're still not telling!!!)**
My entire day would be filled with those horrible physical symptoms that follow nausea and abdominal cramps. Due to not being able to keep anything inside my body, I barely managed to drink half a glass of Gatorade and eat a single bowl of soup, for an entire 24 hour period. Ironic that I started this post with being forced to fast, and ended it with fasting because I couldn't muster the tenacity to even will food or drink down.
It's not all bad, though.
The good news is my doctors office finally called me to say MY TEST RESULTS WERE NORMAL!!! No gestational diabetes for this chick, thank goodness!!! I'm not sure if Cotton is celebrating right now or trying to give me a not so subtle hint to eat/drink more (I'm sill recovering), but this little person inside of me is definitely trying to get some kind of message across the placental line!
 

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