Glucose Type Tests - One Hour

I decided to write this post for a few reasons. I like reading other people's experiences so I might as well share mine. And I also like to look back at how I felt or how things were. I was just scrolling through pictures/posts on this blog from past weeks and looking at pictures where I thought I looked huge and realizing I barely looked pregnant.

So... without getting into all the anxiety and stress I felt for about a week or so in between the 1 hour and 3 hour tests, I thought I'd get the actual tests and how they went down while I still remember pretty clearly.

The 1 hour test, I honestly thought I was going to pass, in the back of my mind. I've been keeping up (as much as I can) with exercise and I am on the lower end of weight gain. What I report here is actually 4 pounds above what I've actually gained because I started counting it wrong.  But I figure, eh, it's 4 pounds, so I've just continued to report the higher number (and it's also on my charts at the midwife center although one midwife did say that I should have put down pre-pregnancy weight, not my weight on the day of my positive test. Lesson learned for next time.)

I had heard mixed from people about what to eat beforehand. The day/night before I ate as I normally would but didn't want to have carbs/sugar in my body that day. So the morning of the test I had eggs in our cafeteria with a bit of cheese to flavor and a bunch of veggies.  This was at about 7am. The Midwife Center said not to worry about fasting and I thought having food in my stomach would help me handle the drink better. (The drink for the one hour test is 50g of sugar.)

The blood draw was scheduled for 11am with the drink at 10am. So we headed to the midwife center- they said they'd handle this blood draw at their facility because of the needle anxiety.  I figured almost 3 hours after eating would help stabilize if it's better to fast anyways.  So I had the drink; it was orange (no choice for me). I downed it pretty fast. And I had figured I'd be a champ at this. Mom and Dad, stop reading for a sentence or two. When I was younger they had sugar packets for the motel (coffee supplies for the rooms) and I used to down sugar packets. Gross, I know. But I've always had a sweet tooth to the extreme. Anyway, I didn't really have a problem with the drink initially. It was super sweet, and even too sweet for me, but I drank it down just fine.

Dave and I sat in the waiting room and I started feeling sick. I have to admit as soon as I got in my car to drive to the midwife center from work I just started bawling at the prospect of the needle/blood draw and cried the whole way there. I was worried about dehydration and how that would affect things so I asked Dave to get me bottled water at his work and I chugged a lot of that before the drink. Once you drink the drink, no food or water for that hour.

Because of that, I kept having to pee. And the drink made our baby very active. He seems to really kick my internal organs and was hitting both my bladder and something else that just started making me feel sick. About 45 minutes in, I went to the bathroom (again, kept doing that over and over) and I actually threw up some in my mouth. It was terrible. A mixture of eggs and that sugary drink. I swallowed it back and didn't say a word because I didn't want to have to go through this again. If you throw up because of the drink they give you the equivalent amount of sugar via jelly beans but it would have had to be done a different day. (Later I did admit to the midwife about it and she said that small amount wouldn't affect the test results.) But from that point on I felt awful, and just physically sick.

They took me to the birthing room that we would prefer if it's not already occupied when I go into labor. That was nice- we got to really check it out and be in there. She used an IV type thing I guess to draw the blood. I never watch and was leaning on Dave the entire time, partly nerves and partly feeling sick. I guess at one point my blood completely stopped flowing and she had to flick my wrist to try to get it moving (it didn't). As things progressed I felt worse and worse, and soon my ears were ringing and I felt like I was going to pass out. That's actually not anything that has ever happened to me as a result of the phobia so I'm blaming that on the sugar and feeling sick. So I have to admit I started moaning or something and saying I was going to pass out. The nurse had pity on me and I lied back, while she tried to decide if she had enough blood. She ended up taking the vials upstairs to ask and thank goodness they said it was ok. She also put a cold washcloth on my head to try to help me feel better, and I just lay in the bed for awhile, I'm not sure how long. When I did feel better, I sat up and had some water and a granola bar. I also realized that my clothes were soaked because I had broken out in a sweat.

So yeah, not the most pleasant experience in the world for me. But even with that, the nurse was amazing and the midwife center did what they could to make me more comfortable and try to help.

This got long so I decided to break it up into two posts- and will post the 3 hour test separately.

The test was on a Friday and I got a call the following Tuesday around lunchtime. As soon as I saw caller ID and that it was the Midwife Center I knew they were calling to say I failed and that's when my week of anxiety and stress started. My number was 151 and they wanted it under 130. I will say, after the fact. Based on my numbers for the 3 hour and discussions, I think that the number was elevated because of anxiety. That can elevate cortisol levels, which affects your sugar level. So if I ever do this again somehow I need to find a way to relax and hopefully avoid having to take the 3 hour.