3 Hour Glucose Test

I did the traditional glucose tolerance test at 28 weeks. You have to drink a sugar solution that tastes like sweet Gatorade an hour before your appointment, where they draw blood to see if your body processed the sugar correctly. I failed! I had never failed with either of my other pregnancies, but the Dr. said that they had tightened up the restrictions to make sure they weren't missing any potential gestation diabetes.

When you fail, you have to go in for a 3 hour glucose tolerance test. I had to go the office early in the morning, fasting, and have my blood drawn. Then they gave me a solution to drink that is twice as sweet as the solution for the 1 hour test and they draw my blood every hour for 3 hours. When she gave me the solution to drink, she told me that it would probably make me feel bad and that I could lie down in one of the rooms if I wanted to. I thought that was weird, it's just a sugar solution, I like sugar. Well, this sugar solution was DISGUSTING, I could barely get it down. I sat in the waiting room and tried to read my book but I was nauseous, my heart was racing, the baby was kicking me like crazy and I felt really dizzy. I guess I'll take that room to lie down in after all. It was really nice because I was able to snooze through the first couple hours of the test and by the third hour I was feeling better and was able to move back to the waiting room to read my book.

I'm grateful that I have such an awesome OB's office. I spoke with a few other girls after I did the test and they said they did it too but their office didn't let them lie down at all. They had to sit in hot, crowded waiting rooms. One girl even threw up and had to come back to do the test another time. The best thing though...I passed! Not only am I happy that the baby and I don't have to worry about complications from gestational diabetes, but I can still have ice cream. It would be a long few months without any ice cream.