I rather reluctantly took the dumbed down pregnancy version of the glucose tolerance test today. I say it’s dumbed down because 1) you get only 50 g of glucose instead of 75, 2) you don’t have to fast, and 3) it only lasts an hour.
Still, I wasn’t thrilled about taking it, because I was pretty sure I would fail it. And failing it would mean being subjected to the much nastier fasting 3-hour GTT, which I was also pretty sure I would flunk. And flunking that would mean a diagnosis of gestational diabetes, and that would mean I’d be shuffled through the whole nightmare that is diabetes care in America, including, no doubt, a visit to a nutritionist who would push the ADA diet on me. While I could and would ignore that advice, it’s still a hassle and an annoyance.
Furthermore, I’ve chosen to give birth at a birth center that only handles low-risk pregnancies. Their definition of low-risk allows for diabetic moms, but only if they can control their blood sugar without medication. Now, I’m pretty sure I can do that, but it’s just another layer of hassle. Plus – I haven’t written about this yet, but it’s fairly important to me – the less my pregnancy gets treated as an illness and the more it’s handled as a normal body function, the happier I’ll be. Getting a GDM (gestational diabetes mellitus) diagnosis doesn’t actually fit into the “keep your bloody medical instruments off of me and my baby” ideal that I’m hoping for.
Now, I’ve turned down all kinds of tests that the birth center considers discretionary, but the GTT is mandatory. The midwives want to know if there’s a likelihood of a high birthweight baby, with all the risks that implies.
So I drank down 10 oz. of orange-flavored and -colored sugar water, and waited. And I sneakily took my own readings a couple of times, too.
Fasting this morning: 94
Right before the orange drink (about 1 hr after breakfast): 82
15 minutes after the drink: 136
At that point, I thought I was sunk – if it was 136 after 15 minutes, what would it be like in an hour? But I didn’t get a chance to take another sneaky reading at 30 minutes like I’d planned, because I got called into the midwife’s office for my appointment.
At 1 hour, the nurse (whom I really like) drew my blood. I guess I was expecting immediate results, but they actually send the blood off to the lab. So as soon as the blood was drawn, I popped back into the bathroom and took my own reading.
90. At about 1 hour and 5 minutes after consuming the glucose.
Obviously, this isn’t official, and I suppose it’s possible that somehow the lab will come up with a reading of 150 or something, but it seems pretty unlikely. The Migraineur is breathing a big fat sigh of relief here.
Migraine aura picture from 
