Yuck and Ouch!

At my doctor’s appointment this week, I got to take the dreaded oral glucose tolerance test. This test is used to screen for gestational diabetes, which is a type of diabetes that can develop in some women late in pregnancy. When I arrived, they handed me this 10 ounce bottle of pure glucose and told me that I had five minutes to drink it. Here is a visual:

Thankfully, it was un-carbonated and chilled so it wasn’t too difficult to get down, but I did gag a little after each swig. Imagining it was an ice-cold beer didn’t help much either…I kid, I kid! I didn’t do that. After an hour had passed, they drew some blood to test how the glucose solution was metabolized by my body. I am not sure when I find out the results, but I guess that no news from them is good news! For those of you wondering, I didn’t have gestational diabetes with Caden, but that doesn’t mean that that will be the case with this pregnancy.

 As I waited for that hour to pass, they went ahead with their normal routine for preggers appointments. I had to pee in a cup, they took my blood pressure, and weighed me in. 153 pounds. Wait a second, 153 pounds? AH! I still have two months to go and I’m already just 10 pounds shy of being the same weight I was when I went into labor with Caden?? Lord help me.

I also got to hear Sam’s heartbeat, during which I was reminded why I love my OB/GYN so much. It never fails. Every single time he finds the heartbeat, he grins from ear to ear.

Then something funny happened. He asked me, “Have we given you your RhoGAM shot yet?” I replied, “My what?” It turns out that their records show that my blood is Rh-negative so I had to get a shot to prevent my immune system from making antibodies against Sam’s blood if he is born Rh-positive. (If he is born Rh-negative like me, then there is no harm or foul whether I got the shot or not.) Let’s say Sam is born with Rh-positive blood. If I had not had this shot and my blood mixed with his during the delivery, my immune system would react by making antibodies to destroy it. Although it wouldn’t hurt either one of us in anyway, it could cause complications if I had another baby in the future who had Rh-positive blood. Why? Because the antibodies that my body made would attack the next baby’s red blood cells. When this happens, babies can end up with anemia, jaundice, or more serious problems. All that being said, I have to laugh because the thought of having another child makes me want to hide.

So, to recap my wonderful doctor’s appointment in just one sentence: I had to drink 10 ounces of nasty and then I was poked with a needle – twice. Now if that isn’t enough to make anyone feel for me, that shot of RhoGAM they gave me had to be given in my derrière! How’s that for a happy ending?

Oh, the joys of pregnancy…