Wednesday, March 23, 2011

The Glucose Drink

1.  That my wife carries Baby J and not me.
2.  I have awesome, caring friends who listen to me whine.
3.  I have a class that is challenging me to stop whining.  (It's a 21 day in a row thing, I'll probably blog about it tomorrow or something... let's just say that if I don't stop playing NHL 11 I may never get past day one).

So, the Glucose drink.  For all of you parents this is old news, but to us knew daddies, did you know that women sometimes get Diabetes during pregnancy? It's called Gestational Diabetes.  Yeah, news to me too.  We're pretty sure my wife doesn't have it (what with her having no symptoms and all), but the doctors want to make doubly sure (or just like to torture pregnant women... both are understandable).  I'm totally kidding, torturing pregnant women is not what I'm about, chill out.

This, dear friends, is how they test for it (my mom said they didn't do it when she was pregnant):  First, you can't eat sugar that day... like at all.  They say ANYTHING with sugar in it.  I actually think we may have broken this rule for breakfast, but my wife was dead set on egg sandwich.  So, I fried up an egg and put it on white bread toast (which I'm pretty sure has high levels of sugar, but whatev).  Usually she has oatmeal, but it had sugar, so we had to go a different route this morning.  We also couldn't give her a banana, because fruit has sugar.  I'm not even joking.

So, she has to carry on all day while teaching high school students math without any kind of snack, because all of our snacks consist of candy or fruit... Chips!!! I'm a moron, we had chips... I hope my wife doesn't read this, she could have had a snack.  Oh well.  Regardless, she will be snackless.  For lunch, a frozen burrito.  She must eat her burrito in the first ten minutes of her lunch period (the end of the semester approaches, so she'll probably be eating it with a million kids who want to change their grades).  Then, once burritos are consumed, she must eat NOTHING for an hour.  The nurse was VERY clear on this point.  SO clear that I feel I need to use CAPS to emphasize her CLARITY.  Okay, I'll stop.

After this hour of nothing, preceded by a day of no sugar remember, she needs to drink a drink.  Not just any drink though, it's a pink glucose drink that is supposed to be fruit punch flavor.  Basically, it's a little bottle of high fructose corn syrup.  She can't take her time either, she needs to pound this thing in ten minutes.  Then, when her sensitive tummy has dealt with said drink for an hour EXACTLY (I know I said I was done, but she emphasized this too), she has to go in to be tested.  They said that if they are even a few minutes off, the test is ruined and she must do this again.

Can I just reemphasize the first thing I'm thankful for today? 
1.  That my wife carries Baby J and not me.

Have a nice day.

12 comments:

  1. I think I'd take the diabetes over that whole procedure.

    No I'm kidding, but, not kidding about being thankful that future babies won't be in my womb, since I don't have one.

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  2. While I do look forward to being a dad one day, I think for now, I'm going to enjoy a simple, child-free, existence.

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  3. isn't being pregnant great?

    Thank your wife everyday. Its a horrid experience. :)

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  4. Hopefully she passes the test! I was borderline when I took the test so I had to go back and do it again. The second test was much worse. They have you drink the sugar drink and then you have to stay there and get your blood drawn every hour for three hours. The whole time you can't eat anything and if you throw up you have to do it all over again. Definitely seems like a cruel and unusual way to torture a pregnant women.

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  5. yuck! i was preg 9 years ago & they didn't make me do this since i didn't show any symptoms either. i hope she decides it was worth it in the long run.

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  6. The test is worse than labor.
    Kinda...

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  7. @Kev
    Amen Bro.

    @Vinny
    I'm a firm believer in loving ever stage of life. Love not having kids, I mean, why not? I'm going to love having them.

    @Ash
    I do Ash... I do. :)

    @Brit
    Holy cow. I hope she passes too. That sounds aweful.

    @Sheri
    Well, whether you decide it's worth it or not, you still have to do it. I guess it's to make absolutely sure that the baby is in a healthy environment... I guess that's important. :)

    @Missy
    Haha. It wasn't too bad for my wife. I hope you're right. :)

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  8. I don't know why but I never had this one.
    After fasting and waiting in the doctors for ages they came to tell me that they wern't doing the test today. I was not impressed. Hungry, took the day off work, pregnant, hormonal, and now pissed off.

    She also needs to up her calcium. Teeth get really brittle during pregnancy. Avoid really crunchy foods. I'm not kidding, I had two teeth ruined during my pregnancy :(

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  10. I had to do this test, and let me tell you NO BUENO! I threw up everywhere. But luckily, she got to eat. I had to stop eating the night before after 10pm, which was easy. But then the next morning, I couldn't eat anything, so I go to the doctor, drink the nasty stuff, like you said, high fructose corn syrup drink. Which, by the way, they tell you it tastes like soda. It certainly does NOT! You're pretty much drinking a gallon of sugar with a hint of orange and it goes down thick like syrup. (at least mine was orange flavored) I threw up after the first hour. IT WAS HORRIBLE. They also had to draw my blood every 30 minutes. UGH! So I wasn't able to make the 3rd draw, which is the most important, and the one they really needed to read my levels, and never they never got it, so who knows! I'm just giving my experience because it was terrible.

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  11. Sad news. Bri has to do the fasting test here soon because she was two points over the limit. Lame.

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  12. @ Sprite
    I'll let her know about the calcium. Her teeth aren't great to begin with, so she made need to start taking a suppliment.

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