Seven Months
The current fuckage started on March 17th. I woke up, took Chicken and his BFF to school, ate oatmeal with Egg and did my normal routine. Egg took a huge nap, and by the time he woke up Chicken was home from school. I had just enough time to feed Egg and stop by Chick-fil-a before my midwife appointment that afternoon. Chicken got his usual chicken sandwich meal, I got sweet tea (OMG SO BAD YET SO GOOD), fries, and strawberries with yogurt. I was going to share my fries with Egg until he saw the yogurt. I ended up eating fries and drinking sweat tea at 3:30pm after not eating since 8am.
At my 4pm midwife appointment I was weighed, blood pressure taken, and I peed on a stick. Within seconds I knew something was wrong with that damn stick. At a regular OB’s office you typically pee on your hand and in a cup. With my midwife she just hands me the stick and I pee on that directly. It saves a lot of cussing after peeing on your hand, although waving that stick around in an attempt to hit a stream that you cannot see kind of sucks.
The pee sticks that my midwife uses should have all light colors after you pee. The very last color was dark green. I didn’t know what the green was saying, but I knew it was not good. I showed it to her and she checked it against the bottle. Apparently I had just peed straight sweet tea, hold the tea. The test measures up to 1000 (unit?) of glucose in your urine, and normally you shouldn’t spill any glucose. After I told her what I had and had not eaten, she had me drink some water and pee again. She said that she could understand a reading of 150-200 but 1000 was nuts. The second test was the same.
This meant that I needed to get a blood glucose test at the lab. It is one of the many prenatal tests that I think are bullshit, hence my seeing a midwife and not an OB. Many of the prenatal tests for various reasons have high rates of error. So you get a positive on something, freak the fuck out (because you’re pregnant and ZOMG MAH BABEE!) and then you need a more invasive and risky test to rule out whatever you’re freaking out about. I was trying to avoid this crap with this pregnancy.
However, I’m not foolish. Having gestational diabetes increases the risk of preterm labor, pre-eclampsia, huge babies that require C-sections, etc. Getting blood drawn doesn’t harm me (allegedly-you should see the fucking bruise I have a week later from one of the blood draws) or the baby. I made some changes to my diet, added a supplement suggested by my midwife, and went to the lab. They did a fasting draw, a 1 hour draw, and a 2 hour draw. My midwife didn’t want to send me a second time if I failed the 1 hour so I just got it over with all at once.
My numbers were:
Fasting: 95
One hour: 181
Two hour: 186
My fasting number was fine. The range that she wanted to see for my 1 hour was 120-170 and the range for my 2 hour was 61-120. I failed. Through a series of emails, my midwife said that I needed to talk to an MD and she gave me a couple of links to explore. I asked her what the ramifications of gestational diabetes were in light of the fact that I am planning a home birth. She replied that “home birth wouldn’t work with this complication.” My jaw hit the fucking floor.
For those of you that don’t follow me on Twitter, I have been planning for this baby to be born at home since before he was conceived. I won’t delve into it too much on this post, but understand that this is something that is very important to me and I have not decided upon it lightly. I started the pregnancy with my former OB, and once a normal pregnancy was established and I found my midwife I terminated my relationship him.
So here I am, visiting my MIL with Egg and I find out that signs are pointing to gestational diabetes. My home birth is currently fucked, and none of our family even knows that we are planning an unconventional birth. My midwife is covering her ass until I some how make this better through the miracles of a Medical Doctor. Would you like to take a guess how medical doctors feel when you call up and say, “I’m 31 weeks pregnant and failed a glucose test. I don’t want you to deliver my baby but I need help/advice/a nutritionist. Can you help me?”
This is where you are: A) totally naive and hopeful because doctors practice medicine to help people of course! B) laughing at me because you know that no one is fucking touching me with a 400 foot pole. The correct answer is B. However, I can read. I’ve been making more intense changes to my diet, which is totally fun if you already cannot eat any gluten AND have many pregnancy-related food aversions and just plain don’t enjoy eating because this pregnancy (just like the one with Egg) sucks ass. I also came up with a brilliant plan to get my sweaty hands on a glucose meter.
Because I normally take a fuckton of prescription medication for my fibromyalgia I know my local pharmacist quite well. I got back into town last night, and today I asked her for help. Armed with a Blood Glucose Monitoring System which includes pokey things and test strips I tested my blood tonight two hours after dinner. My blood glucose level was 87. For those of you keeping track at home, that’s a good number. (No, Toby, I’m not trying to get to 100.)
I also had a brilliant! idea! this evening. Who is the one doctor that I know that doesn’t practice CYA (also known as defensive) medicine? That would be my trusty rheumatologist. Now, he won’t deliver my baby. I get that part. But he has been drawing my blood and prescribing various medications to me for about four years. If he can point me in the right direction, he will. It’s a first step in a process that will hopefully end up with me having Coop (his blog name) at home.
I have an appointment with my midwife on Thursday. I intend to come armed with my glucose results (I see a lot of band-aids in my future), a lot of questions, and not leave until I’m satisfied. Whether that means that I need to explore other birthing options at fucking seven months pregnant, then that’s what will happen. I’m not thrilled at how things are going, but I’m not giving up or stressing out.
Just for the sake of information, having a positive blood test does not mean that you definitively have gestational diabetes. It is an indicator of the possibility. According to some of the research that I’ve done, simply having fibromyalgia makes your glucose levels wonky because your body is doing its level best to fuck with you on all levels. Which makes talking to my fibro doctor even more important. I hate going to the damn doctor.
Sidenote: Adam is going to his initial consult with a(n)* urologist on Friday. I get to sign consent forms for the ball snippage. YAY!
*I know the RULE says it should be “an” but that sounds weird to me.
I’m w/Jeremy – you don’t want to eff around w/diabetes…
But I’m also reasonably certain that there are plenty of hippy MD’s in CA who can help you achieve what you want – best of luck babe!
Chicken eating Chick fil a! Hahahah.
I hope all of this works out for you. Let’s reschedule our meet- up soon. Before Egg grows out of cute size 6 sandals.
Best be careful with the word “Diabetes.” Monitoring your blood sugar is easy and monitors are cheap, sometimes free if you know who to ask. I’ve had my own issues with diabetes. And I check twice a day.
Home Birth Huh…
If things get dicey you might need to take drastic measures in the end. My thought, better to be prepared for anything rather than getting caught with your pants down.
Do what is best for the baby and for you. Don’t be a hero because you want a home birth, it may or may not be in the cards. Do what the midwive tells you and if a doctor has to get involved, then listen to him. We don’t need any end term problems.
Stay calm and take care of yourself.
Jeremy
What will happen if you end up NOT able to do the homebirth?
Brad had a vasectomy in December but has not yet done the “follow up,” which involves instructions to, “Evacuate into a cup.” (No shit. That’s the honest-to-goodness brochure language.)
I agree with Swistle on /u//”y.”
I’ll have you know that there’s a VAS Deferens between snipping your husband’s balls and his …okay, I fucked up that one.
What stretch marks, you lying sack of shit? Also, the camera angle, the sweet little smile, the happy bird-pants all make you look like a knocked up teenager. You’re too cute, I just want to eat you up.
I don’t know much about gestational diabetes because I didn’t want to worry about stuff unless I had to. I just drank the delicious melted otter pop and pissed and didn’t have to google anything. So, that’s my extensive knowledge about gestational diabetes.
BUT it does seem, I don’t know, fitting? that one more fucking thing would make your pregnancy harder. At this point it’s kind of ridiculous what you put up with from that asshole body. It does make sense that the fibro would snake its slithery tendrils into yet another facet of your life, it makes it almost like, “Oh, well, it’s that silly fibromyalgia again, we actually don’t have to worry.” And I don’t, and after the results of your short time of watching yourself and not snorting dehydrated sweet tea, I hope you’re not worried either.
But damn if you don’t have all the right in the world to complain. Fucking fuck
So, my friend, who is crazy like you and wanted a home birth, had some hippie doctor come to oversee stuff. I don’t believe she had a midwife, but I’m not entirely sure. (I, of course, went full hospital/drugs/c-section, because all that sounded better to me. I love technology.
Also, I never had any contractions on my own. But my water broke. Anyway) Perhaps you can find a doctor who believes in home birth who is associated with a practice that can monitor your glucose levels? Surely, if my friend could find a hippie doctor in Chicago, they must be teeming about in California?
I hope you can find your way through bureaucratic bs and get the birth you want.
Oh that sounds like a pain in the twat. I am sorry you have to deal with this, but I also know you will make it work. BTW, I totally got confused with all the chick/egg names when you stopped by chic-fil-a, and I thought it was some euphemsism of sorts.
This all sounds like a major pain in the ass. I hope your rheumatologist can give you some answers or referrals that will help and that things can still work out in a manner that works for you. And I’m guessing no more sweet tea for a while?
If you want I could send you the materials from my class with the sample diet plan and guidelines for what to eat when! Just let me know and I’ll type it up!
So sorry to hear this news. So very disappointing, I understand completely having a plan in place and having it smashed by arbitrary medical practices.
In other news – I think you can use “a” instead of “an” with “urologist” because the “u” actually makes a [y] sound, like “unicorn”, not short “u” like “under” (“an underwater camera” vs. “a unicorn”. I believe the rule has an exception on a phonetic basis. JMO.
Wow don’t drink sweet tea before midwife appt lol.
Oh, this seems so disappointing and stressful and upsetting, and I hope everything instead goes the way it was planned! My SIL had gestational diabetes and changed her diet and had a nice normal-to-smallish baby. I feel especially upset that the midwife is backing off so fast.
“An” urologist? Oh no no no. It starts with a vowel but it’s a consonant SOUND (y, not u). An umbrella, a urologist. If it is a rule that it’s “an urologist,” that’s the kind of rule I go right ahead and break.
I failed the one hour test 2/3 pregnancies and barely passed with the third. Then I barely passed the 3 hour test on the failed times. As far as I understand as long as you are able to keep your BS under control with diet alone you should be able to avoid almost all of the complications of GD. Fingers crossed you can do it and convince your midwife to let you continue with your homebirth plans.
and heyyyy he’s keeping his balls!!! just tying the knots….
yay on the new low low glucose scores!!!
and wow….. you need to consent to his snippage?