Fun With Dextrose

Another month means another round of testing for The Hummingbird and me. Our last visit to the doctor included the standard pee test, weight check, and blood pressure test, but it also included two tests that were new for us. The first was a fantastically low-tech measuring of my belly using a tailor's tape. The other was a blood glucose test, and it involved much more than just relaxing on the table.

On the day of the test, I was lucky to get a morning appointment because I could not eat in the four hours prior. My only breakfast for that day was a ten ounce bottle of liquid given to me by the doctor at our previous appointment. I'm told that I was lucky because I got lemon/lime flavor which is supposed to be one of the easiest to get down. Why was it hard to swallow? Because that little ten ounce bottle contained 50g of dextrose. That's nearly twice the sugar per ounce than a can of Coke.

At a certain point, sweet stops being a nice flavor and becomes incredibly disgusting. I will never forget sitting on the sofa, staring down that mug of fluid, and wondering how I was going to swallow it all in the five minute window allowed by the directions. It tasted like... Hmm, I can't really think of a comparison. Maybe flat 7up that has been boiled to intensify the sweet? The empty stomach didn't help, and I nearly lost it all in the parking lot of the doctor's office.

Exactly one hour after drinking the nasty stuff, I was having my blood drawn. I heard a nurse telling another patient that babies who move after getting the sugar rush are the ones who don't have problems with diabetes. That made me feel much better because The Hummingbird was doing a serious dance the whole time we were in the office. In fact, as they tried to listen to her heartbeat with the Doppler, she kept slipping away from them and hiding on the other side of my belly.

It seems that the nurse was right about sugar and busy babies. We got back our clean bill of health about one week later. No gestational diabetes for the two of us! I'm hugely relieved for all the obvious reasons, and also because it means I don't have to drink any more horrid sugar water. May all our future testing turn out as well as this one.