Hello, Glucose test.
We meet again.
I confess, I didn’t miss you one bit in our time apart. In fact, I disparaged you to all of my loved ones, and likened your saccharine taste to countless disgusting budget candies you get from your lame neighbors on Halloween. I claimed you were worse than Bottle Caps, and there wasn’t an ounce of irony to the words. (Don’t worry; I did admit you were more palatable than Neco Wafers, though not by much.)
This time around, though, I’m prepared. My new doctor’s office gave me the drink to take home, I guess operating on the assumption that I wouldn’t dump you straight down the sink while cackling madly like a 1950’s cartoon witch. They think I am a Responsible Adult, which is as flattering as it is terrifying.
To be fair, I didn’t dump you down the sink. Instead, I stored you in my fridge, sure that making you colder would make you less offensive to the taste buds, and shot you silent glares every time I reached past you to grab my economy-sized tub of cottage cheese. (Cottage cheese is also gross but still not as gross as you.)
I was wrong about that, though, wasn’t I? When it came time to chug you – they were very clear that it had to be chugging, leisurely sipping just wouldn’t do – I knuckled down and braced myself and poured as much of you into my piehole as I could handle. Just like last time, I gagged. A sugary cloud of fluorescent orange liquid misted over my face, stickying my chin and nose to the delight of my toddler. She loves being sticky despite my disgust; it must have been a real boon for her to have finally dragged me down to her level.
But I persevered. I took a deep breath, knuckled down, and swallowed the rest of you with all of the strength and resilience I’d built up from my years as an undergrad who thought Aristocrat was passable vodka. It wasn’t pretty, and I choked a little bit more as my daughter danced around me gleefully, but I’d done it. The worst was over. I had made the glucose drink my bitch for the second time, and now it was time to go pass that damn test with flying freaking colors.
Unfortunately, what I didn’t count on was the lab being closed for lunch.
That’s right, ladies and dads. There are strict rules around the glucose test, one of which being that your blood must be drawn exactly one hour after your last sip. And here I stood, locked out of the lab, staring forlornly at my own reflection with mouth agape as I watched the digital clock on the wall tick by – one minute late. Two minutes late. Too many minutes late.
I couldn’t take the test. I’d downed that drink for nothing. I had played myself.
So let this be a lesson to all of the heavy-bellied girls out there who think that since it’s your second pregnancy, you can fly by the seat of your pants: I did some pants-seat-flying, and it did not work out for me. No one should have to drink the glucose drink twice in the span of one week, no one except the idiot who didn’t check Google for the laboratory hours.
And for those women who are as on the ball with Baby #2 and they were with the first: how do you do it?! Please reach out to me because I am clearly suffering. I don’t even know what vegetable my baby is this week.
Save yourself. Be organized. Your palate will thank you.
Our next recos: Gestational Diabetes: My View From the Trenches
I failed the one hour…and then spent the 3 hour doing everything I could not to throw up (I had horrid heartburn during my 3rd trimester)…because then I’d have to do it again….and doing it on an empty stomach was the worst. The only thing was it was better than the contrast stuff they had me drink before a CT scan -that was absolutely the worst…
I’m assuming, because of covid, you were able to drink the overly sugared orange soda tasting glucose drink at home? Or have the rules changed? Or maybe it depends on the provider. When I did mine, it was in the doctors office and I was watched like a hawk to make sure that I not only drank it, but that I guzzled it. And then had to sit in the office for one hour until it was time to do the blood work.
It depends on the provider. I had to drink mine under the watchful eye of a nurse who gave me the impression that some women try to cheat the system. I have no idea why. It’s kinda gross but not “I don’t want to find out I have gestational diabetes” gross.
I’m on pregnancy #4 and I’ve opted out of the glucose test every single time!
The only thing worse than taking it twice is taking it FOUR TIMES. If you’ve been diagnosed with GD in one pregnancy, they make you take it early with your next pregnancy. If you pass the early screen (around 16-18 weeks), you take it again at the normal time. If you don’t pass that, you take the 3-hr. If you get diagnosed with GD, they make you take it AGAIN at 6-8 weeks postpartum. Sooo much gross sticky orange liquid!
Nothing but sympathy here – I failed the 1-hour glucose test so I had to go back for the 2 hour one. They said I’d have the results in 2-4 days, but the 2 days landed on a weekend, so I waited until Monday to call – turns out the lab LOST MY SAMPLES. They gave me 2 choices – I could go back and do it again or I could monitor my blood sugar levels 4 times a day at home for 2 weeks. I was so mad. At least everyone was extra nice to me the second time around since they felt so bad about losing my samples.
I think I would have flipped a table.
Not that it will make you feel better… my 2nd pregnancy I HAD to take the test twice. The first time I took it I got light headed, dizzy, nauseous within 5 minutes of drinking the orangeish chug of hell, and spent the rest of the time in a bed, and they had me get someone to escort me home….. all for the test to come back borderline. So I had to do it again, with the two separate blood draws on top of that garbage. They recognized me at the lab from the first time, and had me drink the drink of hell and immediately got my tubby arse into a testing bed. …. At least that time the test came back negative. ….. My 3rd and final pregnancy, not so much luck. 1 test, 1 bad result, gestational diabetes. 😛
I simply asked for a diabetes testing kit instead and kept track of blood draws very closely for 2 weeks. If your sugars are normal, they usually will let you off the hook.
Oh no!!! That’s horrible. It’s so gross that this time I told my doctor I wanted alternatives. Did you know you can eat two snickers bars instead? Talk to your doc ladies, you don’t have to go through this.
There’s a “Simply Pure” version i found much more palatable. My doc and midwife had no idea it existed. Same maker.
Good to know. Thanks!
I sympathize entirely. I did the 1-hour (which I barely failed) and 3-hour (which I passed) glucose test at the end of my first trimester because of a family history of diabetes. Which is fine. I get it. It’s important to screen for GD.
Then I had to do the 1-hour again in the 2nd trimester, as usually scheduled. Ugh, fine. Then I had to do the 3-hour again because I sliiiiiiiightly failed. This sucks, but FINE. Better safe than sorry.
BUT THEN, I had to do the 3-hour test AGAIN three days later because the weekend lab messed up my results, invalidating them!
I thankfully do not have GD but drinking that orange crap 5 times has been torture.
Am I the only one who liked the drink? Just tasted like thick Gatorade to me…
Yes! I thought it was tasty!
I did! I thought I was the only one…
Worse still is having GD, thus having to take the 2 hour test 6 weeks after delivery, failing one of the draws from that test and being informed that just to be safe you will have to take the dreadful thing again in 4 months…4 times for 1 pregnancy is just evil…
Drink orange juice instead for your glucose test.
Amen. You are my spirit animal. I brought a straw for the test for my third pregnancy. The straw should come with the chilled drink. Then you can just bypass your tongue.
Truth: the secret with the second and third child is- no one has it. No One has it down or their crap together or any idea what it a bundle of joy is. People with more than one, have just accepted that they are as naive as Jon Snow and go more with the seat of their pants. Of course the lab is closed, good thing there is a Target near by and perhaps an ice cream store if you are lucky. Carb it up dude, the test isn’t happening and you are likely about to vomit from all that sugar- and oh yea, you will need to pee soon. You start packing snacks because you never know what you will forget next or where you will be going. Macaroni and Cheese from a box is suddenly a legitimate dinner option for the entire family on the day you forget the bag with all the meats packed in it- in the cart at the store. Perhaps it was the day where you get all the way thru the checkout and realize you do not have your wallet and go home in a hormonal rage. Hang in there, we are all with you and have no idea what day it is.