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hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun

zombie duck v2.0 posted:

starshine, my GP specifically told me NOT to fast and eat a regular breakfast before the 1-hour glucose test. She said that if you fast, you'll get skewed results. They want to see how you tolerate glucose on a regular basis, and if you fast, it'll look like you can't tolerate it as well, as opposed to if you had of ate normally.

Just a note, there is more than one glucose test out there so you have to go by what your doctor told you to do.

As a diabetic, I don't think you can cheat your way into a high blood sugar - people with normal endocrine systems will manufacture enough insulin to take care of a huge ice cream sundae whereas someone with gestational diabetes will get a high reading from a handful of crackers - but it's best to go by whatever instructions the doctor gave you. If the doc forgot, call the lab and ask, they know which test they are giving.

Aagar, thanks for starting that thread. :)

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hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
Listen, if you have any doubt, go into the L&D department and have them checked out. They're used to it and they will take you seriously. Braxton Hicks do feel very hard and tight but they don't tighten up and never go away. I always found that exercise was more likely to bring them on.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
Unasked-for gestational diabetes lecture to follow:

The thing to know about the two glucose tests is that the first is just a screening. Many people have no problem with eating/drinking sugars and carbs while pregnant, and it weeds those people out entirely. They can eat an entire hot fudge sundae before the test and their sugars would register normal. Since the 3-hour test is kind of a pain and probably costs more, they don't want to give it to everyone.

In the 3-hour test they are looking to chart how your blood sugar reacts over time. First, they're getting your fasting blood sugar then seeing how high it spikes, and whether it remains high or comes down. Many women will spike up but it will plummet down with no problem. The real problem is when your blood sugar spikes high and stays high, because it's those sustained high blood sugars that will be enough to affect the baby. That's also why they want a fasting, to make sure you're not getting high sugars in your sleep unawares. But most women will spike up and go right down within an hour = test passed.

If you get diagnosed as "borderline" (IMO as a type 2 diabetic there really isn't any such thing but many OBs are old-fashioned about these things) I highly recommend you look into the GD diet and follow it, at least loosely. They give the test when most women would develop it, but frankly I think for some women if they gave it 3 weeks later they would test positive. It's a function of pregnancy hormones as well as your growing size. If you have diabetics in your family, you might want to follow the diet just to be safe. It's a very healthy diet for any pregnant woman. It boils down to eating smaller meals 5 or 6 times a day, always trying to balance carbs with protein, and avoiding obvious pitfalls like fast food or ice cream binges, and eating lots of high-fiber vegetables and good fats like avocado.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
My great-grandmother kept good genealogy records, and because of her I was able to see that the big baby gene goes back to the 19th century in my family. That's on my mother's side of the family. Great-great-howevermany grandma had 9 pound girls and 10+ pound boys.

My sister and my SIL both had babies over 10 pounds, but then mine were 7 and 9.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun

A word of caution: that dress flows from the side then gathers in the middle so that the shortest part is right in the front. If the dress is long enough that could be fine -- or it could end up really short over a pregnant belly. If you look at your average maternity top or dress what makes it different from just buying a bigger size is that there is more material in the front, dipping down lower. That dress is designed in exactly the opposite way.

You've got months and months to decide on a dress, I'd wait as long as possible to see what your pregnant belly looks like before putting any money down.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
Don't dry swallow anything, your glucose test will be absolutely unaffected by water.

There is more than one initial screening out there; one is fasting and one is non-fasting, so you can only go by what your doctor or lab tells you about whether to fast.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun

Chicken McNobody posted:

It seems that my clinic has you drink a 16-oz Coke or Sprite for your glucose test, instead of the glucose drink most people use. Is this something anyone else had to do? (Not complaining, from what I hear the weird liquid tastes nasty.)


Fast sugar is fast sugar. They're just looking for a measured number of carbohydrates that aren't tainted with anything else like protein, fiber or fat that would slow down how quickly it's broken down.

I wouldn't sweat too much on what to eat beforehand if you were told you can eat. If you have glucose intolerance, it will show up no matter what you eat beforehand. If it's not a factor for you, you could eat an ice cream sundae and it would probably get packed away into fat cells nicely, but it wouldn't raise your blood sugar because your endocrine system works efficiently.

In a perfect world, every pregnant woman would be eating the gestational diabetes diet anyway. It's perfect for pregnancy because it's small meals and snacks 6x a day, which helps with heartburn and all high-fiber foods help with constipation. I didn't have constipation with either of my pregnancies, and heartburn only showed up in the 9th month.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun

Lyz posted:

Actually, I hadn't heard of that. I'll have to give it a shot. I've certainly given up on bras, except as something to hold the hydrogels in place.


Are those the liquidy kind of pads? I got some in the hospital and they felt great, but ultimately figured out they were making the chapping worse because they kept my skin moist all the time. Once I stopped using them the nipple cracking healed up in a couple of days.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
The 1-hour is a screening. There are many women who have no issues with blood sugar control in pregnancy and it rules them out. They could eat three hot fudge sundaes before the test and it wouldn't matter, and they are ruled out by the first test.

Many women fall in a category of finding that pregnancy hormones do interfere with how well their endocrine system works. It might be slight or it might be severe as they get bigger. The three-hour test will find those women whose blood sugar shoots up and STAYS up. If your sugar spikes then goes down quickly, it's a little delayed but it won't end up mattering to the baby. If it goes up and stays up, that's where it becomes a problem.

You just have to follow the directions for your particular doctor/lab. If it's a non-fasting test, they are taking that into account, but it really doesn't make much difference anyway. That's just not how our bodies work. If your pancreas is up to snuff, it is producing insulin based on what you put in, and overloading it just means your pancreas has to kick in more strongly but it accounts for the extra food/glucose (and stores it efficiently in fat cells). The kind of numbers they are looking for just won't show up in someone with no problems processing glucose.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
My husband didn't cry. :mad:

I've had two L&D's, one with no epidural and one with. For me it broke down like this:

Unmedicated: did very well with breathing through early labor (about 10 hours), got to Transition and screamed for drugs, was told it was too late for an epidural, got one dose of a narcotic, then finished with no further meds (the narc wears off in 1 hour). All in all, it was okay. I was back on my feet right away.

Medicated: early labor was much more relaxed, epidural had to be upped a couple of times, everything went really well until he was crowning, then the pain was unbelievable. Way worse than my first birth. This is where I suspect the lack of endorphins comes into play. But since it was my second birth it was pretty fast. Recovery was a little slower, mostly because you can't use your legs well in the first hour or two after, but after that it was the same.

All in all, I'm not sure what I'd do if I had to deliver another baby. I think I would go unmedicated because it was painful but more spread out compared to that awful pain of crowning. But I'm done with babymaking and mostly I'm glad I don't have to make these types of decisions anymore.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
I think relatives and friends just need a moment when hearing an unusual name. Like when you said it in your first post I was thinking, "Vesper?" And by the time I'd read it a few times I really loved the sound of it.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
10 days overdue, wow! Congratulations. Using gas and air isn't common here, so I'm curious - how is her recovery going? It seems like it would be out of your system quickly and you'd be on your feet right away.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
It's not totally off-base to suggest inducing a GD pregnancy. If you have GD and it's not controlled, the last 3 weeks can really affect the size of the baby. GD puts you at higher risk for pre-eclampsia and also placentas in diabetics are known for giving out if you go too far past term. Big babies run the risk of that shoulder dysplacement thing. Without scaring you too much, complications can happen in GD deliveries and that's where the push to induce is coming from; OBs feel like you can avoid some of these problems by getting baby out a little early and out of the problem zone.

I would suggest reading up on it as much as you can especially from sources like the Sansum Clinic or Joslin Center (as opposed to from the OB side of things) and see if that helps you find reading material.

Also, stay motivated about your blood sugars! You're at 32 weeks - it can still change as you get bigger and hormones fluctuate. Your diet and exercise will make the biggest difference. If you do start seeing high numbers on your monitor, get your doctor on the phone and don't be afraid to take insulin. It's only a short time and it might just be what gets you all the way to 40 weeks.

For anyone just diagnosed, find a nutritionist or diabetes educator if you can. Things will be so much easier on you that way. If that's not possible, try searching for "sample meal plan gestational diabetes". Generally breakfast is the hardest meal of the day because it's traditionally carb-heavy and blood sugars are often high in the morning (the "dawn phenomenon") so it's a double whammy.

General guidelines are smaller meals more frequently, lots of non-starchy vegetables, NO JUICE whatsoever, no obvious white carbs (bread, ice cream, white rice). Whole grains + protein + fat are your blood sugar friends. Exercise will help lower your blood sugar even hours afterwards, so if you're not walking or moving around, find something you can do.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
Yes, it doesn't show up until late 2nd trimester. If they test too early, you might test negative and get it later, so that's not good.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun

skeetied posted:


On the topic of GD (sort of), my blood sugar was a 75 after my one hour GTT (and after breakfast right before the GTT). Is it possible for it to be too low (that's about what my normal fasting level is non-pregnant)? I keep forgetting to ask my midwife.

I wouldn't worry unless you're having symptoms (tingling, sweating, confusion). Pregnant women naturally tend to hang out at lower blood sugars, at least that's what they told me -that as a diabetic we were emulating non-diabetic women. The standard for fasting was under 90.

If you do feel low, just sit down and eat. Crashes like you hear about leading to coma are from medication. Your endocrine system won't do that by itself.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
You have time, I'd seriously discuss your aversion to medical procedures with your OB and possibly seek therapy for this specific event, or hypnosis, something. That sounds pretty severe.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
Yeah Mnemosyne, I did read that but I meant specifically about childbirth. I had a longer post but I didn't want to go on excessively about it and increase anyone's anxiety. Nowadays, unless you are having a homebirth, you will probably be in a hospital, and the process of having a baby is long and you're going to be surrounded by multiple nurses and doctors. Again, not trying to make you unnecessarily anxious, but I would compare getting blood drawn on par with walking around the block for exercise whereas giving birth is more like running a 5K in a best-case scenario, and a full marathon if there are any complications.

Maybe a homebirth is right for you, I don't know. In that case, it won't happen unless you arrange it. You might find a birthing center and be seen by midwives instead of an OB. You have time to look into your options, that's what I was trying to point out.

And you'll be fine - after all, it's only one day in the life of you and your baby. The important point is to get through it and onto the childrearing.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
I have this wonderful memory of taking my tiny newborn to the beach and just sitting in a shady spot and watching the ocean while she slept in a sling. It was 30 minutes tops but it did wonders for my peace of mind. (She was born in May in Santa Barbara, sorry that's probably not possible if you're in the northern hemisphere.)

If you want to avoid crowds, drive to a park and bundle up. If you're in a snowy area, stroll around a mall or maybe somewhere like an aquarium.

It gets easier as the baby gets older and can sleep a little longer at a time, just hang in there kitten.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun

Eponymous Bosch posted:

Unrelated to going out of the house with a baby (GET OUT BEFORE YOU KILL YOURSELF OR YOUR KID, SERIOUSLY) but hepscat! Did you deliver in the Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital? I volunteered a bunch in the Mother/Infant Unit there and probably helped you if it was in May! I miss that volunteership so much. Had to move to Philadelphia for school.

I miss Santa Barbara so much too...

I miss it too - that was my first kid all the way back in 2000, so not likely. But talk about a wonderful place to live. The bike path was right behind our house in Goleta and you could ride to the beach without ever going on a street with cars. *sigh*

I had a co-worker who went full germophobe after having her kid and she made her husband strip and hose off in the back yard every day when he came home from work before he could come in the house. That kid did not leave the house for the first three months - and he did get a cold during that time, go figure.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
Your doctor won't let you go to 40 weeks, next week you're at 39 and 1/2 weeks, no sign of labor, induction failed last time - it sounds like you're having a c-section next week.

Your housemate should have requested an extension on the jury service because they let you defer it. If he's already sitting on a jury, it's too late. You need to find a caregiver now or else let your husband stay with your kid at home while you're in the hospital.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
They get you on the strips. If you have a nice specialist they usually have a monitor or two in a cabinet to give out. Ouch.

The numbers you reported are fantastic blood sugar numbers, completely normal numbers. If you do have GD, you are controlling it well. The test is supposed to overload you to see how your system reacts. I think being one point over is pretty dubious, especially with readings consistently under 100. Usually if you fail the first screening they send you to the longer, twice-the-sugar test because a blood sugar spike is not that bad, it's when your sugar goes up and stays up for long periods that it affects the baby.

If I were you, paying out of pocket for strips, I would cut down on testing for now. Take some (not every day) fasting/pre-breakfast readings until your next appointment because that's the most vulnerable time of day, and if you eat out or have a bowl of ice cream or something really off the GD diet, test afterwards. If they give you poo poo about that, remind them how expensive the strips are. If you see your fastings go up, start testing more again. But if you have two weeks of data and haven't hit any problem spots, you're not likely to have a drastic change in two weeks. With readings like that, I can't see the high risk doctor insisting you be diagnosed with GD either.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
Six weeks was a magic number for both of my babies, all the cracks healed and the pain just receded into nothing. It also really helped to hear from my relatives who have similar skin to mine that their severely cracked nipples and breastfeeding pain went away at six weeks. It really went from an 8 or 9 on the pain scale to 0.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
They will want you to track your blood sugars. Usually they ask for fasting first thing in the morning, then 2 hours after meals. It can usually be controlled through diet, namely, smaller meals more frequently, and you are usually given parameters for each meal - how many grams of carbs, how many protein, etc.

Right off the bat, know you should avoid fast sugars such as juice or soda, as well as the obvious things like desserts, but extend that to any "white" carbs like white rice, white bread, white potatoes.

It can get worse as you get farther in your pregnancy so don't be surprised if you eat the same thing 5 days in a row and on the 5th day, it gives you high blood sugar. They may put you on medication if there's any problem keeping your sugars down, but for GD they try to hit it with diet first.

If you walk in with blood sugar readings and what you ate to produce those numbers they will be very happy, so stick away if you've got a monitor and strips. You might swing a new monitor and strips from the nutritionist or diabetes educator.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
Yes, you didn't do anything wrong 1 hour after, not at all - what kind of numbers are you seeing? Also, another thing to consider is this isn't a OMG drop everything and run to the doctor situation, you could eat whatever special meal you might have planned tomorrow and it won't be the end of the world. You can wait until you see your nutritionist/diabetes educator and that's fine. Although I'd avoid the Easter candy.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
This is where you're going to need to go by what your doctor tells you, but to give you an idea, I was told to aim for a fasting of 90 in the morning and under 120 after meals. I'm a diabetic full-time, its possible the guidelines are different for gestational diabetics.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
I also only get heartburn while pregnant, and one thing that helped me was tiny sips of icy cold water. I only mention it because no one has hit on that one. You never know which trick will be the one to give you some relief.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
I don't know what your age is, but if you're like me and had a pregnancy over age 35 versus having them at an earlier age, I also felt like I got a boatload of tests compared to when I was younger. I had to do the urine collection twice (neither time turned out to be anything) and one time when I'd had a rough, stressful day I registered slightly higher blood pressure, 130 over something, and my OB had me check right into L&D. I thought it was overkill myself and all that happened was I got monitored for a few hours while scrambling to find childcare and school pickup for my kid while I was stuck on a fetal monitor. I also have a high-risk complication that we know about, type 2 diabetes, and they wanted me to see a nutritionist WEEKLY throughout my pregnancy. Never mind that I'd done this in previous pregnancies and know how to test blood sugar, etc. The insurance was happy to pay but after a few weeks of showing up, reporting my meals & blood sugars and getting a little pep talk, I stopped coming.

So it's not quite the same jumping to refer but I do wonder if it's because you're not the typical 20-something that they are extra careful.

It does seem excessive though (a neurologist?) and anytime you're told you HAVE to have a c-section it's wise to ask why. I don't know what you can do about it. I have heard of women changing doctors this late in the game.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
If your partner is planning on breastfeeding, does that mean she has to become vegan as well?

I would say keep an open mind. I don't know the ins and outs of veganism but many, many babies have dietary intolerances that you can't get around because of your beliefs. It's not like you feed a newborn a plate of scrambled eggs anyway, so I assume you're talking about when your baby's eating solids?

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
It sounds like you're not talking about the infant stage at all, unless you mean formula. There is soy formula, but lots of babies don't take to it well. If she breastfeeds she can pretty much eat however she wants as long as her supply doesn't tank. Baby will get complete nutrition that way.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
Maybe look for a masseuse who knows pregnancy massage? I know the chain by me (Massage Envy) lists it on their website and it's pretty standard now.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
I think it's because those sleepsacks have only been around for a few years. You used to have to swaddle with receiving blankets, and people who had their kids longer ago than the past decade might not realize there are better options now. Swaddle Mes and sleepsacks are so much easier to use (and work better) that they're more useful than a stack of receiving blankets. When your kid might be an age to actually use a blanket, those receiving blankets are too small and thin.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
If they think there is cause to worry they would send you for an ultrasound right away at the hospital, not next week. I remember having non stress tests where they'd check for low fluid (as well as other monitoring) on a daily basis in the final weeks. If you do have that problem, it's not something that will wait until next week. The test may be non-standard but it doesn't mean that the OB isn't just ordering it to see what size to expect. Give the OB a call in the morning and put yourselves at ease.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
Water has absolutely no effect on blood sugar. That's seriously crappy to deny you water after you've drunk the glucose.

That's interesting they are putting you on a high carb diet before the test. I've never heard of that, but it makes more sense in some ways than the usual way of putting stress on your system by glugging the glucose. I suppose they're seeing if your fasting sugar will be higher this way compared to the 1-hour.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
That would only make sense if you didn't drink it all. You could take the syrup, and throw in 8 oz of water, and it would have the same amount of carbohydrates/sugar either way.

I suppose if you added it to a gallon of water and therefore it took you an hour to drink the liquid, yes that would skew the results. But if you drank your syrup, then 10 minutes later drank water, it wouldn't flush glucose out of your blood stream.

Believe me, if it were that easy to bring down a high blood sugar, diabetics wouldn't put themselves through injecting insulin several times a day.

Edit: I just wanted to add if I sound grumpy it's not at you, it's just that I've encountered this weird misunderstanding of how diabetes works in the medical community more than once. I remember being in an endocrinologists' office once when she got called away to an emergency phone call. When she came back, she was irritated to have been interrupted. Apparently an ER doctor had been on the line wanting to know what to do with a child who had drunk an entire bottle of insulin. Now, a parent panicking is totally understandable (and correct!) but the point of insulin is that it breaks down and does nothing if you swallow it. There is no such thing as an insulin pill. It's harmless if taken by mouth, and no one would bother injecting themselves - especially type 1's who might be injecting different kinds several times a day, or living on a pump - if you could take a pill instead. It's just something you would expect a fellow doctor to know.

hepscat fucked around with this message at 00:32 on Jun 13, 2012

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
You don't generally feel anything with gestational diabetes. The usual symptoms you'll see listed on the internet are insatiable thirst and peeing a lot, but your blood sugars would have to be very high all the time for you to start feeling that. Peeing more, general fatigue, getting sleepy after a meal - who's to say that's not just from being pregnant? I wouldn't ready too much into having a sick day.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
I had some bleeding around that time and it was related to placenta previa - not dangerous but something that did require me to change my activity level and needed monitoring. Definitely get checked out, I'm sure it's fine but no one will think you're crazy for checking, as you said. Light bleeding and spotting is very common and could be for a variety of reasons.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun

Helanna posted:

My husband thinks this is a sign that we should have babies close in age (nothing new really, he's always been of that opinion).

Opinion is one thing, but don't go by some biological imperative. I got my period 4 weeks after postpartum and I can safely say getting pregnant that quickly would have seriously drained my body's resources.

If you want kids close together for the sake of having them close in age, that's one thing. But don't think your body is demanding another baby by getting your menstrual cycle back. By that logic you should have started having babies at age 11 or whenever you got your period.

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
Next time, a good modified squat is with your back to a wall sliding up and down, not the other way around. Not that you need to work on squats at this point. :)

hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
I was about to say, Bamzilla - he looks so much like his sister! Oh.

The nausea sucks, Dandy Shrew. It's normal, but it is miserable and you have my sympathies. Eating small meals/snacks all day and never letting your stomach be empty can help.

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hepscat
Jan 16, 2005

Avenging Nun
Anecdotally the same: I was told it might be hard to see the heartbeat at 7 weeks (then the joke was on me because I was 9 weeks along and didn't know it).

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