Some people would say that I am TOO in tune with my body.  I would say it’s because I’m always stressing about something that my body might be going through and I’ve learned to trust my instincts because I’m usually right.  I know what kinds of food affect my body in what ways, how my digestive track works, how long it takes for me to process certain foods, and so on.  I attribute a lot of this to my poop obsession (and before you click away this is not yet ANOTHER post on poop and my body).

So when I started feeling off a few weeks ago I assumed that Gestational Diabetes was the culprit.

I have never been so happy to be wrong about something in my life.

That’s right folks I DO NOT HAVE GESTATIONAL DIABETES!!!  (I will spare you the amount of exclamation points I really wanted to put on that sentence).

I had an appointment with my mid-wife on Wednesday, and after talking over the frustrations I was having with tracking my glucose and having it be all over the place we collectively decided that I should just take the 3 hour glucose test they make you take to actually diagnose you with GD.

Have you ever done the 3 hour test?  If not, let me give you a quick run-down.  You try to get to the hospital as early as possible because they need to start the test with a fasting glucose reading which means you can’t eat anything prior.  Then you drink the NASTIEST tasting drink in. the. world.  I really thought I was going to puke a little.  After that, you find something to do for an hour (with a toddler in tow, super fun), and go back to get your second poke.  On the third poke (one hour after the second poke) they take it out of your hand (if you’re me) because they are afraid that your ONE good vein might collapse (that, and they’ve already drawn from it twice).  The hand one hurts like b**** because it is the one part of your body that isn’t fleshy.  On the last poke (one more hour after the third poke) they try to take blood from the side of your arm because apparently they have used up all of your other useful veins, realize after six pokes and wiggling the needles around in my vein that the blood ain’t giving.  Go back to said first vein for the third time, and boom goes the dynamite.

Let me just say that all of the lab technicians were fabulous, and the poor guy that had to draw from me twice felt so bad about having to poke me so many times, he was really nice and kind of stressed out about it.  I assured him that I was a tough cookie and could handle it.

After each reading I made the technicians tell me what my last reading was and all but my fasting was in the normal range.  Just in case you’re wondering what those numbers are:

Fasting: 70-95  (mine was 98 a titch elevated)
1st Hour: 70-180 (mine was 164)
2nd Hour: 70-155 (mine was 148)
3rd Hour: 70-130 (mine was 78)

I couldn’t believe that my last number was so low, and it totally explained why I was shaking when I went to go have lunch.  I guess not eating until 2 in the afternoon will do that to you.

What all this means

I have most definitely reached a goal.  When I got GD with my first pregnancy it was frustrating and hard to deal with.  I knew that it had everything to do with my lifestyle and the fact that I hadn’t been taking care of my body.  I didn’t want to bring another child into this world being the person I was over 2 years ago.

I am most definitely not even close to where I want to be weight and health wise, and after losing a little more than 30 pounds I was doubting that this pregnancy would be easier than the first.  It has its challenges, but by finding out this one diagnoses helps to motivate me and know that every little bit counts.  It has also helped me to not get down on myself for my previous efforts.

When I got pregnant so quickly one of the first thoughts that came in my head was that I didn’t do enough and that I hadn’t prepared myself like I had thought I would by this point in life (sorry for the run-on sentence).  I think I just have to accept the fact that my journey may take longer than I’d like.  I’m not going to drop 100 pounds in a year and it could take me a few years to get where I want to be.  But the upside is that I am making strides and this was a huge one for me.

Not gonna lie, this has been a pretty great day.