Pregnancy: 27 Weeks ↠ Glucose Test

Wednesday, January 9, 2019

I don't know why I find it so hard to update on my own dang pregnancy but it drives me crazy! I had hoped that I would keep this super organized archive of everything happening so when Baby Lo was born I could look back on it all and my experience. But to be honest in the last 27 weeks I think I've written like 3 pregnancy blog posts.




I've been at least trying to keep up with taking my weekly baby bump photos; though I wish I'd put a little more effort and "show" into them I guess. But baby bump selfies are super hard! Especially when my bump isn't big enough and finding the angle for it to show in a photo is a struggle in itself!
Also weird because on thebump.com the objects were switched: 26 weeks was an Eggplant and 27 weeks was a Cauliflower. I guess the idea is the same though lol!



We had switched hospitals and doctors at the end of last month, our first appointment wouldn't be after New Years. The whole process was a bit stressful, well stressful when you consider the time frames and how much time I had between now and giving birth. But thankfully the new hospital and the new doctor ended up accepting me despite being over 20-something weeks. Whew.

I'll be honest — I heard a lot of awful stories about the Glucose Test.

Everything from how the drink was nasty and some people saying it really wasn't that bad to the blood draw bruising people and just all kinds of other mess! So I was really dreading it.

Well I dread any time I'll have to do a blood test. My mom use to make me take them on a weekly to monthly basis all through high school to "check if I was pregnant" as if a pregnancy test wouldn't had been just as easy?! I don't really know. It was her weird thing. So I did A LOT of blood draws growing up. You'd think that I wouldn't care too much about them after that but no. I ended up HATING them. I hate feeling them rub the alcohol on your skin. I hate when they tie that stupid rubber band around your arm. And I absolutely hate when they stick the needle in. I never know which is worse: when they put the needle in or when they take it out.

I should also mention as small kids me and my brother had to get our blood drawn once and the nurses didn't know wtf they were doing. They "couldn't find our vein" and so they stabbed both arms over and over. I just remember me and my brother sitting there both crying and my mom telling us to be quiet. It was super traumatizing and I've never forgotten it. I was maybe 3 or 4 and I still worry that the nurse won't be able to find my vein even though ever since I turned about 20 I've never had a nurse tell me they couldn't. My veins are pretty dark now that I'm older.

I didn't get to choose my drink flavor.

Also I should preface I hate when they ask about my past pregnancies considering my first first pregnancy about 3 years ago I was in a super abusive relationship and my ex forced me to abort the baby and I feel the need to defend myself every time I'm asked about it. Or I feel like people judge me. Blah. How nice for him to never have to deal with the trauma or consequences and yet I have to live with it the rest of my life. Some guys are truly bullshit.

But anyway, I didn't get to choose my drink flavor. I ended up with the Lemon Lime which really wasn't bad. It did literally taste like a non carbonated Sprite. I wouldn't say it tasted flat, just non carbonated. I don't know how to explain it. But it was actually good! Immediately however Baby Lo started kicking and moving like craaaaazy! By the time I got about half way it started to taste way too sweet. The nurse and Bubba were staring at me, waiting for me to finish so they could start the timer.
After that they took her heartbeat and sent me back out into the waiting room to wait my hour.

The whole time Baby Lo kept moving like crazy. She was suuuper active. And it was starting to make me nauseous and hungry. Her moving around wasn't helping at all either.

When my hour was up they called me back and set me up. The tech asked that I extended my arm. As in, balling up my fist and keeping it under my elbow to stabilize it. Knowing how I'd freak out and drop it I asked Bubba to do it. He covered my line of vision with the folder they gave us and he said I was moving too much but I didn't feel myself moving... not as much as I did compared to the last time when they had to take 10 vials of blood from me.

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This is what it looked like that night; I didn't noticed the bruise until after my shower and right before bed.

I've never bruised from a blood draw in my adult life, as far as I can remember. So it was weird to see I had. I mean I had read that some people did and I worried I would but after going the whole day with nothing I thought I was in the clear. It confused me the shape of it though. And of course it hurt if I had poked at it.




The following days I noticed it got significantly darker! My other pregnant friends had commented theirs didn't do this and I had asked my mom who's a nurse what happened. She assumed maybe they didn't put enough pressure when removing the needle. She told me it's fine and it'll fade.

Now a week later it's still there but significantly fading.

I'm just glad the worst part is over. They also re-tested my anemia levels. My first blood test showed I didn't have it (even though I have it on a normal day and I always have since I was a kid) so we'll see if it's still that way when we go back at the end of the month. My anemia was one thing I worried about when I got pregnant — from what I heard if you do have it you'll be hooked up to a blood transfusion during labor to help you with blood loss. That idea alone is freakin scary.

 I should probably also note that the Glucose drink made Baby Lo super active for about 24 hours. Like she wouldn't settle down or sleep. It took her about 2-3 days to settle down! It was so crazy. What the heck is in that thing?!

Now that I'm 27 weeks I'm officially in the third trimester! How crazy is that?! Some of the symptoms this week is Braxton Hicks (which I've been getting the last 2 nights), leg cramps (which happened a few days ago and I was screaming at Bubba. I hate leg cramps), backaches (I seriously need to see a chiro) and "snissing" sneeze/pissing — I don't pee when I sneeze but I do when I cough. And battling with a cough ALLLLL December you can imagine how fun that was (it wasn't).

Pregnancy is definitely a wild ride and I hope I can keep up with keeping my blogs updated with the progress just so years from now I can look back on all of this ♥.

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