A Roller Coaster of a Week

I'll start by saying everything is going great...now. I would not have said the same thing yesterday. Last week Thursday at our appointment, I was given a glucose test for Gestational Diabetes. On Friday, the nurse left a message saying she had our lab results. We told them that they only needed to contact us if there was a problems, so we were quite concerned. Unfortunately, she called right before the office closed on Friday so we couldn't call until Monday morning. Monday morning, I called and found out that I had failed the glucose test and would need to go back for a three hour long glucose test. I set it up for the following day. I was pretty upset with this news. After talking to people, I started to get my hopes up that I would pass the 3 hour test.

Tuesday, I headed to the clinic and had blood pulled four times with an hour break in between each blood test. I also had to drink more of the sugar water, but this time it was even stronger. I went back to school after it was finished and received a call from my nurse. She said that unfortunately she had bad news and I had failed two of the four blood tests which was enough to diagnose me with gestational diabetes. This meant I would need to meet with a nutritionist to go on a diabetes diet and a diabetic specialist to learn how to test my glucose levels. I felt like I had reached my breaking point. I felt angry and upset. I was angry at myself because I thought that I had done something wrong. I was frustrated because I thought I led a pretty healthy lifestyle. (Although later I found out that often women with no risk factors get it because of the change in hormones in the body.) I was pretty much a mess on Monday and Tuesday.

Eric was being very supportive and went along with me to see the diabetes specialist on Thursday (today). The specialist told us that we might be wondering why this was happening because I only had one risk factor which is that I am over 25. She explained how sometimes it just happens to women who are pregnant. Then, she said that she would go over my numbers from the blood tests. She pulled up the scores and seemed confused. She wrote down the numbers and checked a bunch of different screens. She showed us the numbers and said that the only test I failed was the third test. I was supposed to be below a 155 and I had a score of 155. She said that these results were not significant enough to be concerned about. She didn't understand, so she called our clinic and talked to our nurse and doctor. It turns out that our clinic made a mistake with my results. They apologized and said that I could go home and would not need to see the nutritionist. Once I got home, the nurse called again to talk to me and once again apologize. At this point, Eric and I were just relieved.

I feel so much better, but I also feel lucky that I have such a great support system around me. Eric has been able to stay very calm which helps me to stay a little more calm. Although, I do admit that I am quite emotional these days. I also am thankful for the rest of my family, friends, and co-workers who listened to all of my concerns and frustrations this week.