Breakdowns come and breakdowns go.

... what are you gonna do about it? That's what I'd like to know.


We'll rewind the tape a bit to Monday, when I took the glucose tolerance screen. For posterity (and out of fear that my memory will disappear when I give birth), I'll fill you in on the details. They had me do a screen early because of my BMI (which is not really a good way at all to measure overall health, but I digress). So, after picking Jonathan up from work because he's an amazing husband and is willing to check out of work early to accompany me to these appointments, I started sipping my orange juice and I immediately said, "Why do people complain about doing this? It's just like gatorade!"

Fast forward three and half minutes to when Jonathan reminds me that I have one and a half minutes remaining to finish the bottle and my little sips have left me with much more than half of the juice to down. Commence the chugging. Commence the throat-burning sugar overload. I did finish it in the required five minutes, but man. Not fun. It also gave me an orange tongue that I couldn't wash away with water, per my strict instructions not to eat or drink following the icky juice.


So on we went with the long and winding drive to Chapel Hill. I had my blood drawn exactly one hour after I finished the juice, and we met with Leanne, the first of six midwives I've actually met at the center. I'd been working with a really awesome woman who is a NP there, not one of the midwives who catch the babies and such. (They don't deliver them there - I deliver. They catch. I like that).

Okay, statistics... I gained three pounds in the past five weeks, making my net weight gain since the beginning of the pregnancy still -4, since I lost 7 in the first 12 weeks or so. I was really worried that there wasn't actually a baby growing in there after all, since I kinda hoped for a little round budda belly and all I have is a slightly puffy version of my normal belly, but I was completely relieved when I laid down and Leanne immediately said that my uterus was "just right there" as she felt around my abdomen. She tried to get me to feel it but I can't distinguish organs in my abdominal cavity at all. I've always wondered how medical professionals do it. Not my strength for sure, but I trusted that she was right and she was feeling my growing uterus. Then came the best part, the doppler, when we got to hear the little apple's heartbeat. It was 160 or so. Last time the baby was way over on my right side, but this time it was being sneaky and trying to hide from the doppler, all curled up (or so I imagine) on my left side.

Hearing that heartbeat is the best sound ever. I might make them let me hear it again when I have to go back for the long glucose test next week.

We scheduled an ultrasound at UNC for Friday, October 23rd, when I'll be at 18 weeks.

And as you know, oh faithful reader, my something (insulin?) levels were high on the glucose screen so I get to go back for a long test on Tuesday. I had a little bit of a breakdown about it last night when I got home after a long day and just crumpled in Jonathan's arms (Jonathan who was all dressed up to take me out to dinner for our anniversary - I called a rain check for this weekend). But after some research I found out that there's a really high false-positive rate on the screening test, so about 60% of people who go on to the long test don't have gestational diabetes after all. I hope that's true for me, but if it's not at least I know I have some amazing support from friends and family. I just need to work on not constantly blaming myself for everything that happens in my body. I've been doing my best, eating what I can when I can, trying to get rest and take care of myself and baby, and that's the best I can do.

And a special shout-out to Paul Simon's Graceland for getting me through today with a smile on my face. It's one of the best albums ever.