the sugar

Ok.  So last week I failed my 3 hour glucose test.  I kind of knew this was coming.  My doctor wanted to test me early because of my weight and higher propensity for developing gestational diabetes.  (I did pass the last level, at three hours, but when you miserably fail all the other levels, I guess it doesn't matter so much.)

My doctor wanted me to immediately start testing my glucose FOUR times a day, fasting and two hours postprandial (after each meal).  I started off my weekend of glucose checking by gorging at Olive Garden as a sort of last meal before my execution, A.K.A my complete and total carb-free lifestyle.  I forwent the salad in favor of the bread sticks and ordered a pasta dish (Chicken Scampi, it's absolutely delish).  This is rapidly turning into an advertisement for the Olive Garden.  I was so ready for this carb-tastic blowout, but when my food came I suddenly felt nauseous.  Curse the pregnancy nausea!  I decided to set aside the chicken and vegetables, which I could eat the next day when I would become resigned to my sentence of a bread-less and pasta-less lifestyle.  I slowly and deliberately ate my pasta (every last delicious cream-covered morsel).  At the end of the meal, we ordered tiramisu, of which I ate a scrumptious, creamy, coffee-flavored third.  (Possibly half, but who's counting?)

*Aside*  I just read this last paragraph to Ed and he said, "You might have a problem."

After my last meal, which I devoured every bit as greedily as a shipwreck victim rescued from a desert island after three months of eating coconuts and sea water, (I don't know what they eat), I resigned myself to being good and keeping my diet in check.  My glucose results have so far been fantastic, (except for one night when I ate half a bagel - not ok, apparently).  I told my doctor that I was afraid that she would think I was cheating.  Luckily, she believed me and I don't have to take medication at this point.  She did say that the diabetes could get harder to control later in pregnancy and that diet alone might not suffice.  In the meantime, checking my glucose is a concrete way of monitoring my diet, and my natural competitiveness makes me want to get the lowest score possible.  Like golf.  Except I suck at golf.  Or I would if I'd ever played.

I'm treating this as a good thing, however, because I now have a solid reason to get healthy, for my sake and for the sake of our little navel orange (that's how big baby is now at fifteen weeks).