I hate needles. Hate is even putting it nicely. I’ve even refused Novocaine for minor things at the dentist for the sake of avoiding watching that needle get near my mouth. When I see people getting needles in person, I cringe and refuse to look and often get a look of passing out. I’m not ashamed… ok maybe a little ashamed to admit that I even get queasy seeing needles on TV. I suppose there are upsides to this, like being an IV drug user is completely out of the question and cheaper medical visits. I would rather pain and misery of not getting one than go through the 2 seconds it takes to have the needle go into any part of my body I can see. I got away with the tattoo merely because I couldn’t see it getting done, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

So a month or 2 ago when I went to do my 1 hour glucose screening, or otherwise known as “one more thing to make a pregnant person feel uncomfortable”, I was concerned with getting in and drinking that miserable stuff that is responsible for me never eating orange popsicles or drinking orange soda and getting my needle and being done with it. My doctor’s office is fantastic, and when test results get posted, I get it in my email and I don’t have to worry about a thing. Results came back and I hit 2 points over the max. I freaked out until it was pointed out that if there was a problem that someone would’ve called. Sure enough, no one called and nothing was mentioned of it after a few visits with my midwife. That was until last week when she realized that she sent lab orders for the 3 hour test and forgot to tell me.

My first thought jumped to “but I did everything right. I did everything wrong the first time and I was fine.. but this time I did everything right.” You can’t help but to stop and analyze every little thing you did or didn’t do or didn’t do enough. “Oh it was that glass of soda I had because I just really wanted it and figured it was ok since I haven’t really had soda.” Then you look at those meticulously picked out 5 potato chips next to your egg salad sandwich and think that you messed this up. Hopefully I’m not the only neurotic person who did this, but by looks of forums I’m not. I vowed to walk more, drink nothing but water and stick to egg whites and dried toast. Then I thought of my beloved fruit salad, and how much sugars were really in that. I went crazy, I really did.

Per my normal self though, I sucked it up and resolved that Saturday I would get it done. When it came down to fasting, I ate my last helpings of diet popcorn and started my fast 12 hours before like I was told. An hour later I realized that this 3 hour test was now “the most miserable test you can make a pregnant person go through.” Soon after I slowly realized that in support of my fasting, my husband had decided to fast too. I didn’t say anything and smiled to myself going to bed. The next morning at 8 a.m., he was up and ready to go with me. First of all, my husband being up before 11 a.m. is a miracle so this was historic. Then, he sat down in the office with me for 3 hours encouraging me that time was only up. I drank my nasty orange syrup and closed my eyes while they stabbed me with their needles. My arms bruised, like usual, but at least they matched. And I waited.

I wasn’t a patient waiter. I logged onto the website every hour to see if the results came back that day. My husband was just as happy as I was to not be fasting anymore and spent the day catching up on our eating. It felt good. Finally the results came back and I was cleared as being completely perfect. Apparently most people flunk the hour one, and have to do the 3 hours. I found it a waste of time, but you can’t be too careful when you’re responsible for another life. I would’ve rather taken the test and passed than not and have complications with my child. Unfortunately that means I just have a fat baby or the due date is wrong, which I hope is the latter. Don’t sweat these tests, they’re there for a reason.