Visits with Vampires

Yesterday had much more going for it than discovering creepy-crawlies on my living room ceiling. I woke up early after a 12 hour fast to have 3 hours of blood work done.

Oh, that makes it sound so dreadful. The day got off to a really nice start with my walk to the hospital. It's a little over a mile from here, just up The Lake. The air was cool, the sun was shining, and the walk didn't involve any hills and relatively few regulated intersections. I got to the hospital right at 9:00, only to discover that the lab had never received the orders from my doctor. The nice lady at the outpatient center went ahead and got me checked in while they contacted the doctor in Madison and got the orders refaxed. In all, the blood work only got started an hour and a half late. Frankly, that seemed like an eternity to sit around a hospital lobby for someone who (admittedly) eats when bored.

They did eventually get around to starting the blood work. I'm still more than a little proud of how I handled it. I'm the girl who nearly passed out last time she had an immunization. When I had my wisdom teeth out, I had to be sedated to be sedated, just because the sight of the needle made my pulse race like crazy. The first time my OB ordered blood work, the poor lady working in the lab had to focus every bit as much on keeping me upright and awake as she did on drawing the blood. This time around, however, I was a trooper. Really. Four separate draws, four separate times being poked in the arm with a scary needle-like device, four times staring REALLY hard at that, "How to Scrub Your Hands" poster over the lab sink. One of the technicians told me that she could tell it was my first baby because I still flinched every time they stuck me. Apparently, pregnancy involves a lot of needles. (Adoption begins to look promising....) But I stayed awake.

This being a blood glucose test, I had to drink the gross glucola drink, then wait an hour...then another hour...then another hour. In between tests, I just hung out in the lobby and read about cowboys and evil Mormon posses (really).

Last night, we had french toast with plenty of maple syrup for dinner, just out of perversity. It was a last hurrah, of sorts.

So, this morning, my doctor's office called with the results. Gestational diabetes it is. I'm going to have to do some adjusting of my cooking parameters--oh pasta! oh cookies!--but my husband is being completely sweet about it. He says he's been thinking of going low-carb for a while, but didn't want to make me feel like I had to give up my baked goods, too. The doctor has done that for him, now, and we're going to be eating much more thoughtfully and (hopefully) healthily. We'll probably end up looking like we're eating a sort of primal diet, but you CANNOT make either of us say that that's what it we're doing.