How My Glucose Test is Different Than Your Glucose Test

If you're having a homebirth it's possible that your glucose test IS the same as mine, but it sounds like generally this is not a normal glucose test for gestational diabetes.

So, first and foremost, I passed and I DO NOT have GD.  Woohoo!  Not like I was concerned but pregnancy is so weird, you just never know!

Even though I've been obsessed with homebirth since I was 22 my main fascination lay with the birth itself and not so much with the pregnancy.  Thus it never occurred to me that homebirth midwives would do gestational diabetes tests differently than say an OB.  What I assumed honestly was that they wouldn't have you do a glucose test if you weren't showing signs of GD and that they would send you to the hospital to do a regular glucose test if you WERE showing signs of GD.

Turns out they still like to do the glucose test for everyone, they just do it a little differently.

And obviously one midwife is not the same as another, but this is how my midwives do the glucose test.

They do the glucose test with food.

Your body treats all sugar the same, glucose, fructose, lactose, any kind of "ose" is sugar and your body does the same thing with all of it.

So instead of making me drink a disgusting sugary drink (which I've done by the way, I had the normal glucose test done when getting my PCOS diagnosis) and sit in a Dr.'s office waiting room for 2 hours I got to have pancakes and chat with my midwives while we waited our 2 hours.

The appt went down like this.  The night before I had a normal dinner and then a protein based snack before bedtime (I had tuna and crackers in case you're curious).

Then the midwives showed up at 8:30 this morning, Dom made brekkie while I got my finger pricked and my blood sugar tested on one of those little diabetic machines:

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We all then sat around and had breakfast together, I HAD to have 75g of carbohydrates, which for me came in the form of 2 pancakes with maple syrup, a cup of coffee with milk and sugar and a half glass of orange juice.  And because they don't like you to ONLY eat carbs I also had some eggs for protein.  All of which had to be consumed within half an hour of my initial pinprick.

Then we had my 28 week appt.  

We discussed what supplies I need to get for the birth (OMG we have to start buying supplies for BIRTH!), what pediatricians they recommended in the area and what questions we might want to ask before choosing a pediatrician. They took blood to make sure I'm not anemic.  They did a breast exam, a heart and lung check, belly measurements and the doppler check.  

And after all that we still had about 15 minutes before the 2 hours were up so we chatted a little bit about birth and what Dom's roll is etc etc.

Then I got another pinprick and VOILA!  I find out my results right then and there, no gestational diabetes, glucose is well within the normal range.

And THAT my friends is one of the many differences between homebirth midwives and OBs and why I LOVE the path I have chosen to bring my baby into the world.