It was a lovely and smooth road.

I was a pregnant woman’s envy.

My bump? Discreet and petite and cute, even. Not too big. Not depressingly small.

Stretchmarks? Not yet.

Belly button? Still an innie.

Morning sickness? I could count the episodes in ONE HAND. I only threw up once for real. It was nervousness-related.

Ankle-swelling? Only twice, but climate-change induced. Oooogh. What awful cankles you have, grandmother!

Weight gain? A decent 19 lbs. so far. Not piggish.

Embarrassing self-peeing episodes? Nope. Only minor leakage when I haven’t peed for a while (see how honest I am?).

Constipation? You could set a clock by my bowels.

Mood swings? A few, but they aren’t too too awful.

Braxton-Hicks? I’ve had two. One was grocery-related (attempting to haul all the shopping in two heavily-laden trips up the stairs during a hot day was not wise), and one driving-related (I got so paranoid, that belly balled up quicker than you can say COP!)

Times where my husband has stared at me in utter despair, wondering why he married an evil Gorgon? About three. The last one was when I dropped the creamer on my foot, spilled the pineapple juice all over the couunter and crouched onto the floor sobbing messily while declaring myself clumsy, ugly, fat, and incompetent– all in under five seconds flat.
Poor guy.

Now is the moment where, after slinking sexily toward the pool like the guy in the Lipitor commercial, I belly flop.

It seems I’ve failed my glucose screening test.
__________

Yesterday morning, the day after yet another reassuring and satisfying appointment –and this time with a very sweet, caring doctor who didn’t want to kick me out the door after five minutes of perfunctory examination– I went back to the Pink Monstrosity on the Hill, to be dutiful and get my glucose screening test out of the way after dropping the Darling Monsieur off at work.

Now here’s the sticky wicket: I was not anywhere near fasting. I’d eaten less than two hours before, and perhaps the sugariest breakfast known to man: orange juice, granola with bananas (this shit is BANANAS), and uh…. coffee. Okay. Seriously. That’s a lot of sugar.

And then the glucola came. It was surprisingly yummy too, and I downed it easily. I got a buzz alright, but I didn’t feel nauseated or faint.

There was another girl there who’d failed hers miserably and was doing the three-hour tolerance. Some small talk was exchanged. I thought upon her with my habitual hubris, specifically,

“Hah! SHE failed it, but *I* won’t be back for that boring test. *I*, pregnant woman with the GOOD pregnancy; *I* who can handle sugar like mother’s milk (and don’t tell me how mother’s milk IS MOSTLY SUGAR); *I* who am *AWESOME*…. *I* shan’t fail.”

(I hate it when my inner megalomania runs away with me, you know? It’s so unbecoming for someone who usually has an inferiority complex to begin with….)

One hour was up. Poked, prodded. Told that no news is good news, so that if docky didn’t call, I was home free.

Back home, I couldn’t resist. I couldn’t wait.

I called. Well, to be exact, I spent a quality 10 minutes going through the lovely hospital switchboard (“no, I’m sorry… you have to call this number— BRRRRAAAAP!– click”, “what? no…. I’m sorry, you need this department —BRRRAAAAAP!– click”) until I was able to leave the doctor a message.

And then I was given a return call to tell me that the message was en route to the doctor, but to remember that ” no news is good news.”

And then, at around 4 pm……. *ring.*
__________

Doctor tells me I’m “borderline” because my blood glucose level was 135 mg/dl.
She jokes. “If you’d been at 134 mg/dl, I wouldn’t have even called you!”

But you did, I think.

And that means, three hours of being someone else’s pity and hubris target.

“Oh, and you’re borderline anemic. I will prescribe iron pills. You don’t have to take them every day, so you don’t get constipated.”

Ah…… insult to injury.

Anemic. The meat-eater extraordinaire….. anemic.
The irony of this still makes me smile a little.

So there you have it. Oedipus had his blind Teiresias.

I will always have my mom.

17 Sep This entry was published on September 17, 2005 at 1:40 pm and is filed under The X-pectant Files. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.