I had an OB appointment today. It was not a nice sight to walk in and find out there’s standing room only. He was running 45 minutes behind. I haven’t often had to wait that long, so I considered it a blessing that I was going to miss more time off work on a Friday. 🙂
My husband always accompanies me to my OB appointments as I never want to be there alone in case something goes wrong (pregnancy after loss paranoia). I don’t have any issue with spouses or one support person being with you, but I don’t get why some women bring their Moms plus their spouse and all their children. Perhaps that’s just me not having my Mom nearby and not having a close relationship with my MIL? But, I just don’t see the need for it. There was one woman there today who had her Mother watching her two kids in the waiting room. If you need a baby-sitter, get your Mom to watch them at home. What’s the point in taking up extra room in an already busy office? In the end, I’ll excuse it because her child did end up being an entertaining distraction while we waited. /endrant
Everything went well today. I joked with the doctor that I could feel my belly growing the past few days. He laughed and said I’ve definitely gotten bigger since last visit. Baby’s heartbeat was 162 bpm and we FINALLY got our full anatomy scan results. Obviously, everything was ok.
My doula shared an interesting article with me this week: Gestational Diabetes: Don’t Drink the Glucola without reading the label. I asked my OB about alternatives to the drink, but he wasn’t as open as I had hoped. He told me I could choose to not do the test. Since we do have a history of Diabetes on both sides of my family, his recommendation would be that I don’t skip it. I was too hot and had been waiting for too long to get into a debate about it this time.
I went for my glucose screening test following the appointment. The orange drink wasn’t as nasty as I anticipated. I got it down quite easily actually. And it only took 1 poke to draw my blood!
Maybe if we have another child, I can have a midwife and try the jelly bean route instead.
Has anyone had any experience with using an alternate option for your glucose screening test?
Awaiting Autumn 
My midwife did risk factor testing. So if you had no family history or were under 35 I think it was you could forgo the testing entirely. Which I did. I had heard of tons and tons of false positives and at that point my morning sickness was still so bad I didn’t hhink I could keep it down
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Happy to hear that everything seems to be going well. I agree that people shouldn’t clog the waiting room up with a million family members. It’s pretty inconsiderate, really. Hope that next time you go in, you have a bit better experience!
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Glad you’re doing well!! I often think the same thing at the dr office. It seems like everyone has 2-3 people with them. I don’t get it. Anyway, my doc was not very open to other options regarding the glucose screening. She basically said that jelly beans and other sweets have a host of crap in them too, so what’s the difference. ha. I just went along with the glucose test and it was fine. I did feel jittery for an hour or so, but that’s it.
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I didn’t even know there was an alternative to the drink. I thought it was mandatory.
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So glad your appt went well! I have had several friends not do the glucose at all (mainly because they are going to birthing centers)! It’s always interesting to me how some doctors make it mandatory while a midwife doesn’t do it at all!!!
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I also wanted to do an alternative but didn’t! I’m with you on the appointments. I rarely brought anyone (N works nights so he would be asleep during the day) and there were always a TON of people! Luckily my office has a really large waiting room.
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I read that post before having the test, and there’s a lot that’s suspect about it, such as no actual medical citations. What I hate about the way we test for GD is that it’s so very inconvenient. The screening itself takes an hour, and if you fail that, you have to take a 3 hour test. Not to mention that some women end up throwing up the drink and feeling horrible afterwards. That alone should be reason enough for someone to come up with a better test. Because it IS an important test for everyone, not just those with risk factors.
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