Third Trimester Ughs & Complaints

Aside from the usual laundry list of aches, pains, insomnia and countless potty visits of pregnancy, lately I've been feeling nauseous again and completely exhausted (even more so than usual third trimester energy drain), and a visit to the OB today to discuss my latest round of bloodwork shed some light on the situation.

I miserably failed my 1-hour glucose tolerance test, and judging by how (almost impressively) badly I failed the test, she said that she'd be incredibly surprised if I pass the 3-hour/4-blood-draw test that I'm taking next Monday. So, it looks like gestational diabetes may be the cause of my queasy stomach lately. I was borderline diabetic when I was pregnant with Sutton, so it isn't a complete shock, but something I was hoping to avoid nonetheless. I guess I'll have to wait until the new bloodwork results come back to see just how bad it is - I'm praying that it isn't bad enough to need insulin and will be able to be controlled with diet alone. Either way, I will likely need to do 4x daily finger pricks to monitor my blood sugar levels, and I'm not looking forward to that at all - y'all know how much I love needles :(

Along with that great news, she also told me that I am still severely anemic despite the fact that I've been taking iron supplements for several months now. My hemoglobin count was only between a 7-8 (normal is between 12-16). She tripled my iron dosage (which ought to feel wonderful on my unsettled stomach), so hopefully once I get that into my system it will help erradicate some of this extra fatigue I've been fighting. I hate feeling like I'm completely out of control of my body, and I can't wait for all of this to be over. The only upside to all of this is that the doctors will be even more closely monitoring the baby's size (GD babies can get really big), so there's a chance that I might get to be induced before September 21st if he gets too big and his lungs are mature enough to induce. I wouldn't turn down the opportunity to be un-pregnant sooner rather than later.

I guess this post should serve as a great big warning and pre-apology in case I seem to be acting cranky, mean, irritable or miserable over the next few weeks - I'm really not feeling myself these days.