Leonie, and those that know about glucose testing in pg!

[StarshitTerrorise]

Here is my unintended emotional vampire thread. Please help if you can

I know, but the birth unit won't have me unless I do.

While I was in the waiting room I heard them telling two other women to get tested, so I think it is their 'thing' ATM.

Sorry Leonie, I didn't understand your last post. This is an area I know NOTHING about.

So I could get a kit and just do it myself then?

You might want to check what the birth unit will accept. I had big babies - and the midwife who did most of the monitoring for the first 2 said I held a lot of water - hence the large measurement to dates.
Hospital wouldn't accept this on DS3 and, even though I had the glucose test with all 3 and 'passed' they wanted to 'treat me as if I had Gestational Diabetes. They even threatened me that If I did not attend the GD clinic and monitor my bloods to ensure that my baby did not get too big - they could not guarantee that there would be anyone on call to help if DS3 came out glucose dependent and went into shock etc
Appointments were every 2 weeks, seeing midwife , then consultant and possibly dietician - so will take up a lot of time.
The guilt factor is, that if the babies do come out and need a sugar rush as they have been getting too much through your blood, you do need to be somewhere that can deal with this.

Thank you Leonie

This is all doing my head in!

I really don't want to risk the baby's health though but it's such a pita and I have less faith in 'professionals' now than I ever have had.

star, the other option to the GTT is to test your blood with a blood glucose monitor, usually over the space of a week. You test 2 hours after each meal and the result has to be within a certain range, with my mat unit, if you had 3 readings within the week that were outside that range then you got a GD DX. I ended up on metformin as I couldn't stay within the range on controlled diet alone. I got my monitor from the hospital but you can buy them over the counter at the chemist. Could you combine that with a phone call to your mat unit do you think? I can always try digging my old one out and seeing if it still works?

The guidelines now are to test 1 hour after a meal. I was diagnosed by using a glucose monitor at home and my reading were high. I had to test first thing in the morning before getting up, before every meal (towards the end as things got bad), and 1 hour after eating a meal (3 times a day for that one). I was also on insulin so it was important to have the right amount of carbs which they told me all about.

It wasn't fun but it did save dd3's life, she had to be induced at 34 weeks as it was (well 33+, born at 34 weeks), she's now 11 weeks old tomorrow and safely home.

Oh. I was asked if I have ever had pcos.

I never have.

Star. You know me, straight to the point.

I worked in a NICU unit. Some full-term babies were treated whose mothers had GD. They were in the unit because:

-They couldn't regulate their temperatures
-They couldn't maintain their own blood sugars
-They had difficult births (as a direct result of their exposure to excess glucose levels in utero)
-They had respiratory distress

Everyone who has posted, on both threads, has been absolutely right.

YOU DO NOT NEED TO COMPLY.

However, you do need to be completely sure that you are happy to accept the risks if you are the woman who has a baby with complications as a result of untreated GD.

It is seriously nasty, untreated and unmanaged, but totally treatable if diagnosed and given the care it should have.

There is a half-way house. You can ask to reschedule Monday to give you a bit more time, or you can ask to have the talk at a more local hospital, see if a midwife will travel.

Bottom Line?

If you don't spend a day with inconvenience, expense, and trouble, to sort out this now, then you could spend a lifetime caring for another child with a disability.

Sorry to sound so harsh. Sorry I can't say 'stuff 'em, they just want to tick a box'. The fact is, that serious GD complications are uncommon, but devestating. We all know what uncommon conditions have done to our children, don't we?

I have pcos, it was the only marker for GD that I had. Every time I went they told me how unusual it was for me to have it, got sick of it in the end!

Thanks Lougle. I'm now planning to get to the bottom of this somehow. At least 'prove' I don't have GD to their satisfaction. Not sure I can do it the fastest or smoothest way but will call the diabetes midwife on Mon morning to cancel an discuss possible alternatives (so will try to figure out some possible ones).

If they can wait just a couple of weeks the childcare thing becomes less problematic. DD will be over her confinement and Ds will be in school full-time. Also, I may have a GP who will agree to do it or a local midwife.

It's just that today, it all got a bit overwhelming as there are so many unknowns etc.

And to top of a crap day, my baby is back to back! Grrrr

I don't think you should leave it a couple of weeks, it really is serious. My last was born back to back, never turned at all.

Starshit
I can only echo what the others have said about reducing the risk of your baby suffering due to undiagnosed GD.
When ds2 was in SCBU there was a baby that was in the next cot with severe & lifethreatening complications due to undiagnosed GD, he could not maintain his blood sugars, was very very poorly suffered renal failure & could not digest food.
I saw him at an outpatients appointment about a yr later he was still tube fed & was likely eh would need a kidney transplant before the age of 5.
Please dont take a chance.

Jesus, Leonie, GD isn't a moral judgement that you should feel 'accused of', need to 'battle' to get them to 'fuck off'. I get very cross when the mother's convenience/ wishes to have things go a certain way are seen to trump the wellbeing of a baby. All that's being requested is a test, to check if there's something that might harm Star and her baby; she doesn't need to prepare for a fight with someone evil who's trying to harm her or pennypinch...

I know with our LA battles that we can get paranoid, but I think that health is a different matter and if we get defensive assuming that 'they' are all the same, we might be risking terrible consequences - really worth it?

Star, good luck. You are dealing with FAR too much right now and I hope it all comes good.