Top of the Class

I had nine vials of blood taken yesterday. Nine! Those of you who are or have been pregnant won't find that particularly surprising, but yowsa!, I sure did. In fact, there they are on the left, all nine of them. Yes, I actually took a time-out from holding the cotton on the spot where the needle had been so that I could take out my phone and snap a picture when the technician was out of the room. One more vial this morning, for fasting blood glucose. I hadn't realized when I showed up yesterday morning that I needed to have been fasting, and so I did all the tests that didn't require it, and then fasted last night until this morning. Which seemed kind of endless, because I woke up at 5am, a torrential, soporifically musical rain falling just outside the open window, and was wide awake. Eventually got back to sleep for a few more hours, but it took some doing. I know first-trimester pregstresses are supposed to be tired all the time, but in my case, I think it's mostly because I can't stay asleep long. What's that about? Mind racing? Mentally naming my peanut? Whatever it is, it's downright silly, as far as I'm concerned.

One of yesterday's nine vials was yet another beta-hCG test. It was done on Monday, just after noon, two days after my Saturday-morning test, and so its being two days later meant that the Saturday level should have been on its way to doubling. My hopes were high, and I decided to temper them by dividing the measurement by 100 and thinking of this time around as being like the French grading system, which gives scores out of 20. Unlike the A-B-C system in the US, no one actually gets a 20 in France. 15 and up are highly respectable grades, but I was aiming for excellence this time around, and thought I could reasonably hope for a 17 (1700 mIU/ml) after Saturday's 998 mIU/ml. Sure, a 20 (2000 mIU/ml) would mean a full doubling of the level in two days, but like I said, no one gets a 20. I called at 5pm, as instructed, but they said the results weren't quite ready yet, and that I should call back at 6:30. Uh-oh, was there a problem? I had drinks (juice!) with friends in the interim, which provided a nice distraction, and then excused myself to make the call. The result? 2200 mIU/ml! Go team! Good work, sweet pea (the What to Expect iPhone app says that the little one is sweet-pea-sized this week)!

Speaking of juice with friends, wow! That was challenging. Going to school with early 20-somethings means that people notice when you don't order alcohol. One of them actually accused me of being pregnant, noting that I wasn't drinking and had taken a nap earlier, and had told her many months before that we were thinking of thinking of having kids. I think I played it off convincingly enough; it turns out that she's a little preoccupied with pregnancy at the moment, feeling rather ready to get start with the babies herself. But sheesh! Tough crowd.