"science"

At Monday's midwife appointment I had to take the Glucose Challenge Test. Sounds daunting, but really it's just a pain in the ass. You drink this bottle of orange flavored sugar syrup and an hour later they test your blood to see if your pregnancy has caused you to get diabetes. The thing about this test, though, is that like half of women fail it. And if you fail it, you have to do a 3-hour test, where you sit in the midwife's office for three hours after drinking the goo and they take blood once an hour. Only 15% fail that second test. Which means that really 7.5% of pregnant women have gestational diabetes, but a full 50% fail that first test. So, how is that scientific? Or reasonable? Is this really the best that modern science can do for us?

They said they'd call Tuesday if I failed, but if I heard nothing all's well. So... no news is good news. Hoping my phone doesn't ring today either.

I'm finding more and more, though, that this "science" and "medicine" that we're required to subject ourselves to is a complete sham. I laughed my head off when they pulled out a tape measure to record the length from my pubic bone to where they thought the top of my uterus was. Seriously? What does that tell you? If you ask me, that's a measurement of the combined baby bump plus ice-cream-bump, which isn't really an indication of much outside of Ben's completely lovable "ice cream has protein and calcium! eat up!" attitude. I mean, if it was too big or too small, what would that mean? Nothing, IMO.

Same goes for the ultrasound. Ben and I arrived expecting a quick "there's the fetus!" with some pictures for us to oogle, and that's it. Instead it was a 45 minute marathon of checking each bodily organ to make sure it's there-- and measure it. What does the size of the left kidney really mean? Is it that important? And how would it have changed ANYTHING if it was a little small? (And at the middle of the second trimester, what are the options if something was seriously wrong, since the rightwing wackos have banned late term abortions?)

As this thing progresses, I'm seeing more and more that pregnancy "medicine" is all about fear and liability. We need to KNOW everything. We can't trust for one minute that our bodies know how to do it right, we have to measure it, test it, pee in a cup and make sure it's right. Even my hippie midwife practice has to do it that way, for fear of liability. When really, I should be able to do what I'm doing, hang around for 9 months, find a dark corner in my house, and pop out a baby. None of this prenatal care has really been care- it's all just precautionary tests and coddling fears and a medical community covering their asses and laws that make women have no choice but to have this "care." I mean, nothing involved in these visits has enhanced the viability or health of myself or the fetus, in any way. When did we stop believing that this was natural and something our bodies just... do? When does trying to calm doubts/fears end up just making more of them?

Anyway, Monday night we started our Bradley class, and already it's clear this is going to be useful and awesome. Class 1 of 12 and we were doing stretches that make birthing easier and talking about the roles for partners. In the next 12 classes we'll have nutrition, relaxation for birth, dealing with the unexpected, taking baby home, caring for infants, and even breastfeeding. Nothing takes away fear like knowledge. I'm excited to feel like I have this all under control.

Running this week has sucked, though. Chalk it up to 2 weeks off, chalk it up to a fetus the size of an eggplant (though I actually haven't gained weight in the last 2 weeks)... I'm running more from my calves/hamstrings than usual (maybe due to change in balance?) and that hurts the first half of the run, and then the fetus usually changes positions after a few miles so that it makes me feel like I badly need to find a bathroom for the second half. I'm super slow, too. I really want to keep this up but it's super discouraging.