Most of my pregnancy books and websites advise that you “walk through” sciatic pain and strongly advise that exercise, specifically walking, actually helps diminish the pain.

They are full of shit.

What starts out as intense, localized pain in my left bum cheek quickly turns into intense, shooting pain down my entire left hip and leg after about two minutes of walking.

I left campus today and walked home (usually a 15-minute walk) because exercise is good for blood sugars and supposedly good for sciatica. 10 minutes in and I was limping; by the time I got home, I could barely walk.

You know what works for my sciatica? Laying in bed on a heating pad and reading Glamour magazine.

I doubt many parents want to hear that their child is “unremarkable,” but when we heard that he-beastie’s spine (he decided to cooperate this third time) was “unremarkable,” Mr. MC and I both breathed a sigh of relief. “Unremarkable” because there is nothing abnormal to remark about; “unremarkable” because it looks just fine.

I also found out that my sugars — both the fasting blood sugar and the 2PP sugar — are also “unremarkable” as they were both well within the normal range. My hemoglobin test (the one that indicated how long blood sugars have been high) came back on the low end of normal, which is very, very good news. The low-carbohydrate diet is working, and I will stay on it for the duration of the pregnancy. I do not  now officially have gestational diabetes, but I just need to be very careful about what I eat.

Here’s to being totally and completely normal!!

I called Wednesday morning before I headed to the lab to confirm that I did not indeed need an appointment for my 3GTT. It turns out you do need an appointment for a 3GTT, but I was not scheduled for a 3GTT, I was scheduled for a 2-hour PP test. “A what? A PP test?” It is not a urine test; instead it stands for two-hour post prandial glucose test, which in my opion, is just about the mostest awesomest medical test ever.

I went in and had my blood drawn for my fasting glucose test, and then, IN ORDER TO COMPLY WITH THE NEXT PHASE, I was told to go and eat a large, sugary breakfast. I was atually told by a medical professional to go to IHOP and eat pancakes, orange juice, eggs, hashbrowns, etc…. For someone who has been eating almost no refined carbohydrates for a week, this was music to my ears. (I actually had to ask her to repeat herself, to make sure I wasn’t imagining things!). When I ate my last bite, I wrote the time down and showed up back at the lab to have my blood drawn exactly two hours later.

Pancakes! With Syrup! and Orange Juice! Oh My!

I don’t know the results yet, but if I can eat one of these breakfasts every few weeks in order to comply with medical diagnostic needs, I promise I will not complain about eating no refined carbohydrates in between.