I got a call at 8am this morning with the news that I’d failed my 3 hour glucose tolerance test. I was then given the number to a diabetes center to call and schedule an appointment. That appointment is now set for Wednesday afternoon.

I wonder how long it will be until they put me on insulin. :/

A couple of weeks ago I had my first regular prenatal check up. The usual stats were checked, the baby’s heartbeat was listened to, I was given some pamphlets about different topics, and I left behind a decent amount of blood. I asked when I would get the results of the bloodwork (though I was only concerned about the glucose tolerance test) and was told by the end of the week. The following Wednesday I hadn’t heard anything so I called the clinic. A nurse called me back and promptly scolded me by saying, “we don’t call unless there’s a problem, so No News Is Good News.” I explained that I’d been told I’d hear something, and she just repeated her No News Is Good News line.

About 20-30 minutes later, I got another call. It was the same nurse. This time she told me that there had been a “lab accident” so I needed to come in to redo the 1 hour glucose tolerance test. All the other tests were ok. So, when she’d called me earlier to bitch at me, she hadn’t actually checked my results yet? And why did it take over a week from the initial test for anyone to check my results?

I went in the next day and did the damn test over again, choking down the nasty Fruit Punch glucose drink. It doesn’t really taste bad, but something about the Fruit Punch flavor makes the back of my tongue start feeling weird and I have to force myself to swallow it.

Monday the nurse called while I was out. Dale called me and gave me her number. I got her voicemail, but since my destination went past the clinic, I stopped by in person. Unsurprisingly, my glucose levels were elevated so I needed to do the 3 hour fasting test.

Dale and I planned for me to go in early this morning. I didn’t wake up until 9:30, then I took my time getting out of the house, so I didn’t get to the clinic until 10:30, already 11 hours since I’d last eaten or drunk anything. Renata, the awesome phlebotomist at the clinic, drew my fasting blood then gave me a choice of glucose flavors. I was debating between the orange and the “cola” when she cracked open the cola flavor and said she’d let me taste it to see what I thought. It was like semi-flat RC Cola with extra sugar but didn’t make my tongue try to hide in my throat, so I just drank that. Afterwards, Renata gave me a big cup of water and told me to take my time drinking it.

I thought I’d paced myself fine with the water, but about 45 minutes after the testing had begun, I was feeling really sick. I asked the receptionist if I could have a piece of sugarless gum and she asked the nurses. They said I couldn’t. I was about to go for a little walk outside for some fresh air when Renata came out and got me. She put me in a small cool room with a big comfy recliner. I wasn’t any less nauseous, but I was more comfortable while fighting to keep from throwing up.

I got to stay in that room until all the testing was done, leaving only for the blood draws and a few potty breaks. Once the water started passing out of my system, my nausea eased. By the time I left the clinic, I was only hungry. Not surprising since it had been 14 hours since I’d last had food (which I’d thrown up right before bed).

Nurse No News Is Good News used her favorite line on me at least twice while I was at the clinic. Just before I left I asked when I’d hear any not good news. In a couple of days I’ll probably be informed that I’m a gestational diabetic again.

It’s been little more than half a month since the total destruction of Klaatu in Animal Crossing: Wild World. Since then we’ve all worked hard to fill PinkCity’s museum with dinosaur bones and insects. I’ve been time traveling to speed up the growing of our fruit trees for maximum Bells. I’d spent a couple of hours just this afternoon doing a massive fruit harvest to pay off the third or fourth house expansion so we could finally get the second room. Since I’d monopolized the DS for so long, I made the payment then logged off my character so Livi could play.

Ten minutes later, she brought me the DS because she was having some problems. She was trying to do Tag Mode. I exited that and saw that the top option on the main menu was New Game. Not Continue. New Game. Like the last time, I quickly turned off the DS, then turned it back on. Like last time, it didn’t help.

PinkCity is gone.

Say hello to Pinktown. Hopefully, third time will be the charm, and this town will survive Olivia’s random tapping.

A couple of weeks ago, a friend posted a link to The Pioneer Woman’s Apple Dumplings. Normally, a cooked fruit dessert is one that I’ll pass on, pumpkin pie being about the only exception, but something about this recipe and the accompanying photo appealed to me. (Maybe it’s the pregnancy hormones.) I showed the recipe to Dale and asked him what he thought about us trying it. He loves apple pie, apple dumplings, apple etc., so he was in favor of the experiment. As he was about to go to the grocery store anyway, I gave him a list with the ingredients we’d need.

Unfortunately, for one reason or another, I didn’t get around to making the dumplings until tonight. The original recipe makes 16 little dumplings which seemed like way too much for Dale, a 3 year old, and a woman who might not even like them, so I halved the recipe. I also used orange soda instead of Mountain Dew, because I hate Mountain Dew (and Amy mentioned some scary sounding chemical that’s in it, though it’s probably in all the other sodas I drink too).

The dumplings were very quick and easy to make. I fit them nicely into an 8″ round pie pan because the 9″ square seemed to leave too much empty space around them. I ladeled on the frightening butter-and-sugar mixture, poured on some orange soda, and sprinkled on the cinnamon. I put them in at the right temp and set the timer for 40 minutes. At 20 minutes they were already browning nicely when I opened the oven to rotate the pan (our oven cooks unevenly, the back is hotter). At 33 minutes, the kitchen was smelling really good and the tops were quite brown, so I decided to take them out early. The 40 minutes was meant for twice the amount.

I put two into a shallow bowl, put a scoop of vanilla ice cream next to them, then generously spooned on some of the thick liquid in the pan. Dale was presented with this first serving. I started preparing my dish and turned in time to see Dale drop his spoon in his bowl and shove it away while grabbing a paper towel. I thought it must have been awful! He quickly assured me that he hadn’t even tasted it yet. A small piece fell off the spoon so he was cleaning it off the placemat. Hah. After he took a bite, there was some oohing and ahhing, and he said it was almost as good as the warm apple dessert they serve at Cafe Laredo, a wonderful Mexican restaurant we love. He ate all of his dessert despite burning his mouth on one of the first bites.

I finished getting mine together and put a single dumpling with a little ice cream into a bowl for Olivia. I cut hers up a bit and told her just to eat the ice cream first, because the apple was hot. When I finally tried it, my first thought was, “oh, damn, this is GOOD!” My second thought was, “oh, damn, this is HOT!!!” I did enjoy it, though I could only eat one dumpling. They were just too sweet. My favorite part is the nice crispy cinnamony-sweet top crust.

Dale liked it so much, he wants me to make it again this weekend when we have his parents over for dinner. We’re going to try adding a bit of brandy and using Sprite instead of orange soda to see if that makes it even more like Cafe Laredo’s.

Olivia seemed unimpressed and was content to just eat her ice cream. Ah, well. I can’t please everyone!

This afternoon I walked into a snack bar type place to throw away some trash. Four or five highschool girls were sitting around, and one of them was fiddling with a Sidekick or some similar mobile device. As I walked past her, I heard this exchange:

Teen Bimbo 1: How do you spell “uh huh?”
Teen Bimbo 2: “U-H” is uh….
(something I didn’t catch)
Teen Bimbo 2: No, “H-U-H” is huh.

OHMYGOD, is this really our future??

I signed up a long time ago, but I’ve finally decided to actively give Twitter a try. My URL is www.twitter.com/monkeyjunkie. Let me know if you have a Twitter account too.

I had my third heartbeat check this afternoon. It went well! Little Mouse has grown, has a good heart rate, and is wriggler. We brought home a couple of ultrasound scans, but they’re not clear at all, probably because the little one wouldn’t stay still. Highlight of the scan was watching the baby flip from back onto side, then back.

Until now, they’d been projecting my due date as October 22, but today the nurse pulled out a little disk, put in my transfer date, then declared my estimated due date to be October 20.

This was my last visit with the reproductive endocrinologist since everything checked out fine. We left with a manilla envelope full of paperwork to take to my regular ob/gyn. I called his office after we got home and my first prenatal appointment with them is scheduled for next Tuesday.

Yes, it was a joke.

I’m typing this on a laptop from my bedroom, trying to avoid the smells of Liv and Dale having dinner. *groan*

Olivia is playing Animal Crossing on the DS right now. She just said, “all the dinosaurs are gone.” I looked, and she was wandering through the empty museum. Oh. I didn’t know she ever visited the museum.

I told her, yes, the dinosaurs are all gone and asked if she’d like me to get them back. She does. Then she moved to another room and said, “all the butterflies are gone.” A minute later, “all the pictures are gone.”

I guess I’m not the only one who’s sad that Klaatu is gone.

I’ve only recently jumped on the RSS bandwagon and now have a few different sites that I keep up with through Google Reader. This has the wonderful benefit of me no longer “making the rounds” of the sites I read, and constantly reloading to see if there are new posts. Instead, I constantly click the Refresh button on the Google Reader page.

Anyway, today’s websurfing (Google Readering) has been a little amusing but mostly annoying. Several of my regulars have pulled the “ooh, someone else has bought our company/group” crap. The Consumerist has decided that instead of being consumer advocates, they’d turn the tables and make fun of complaints sent in by customers and siding with the corporations. Hilarity ensues! Or not.

Gizmodo had over 40 new posts since I read it yesterday afternoon. Wtf? I started going through the posts, then quickly noticed a theme - Mr. T. Every post had some mention of Mr. T, along with a photoshopped picture containing his likeness or at least a stupid word bubble trolling out a Mr. T-ish catchphrase. About 5 posts in, I just clicked the ‘mark all as read’ button. More posts came in, continuing the Mr. T theme. The Mr. T-Mobile graphic did get a chuckle, but then I marked all as read again and have decided to boycott Gizmodo for the rest of the day.

The only company who’s managed to pull off some really good April Fool’s fun, in my opinion, has been Blizzard. World of Warcraft Coming to Consoles with Molten Core is convincing at first glance, until you scroll down ‘below the fold’ and get a look at the concept art vs. the in-game screenshots. Starcraft’s inclusion of Taurens as Space Marines includes some nifty videos of the units standing, moving, and fighting in game. The icing on Blizzard’s April Fool’s Day has to be the announcement of the newest Hero class - Bards. The animated graphic on the page is amusing and eye-catching. The screen shots of the Guitar Hero-esque power ups are great. The little details, including glimpses of the skill trees for Metal and Punk are classic and awesome. Dale even said he’d play this class if it was really offered. Only one thing could make it better. More cowbell, of course.

Overall, today’s just not a funny day, but Blizzard’s given me a few good laughs. Maybe I will go ahead and reactivate my account, even if I can’t be a Bard.

Edit: OK, this may be my favorite prank of the day.

My hiney did get so painful that the last three nights, Dale and I have done my PEO injections in my thighs. First night, it went well and I barely had any pain or discomfort the next day, in contrast to my first thigh intramuscular injections. We used my left leg the next night, and it hurt a bit more on Monday than my right did on Sunday. Last night, we did my right leg again, and holy shit! It didn’t bother me too much last night, but today, it hates me and it’s letting me know. Just walking to the mailbox, my thigh gave way twice, nearly dropping me to one knee. When I get up from my desk, I lurch around like I have poor motor control and someone else’s legs. Still, this is preferable to the previous week’s butt agony, so I’m debating where to do tonight’s injection.

Despite that, and I can’t remember the last time I said this, I feel great! My stomach was a little uncomfortable this morning, but it let me get through Livi’s gym class on just a granola bar. Lunch wasn’t a torment. And now, nearly 8 hours after I took the 8-hour-lasting pill, I am feeling downright GOOD. I’m in a good mood. I’ve been able to eat without wondering how soon I’ll be running for the toilet. I even just celebrated by bringing home crap in a bowl and sharing a Dairy Queen sundae with Dale.

I wonder if today is a sign that the morning sickness is ending, or if it’s some vicious April Fool’s joke my body’s playing on me, and the horrendous punch line is yet to come.