In case you haven’t ever taken note or had the chance to see for yourself (Poor, poor you.), 7 vials of blood can result in tons of information.
Let me start by saying that the blood-suckers do not bother me. Don’t get me wrong – I wouldn’t want to visit any more than now and then, but it really never has gotten to me much. Thank goodness, because there’s certainly more to come in the next 29.5 weeks. On a similar note, don’t ask, but I’m seriously terrified of IVs, I’ve been avoiding my tetanus shot for years, and am totally fearful of this year’s first ever flu shot that’s soon to come – darn pregnancy during flu season. I’m a total baby when it comes to this stuff, but take all the blood you want. Stupid and irrational? Yeah, I know.
Okay … so I had the pleasure of completing my first of many “with bubble” trips to my local LabCorp a few Saturdays back. As is almost always the case, it was rather uneventful. (Exception: the time they took twenty-something vials thinking that I’d had a mini-stroke or some other sort of serious neurological, vascular, or cardiological issue. Yeah, that was kind of traumatic. When they don’t have enough stickers for all of your vials, RUN AWAY as fast as you can!) My two hours at the lab this time were terribly boring, but really nothing to gripe about. I didn’t even mind the drink for the glucose test! It was like orange soda without the carbonation and didn’t even have a bad after-taste!
Thankfully, the results are equally as uneventful. I don’t have any form of diabetes, including gestational (Thank the heavens, for now!). Yippee! I’m immune to rubella (Yay, no shot!), do not have HIV, have a good iron level, and my antibody screen was negative. All good! I also learned my blood type, which before today, I had not known. For the record, I’m type O+. Cool! There were other results as well, but everything was good, so she stopped while she was ahead. Poor gal!
We’re still waiting on the results of the cystic fibrosis carrier screen, which will be mailed. Out of curiosity (And the voice in the back of my head that said, “Why are they mailing it and not telling me over the phone?”), I googled it. According to the March of Dimes website, 1 in 29 Caucasians carry the CF gene. What could it mean if I’m 1 in 29? The only way to have a child with CF is if both parents carry the CF gene, and the chances of this happening are 1 in 800. If both parents carry the CF gene, there is a 25% chance that the child will have cystic fibrosis, a 50% chance they’ll be a carrier, and a 25% chance they neither have CF nor carry the gene.
Today is truly a day of self-discovery! 
