A heart on fire

(Warning: very text-heavy with no pictures)

I'm glad to have this past week behind me; it was definitely not a fun one for me! I received a phone call from my doctor's office letting me know that I had failed (miserably) my 1-hour glucose tolerance test. :( I can't say I was super surprised, but I really didn't want to have to go through the 3-hour test again. I'm taking the day off of work on Monday so that I can sit in the waiting room at the lab and be used as a human pin cushion; not exactly my idea of fun!
On top of that, I spent Monday and Tuesday nights either sleeping sitting up or pacing around my bedroom because of horrendous heartburn. I am one of those lucky people who has never experienced heartburn/acid reflux in my life, even when I was pregnant with Ryder. Well, Baby Girl decided to broaden my horizons and introduce me to this awfully uncomfortable experience through this pregnancy. I called my doctor's office Wednesday just to explain my symptoms and make sure they were normal since I really had nothing to compare them to. The fact that I was having pain above my shoulder blades and into my chest definitely made it something I couldn't ignore. Oh, and Tuesday night I kept having these tight feelings in my lower stomach and wasn't sure if they were Braxton-Hicks contractions because I had never had those before either. To err on the side of caution, the doctor told me to come by after work that afternoon so they could check me out and make sure everything seemed okay. After a quick exam, the doctor reassured me that I had nothing to worry about regarding the possible contractions--it could have been Braxton-Hicks or it could have been the position of the baby. She also told me it sounded like I was experiencing a bad case of acid reflux, and unfortunately she couldn't guarantee that it would get any better. :( She told me to buy some Zantac and give it a try. If that didn't work, at least I have another appointment this week where we can discuss other options. Wednesday night I proactively took Zantac, anticipating a good night's sleep in a horizontal position. Unfortunately, that was NOT the case. My heartburn felt twice as bad, and I think I had an allergic reaction to the medicine because my hands itched like crazy and my fingers were swollen the whole next day. I could not accept the fact that I might have to put up with this for the next two months, and I was determined that it must be something I was eating or drinking since it randomly started this week. I researched some "heartburn trigger foods" and finally decided on a culprit: cranberry juice. I never would have suspected it, but it's the only thing I could think of that had changed in my diet. We bought a big jug at the store the other day, and I had been having a small glass sometime between dinner and bedtime each night. It's not normally something we keep in the house. I skipped the juice and slept like a baby Thursday and Friday nights, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I solved the mystery! Avoiding cranberry juice is a small price to pay for a good night's sleep!