Orange Glucose Offering

One of the things I disliked the most about being pregnant with Dash was the glucose test that you have to do early in the third trimester. There were certainly parts of pregnancy far more difficult, painful, emotional and uncomfortable than drinking a bottle of syrupy orange sugar water, but I could barely get it down and keep it down. It was awful to drink that stuff on an empty stomach and to be unable to drink water for hours before the test. This is agony for someone who always has a water bottle within reach. And for someone who doesn't like oranges or orange juice...yikes! Why couldn't they calibrate the test so you could drink something like a Dr. Pepper?

My most recent appointment, and the day of the dreaded glucose test, was yesterday, on All Saint's Day. The moment I held the chilled (yes, they tell you it tastes better cold) bottle in my hand my stomach involuntarily turned over. But running through my mind all day yesterday was the fact that this was the first All Saint's Day for our little saint, Kolbe Francis, in Heaven. And also, despite genuine joy at his being in the presence of Christ, the fact that I would have downed gallons of orange glucose water to hold him in my arms. Suddenly, drinking the bottle seemed like such a tiny sacrifice and so I offered it up for all those moms that I know and do not know who have their own little saints in heaven. Since we live so far away from where our baby will be born, I had to drink it in the car. Whoever was driving next to me must have thought I was drinking the most wonderful substance on earth for the smile on my face. For there are certainly sacrifices in our lives sweeter than glucose.