Pregnancy Has Made Me a Wuss

A word of warning: I swear here. It happens when I'm mad.

I used to be really good at standing up for myself.

I've had to advocate for my body, my thoughts, and my decisions for a long time. Phrases like "Yes, I am actually in that much pain. No, I absolutely will not take a drug that I don't believe I need and has a substantial risk of permanent debilitating side effects. No, I will not take something else just in case. Yes, I do need the muscle relaxants. Yes, I do actually put on my seat belt every time I'm in the car, thankyouverymuch, AND I make my passengers do so as well. No, I will not agree to be seen by a med student instead of my usual doctor" used to come out of my mouth with relative ease.

Those were easy. They were hard at the time, but now I miss the days when I was "only" fighting about the mundane details of my life, diagnoses, drugs, and treatment plans.

Now, I feel myself fading fast in so many conversations that should be hard-at-the-time and then done. I just can't find the fight in me. I know full well that I'm responding to the cultural narrative that says "Don't you just want a healthy baby? As long as you have a healthy baby at the end of the day, what happens to you and how you're treated don't really matter in the long run."

And while I'd like to call "Bullshit" on that one, I'm tired. And so I don't. And then I kick myself.

Most recently, I've been researching Gestational Diabetes (GD) tests, protocols for treatment, and outcomes. A lot of what I've found has been standard fear-mongering. Babies whose mothers have untreated GD can DIE, and you will feel guilty for the rest of your life because you could have prevented it (this is both a completely untestable claim and one that Freudian mother-blaming would have been proud to behold). Babies whose mothers have untreated GD can be TOO BIG, or sometimes they're TOO SMALL. Babies whose mothers have GD, treated or not, need additional monitoring. Women who have GD are more likely have high-intervention birth experiences ending in c-sections.

"But it's all okay! You'll have a healthy baby!"

It's not all okay. Yes, I want a healthy baby. But I also want to be treated as a person, and damnit, that should not be radical. GD, like so much of medicalized American birth, is controversial, non-standardized in diagnosis and treatment, and is based in faulty studies done ages ago combined with regressive notions of maternity care that minimize the fact that it's not a Baby in an incubator, it's a Woman carrying a fetus. And damnit, that woman deserves to have a say in her medical care.

"Why not just take the test? You're already at risk, and really, it's only an hour, some crap sugar drink, and then you know for sure."
I do technically have two of the risk factors. I am OLD (29), and I am NOT THIN (serious social crime). My ovaries should have shriveled up and died long long ago, in mourning of the days when I was young and fertile and beautiful. Never mind that correlation is not causation, and the fact that many women over 28 do test positive for GD does not mean that being over 28 is the cause of GD. Even if age really ain't nothin but a number, there are other Very Important Numbers that I fail. At 5'2" and 148 pounds before pregnancy, my BMI was 27, putting me squarely in the "overweight" category. Nevermind that BMI is laden with problems, including an inability to account for muscle mass, natural fat deposits like boobs, and a general fallacious belief that standardized weight is available to and healthy for every person. Overweight is risky.
My hypothetical questioner is right that the test is an hour. And I could read for an hour. But I'd prefer to read for an hour at home, in a comfy chair, without being stabbed, poked, or prodded.
And it doesn't necessarily have to be a crappy sugar drink. I'd rather have jelly beans, and that's a medically "proven" alternative I haven't been offered.
I'd also prefer a test that's standardized in its measurements (right now, the US version isn't), takes into account the natural changes that it purports to be monitoring (blood sugar levels are naturally progressively higher as pregnancy continues, which means that the same woman could pass at 24 weeks, do nothing different, and fail at 28 weeks just by virtue of being pregnant), and doesn't automatically place me in the absurd category of "high risk" (testing positive for GD means that women are monitored more closely, subject to more interference and intervention during their birthing processes, and due to the cascading effect of intervention, more likely to have c-sections).
--See here and here for more extended discussions and extensive citation of these things.

I KNOW these things. They're why I called my midwives office to request that my test be done at 24 weeks instead after my 25 week appointment.

So what did I do when she said that they prefer to test at 26 weeks?

I responded with a bold, well-researched, intelligent, individualized, and thoughtful "oh. Okay. Thanks, have a good evening!"

That's not me. At all. We gotta get this fixed before someone tells me I need a non-stress test or a fluid levels check just because. Because pregnancy and parenthood may inevitably change me, but this is not okay.

How do I get back to being the sort of woman who stands up for herself instead of caving at the slightest pressure? What do you do to remind yourself that you're strong, intelligent, and capable?