You might want to look at Tropicana, they make a ‘lite’ OJ that is not that bad.
The Freestyle Lite meters are good—meter is basicly free, strips are average cost, very small droplets of blood. Older meters seem to want a artery for a sample.
He knows I’d rather wait until 40 weeks, and this is all dependent on the size of the baby (I had horrifying damage with my first (who was normal-sized, 7lbs 12oz) which I attribute to incompetent staff and the fact that I had an epidural (never, ever again)) because he’s worried that he can take all the steps in the world to prevent/minimize damage and I’ll tear again anyway just because.
The induction at 39 is to give me the smallest possible baby I can have and still have him be healthy (and the doctor won’t go earlier than that). The C-section is because at 8.5 pounds, there isn’t a thing in the world he can do to stop me from tearing; that’s a big baby that I am apparently incapable of accommodating.
Your situation sounds awful, I can’t imagine. My sister had a GD baby (I think at term; she went into labor naturally anyway) who spent time in the hospital with pneumonia. I wonder if there’s some correlation between GD and respiratory issues?
The Vorlon, thanks, I’ll look into that Tropicana. Simply Orange is my preferred brand; I’m not sure they have a light, though. And the educator I spoke with today said they have a supplier who hands out meters like candy, so they’ll just give me one when I see them next week but I don’t have idea what brand it will be.
Are strips not typically covered by insurance companies?
It depends. A lot of insurance companies will place entirely arbitrary restrictions on the number of test strips you can have, even with a valid prescription. I’m lucky that my endo will prescribe a rather large number of strips and that the insurance company isn’t too annoying and will adhere to the endo’s prescription. Some people aren’t so lucky, particularly with a T2 or GD diagnosis.
I had an experience with my GD diagnosis that was similar to MsWhatsit’s, yet different. I was already hospitalized because I had placenta previa and bleeding (with no recognition that of the three minor bleeding episodes I had had, two of them were within 12 hours of a transvaginal ultrasound - my peri was reading me the riot act about not letting anyone put so much as a finger up there, then shoving a big hunk of plastic in me and telling me it had nothing to do with my bleeding 
). So I was in the hospital, and kind of mad about it, especially because they told me it would be for a day or two when they admitted me, and only told me it was for the duration after they had my butt in a bed. They bungled the timing on the GD test, and I would have had to do it twice except that a nice nurse did a blood draw on me when the phlebotomist didn’t show up. Then they told me what my result was (and apparently the nurses were out there drawing straws on who had to tell me, because they knew I would freak), but didn’t tell the next shift nurses, so one of them keeps pressing apple juice on me until I burst into tears on her. It was like the trigger for all of the resentment and stress I had about being there at all, and that I could never ever have a normal birth (2nd and last baby, I’d been planning a VBAC until they diagnosed the previa).
All of which is a very long way of saying, it’s totally normal for this to hit hard, and often it’s really a proxy for all the other stress. It sounds like you’ve had plenty of that this pregnancy anyway. Don’t try to suppress it - just go with it for a while.
Good luck.
Posting from my phone so this will be brief but 1) yes, I think there may be a correlation between gd and respiratory issues and 2) every insurance company I’ve had has paid for blood sugar test strips. Not always as many as you’d like, but always some. Most issued me a free meter also.
Meters are like razors - they give them away, and make their money on the strips (which are stupidly expensive - $1/each retail and most diabetics use 2-10 a day - but that’s another subject)
If you’re diagnosed with diabetes, you NEVER pay for a meter unless you have to have one RIGHT NOW and can’t wait for a free one to arrive by mail or from your doc.
I personally have about ten different meters in my quest for the One Perfect Meter. (it was all for naught, as once I went on the pump, it included a built-in meter). Pretty much every meter manufacturer will send you a free one if you just call 'em and ask. Usually they come with 10-25 free strips as well.
Yeah - I forgot to mention earlier that what I would suggest is calling up your insurance company and finding out if they have a preferred meter/test strip manufacturer. Usually there are one or two preferred meters, and that’s the one you can get for free, and the strips might have a lesser co-pay as well.