The Dye Ah Bee Tiss

I was thinking today, as I do at times, about fear in the medical community. I was remembering back before I had my first babe. Back before I even got married. Remembering all the things I’d read and heard about having diabetes and being pregnant. None of it was positive. I was terrified to have kids. I actually didn’t want to have kids because I was so afraid of the complications that can happen due to having diabetes. I remember crying shortly after getting engaged thinking, “He wants kids though! I don’t know if I want kids…..Should I be getting married? Does this mean I HAVE to have kids??” I totally panicked. My fiance was, of course, informed of all of this and I tried my best to help him “understand” my dilemma.  For Christmas that year I even bought him this little beauty , ever so subtly highlighting the chapter on pregnancy and diabetes in all its terrifying yuckiness wonderful glory. I don’t think he read a word of it, thinking I had everything under control. So anyway, long story short, we got married.

That same year I started nursing school. I was dreading the modules on pregnancy and the complications related to diabetes. I remember a few gals in my class approaching me about the subject: “wow, sucks to be diabetic, how are you going to get through pregnancy? Do you even want to have kids? It all sounds so scary!” Thanks.

The years following, I generally avoided the topic of kids. The oak tree and I almost never discussed it, it was that elephant that I kept trying to stick in the closet or shove under the bed. I knew he wanted kids, and I knew I wasn’t getting any younger. There was no reason not to start trying. Its not that I didn’t want kids…..I was just scared. And truth be told, I’m not a fan of kids. Never really have been, but I also wasn’t opposed to the idea. (Yeah, I’m nuts!) I told the oak tree, as I had many times before, that I just wasn’t ready. He said he didn’t think I was ever going to be ready…..and I agreed. So he did the next logical thing: he set a deadline for me.  I had until Christmas of that year to be off birth control. That November I said farewell to the pill and the journey to mommyhood began.

I scoured the internet for helpful blogs and encouraging stories of diabetic moms….I found a couple good ones, and a lot of scary/crazy ones. It is a bit of a lonely road, as I didn’t personally know any other moms who had type 1 during pregnancy. Most people don’t understand the commitment it entails. They don’t understand why you have to check your sugar 10+ times a day or why you have to see a doctor more often than “normal” pregnancies.  They don’t understand why you have a purse full of glucose, juice, candy etc yet you’re watching what you eat.  They don’t understand that you think about your blood sugars constantly. If you wake up in the night to pee…guess what, you’re also pricking your finger to check on your blood sugar. And every blood sugar reading reflects how accurately you’ve counted the carbs you ate, how accurately you bolused your insulin BUT then how your body, in all its hormonal beauty, chose to respond to that. Sometimes it works out great, sometimes it doesn’t. And you feel guilty. And you think about the little growing bundle in your belly, “Am I harming you? Are you going to be ok?” It doesn’t end. There is no break from it. It’s relentless. But the great thing is, its doable. As soon as I knew we were preggo with #1, I was in full attack mode. No complications, no issues with baby. Diabetes got nothin’ on us!