Warning: serious post ahead!
Being an anonymous blogger has its benefits. But I still struggle with revealing my thoughts on some topics, and this recent news is one of them. I've always had a very conflicted, highly personal opinion about having children; Nicole has broached this subject before, and some others have too. Here's my say.
I've never been told I couldn't have kids, but no one ever pretended it was an easy thing for a PWD to do. My family never really talked about it when I was first diagnosed; I think the then-imperfect tools for diabetes care posed enough of a daily struggle for them, and having 'the talk' with your teenager is tough without diabetes (!). In my 20s, I had the typical challenges of any young person nowadays trying to build a stable adult life for myself. Diabetes has always been happy to take advantage of any spare energy--or finances--I may have had along the way, but it didn't really stop me. Had I made it more of a priority to settle down back then, a baby or two (and a father!) might well have come along. I don't know if the ticking clock would have been louder had I not had diabetes; I just know that, for me, it wasn't in the cards at the time.
Since I've been married, people have asked me when I'm going to start a family. And this is when it gets difficult for me to write about the subject (even among you, my wonderful OC friends). I like to keep private things private, as they say, especially with such an intensely personal topic. But where diabetes is concerned, I'd have to say my outlook on having a baby is like my attitude toward a cure: a nice thought, and perhaps a possibility, but not something I actively seek out or wish for every day. God has already been kind to me, sparing my eyes and hands, my feet and life, especially after some rebellious younger years when I probably did fewer tests in a month than I do in a three-hour period nowadays.
I also don't know how fair it would be to a child to have me for a mother, someone who might become ill and be a burden to them, a weight on the whole family, or worse, leave them too young. And then there's the frenetic worrying, which occupies me too much of the time already. I would never forgive myself if a child of mine had to deal with diabetes too. All of the nightmarish possibilities down that path quickly drain my enthusiasm whenever I hold my little niece's hand, or smell her baby-soft hair. In my heart I think: I just can't. Every extra sip of water, every moment of fatigue, every ounce of lost weight would send me into a tailspin. I don't know how some mothers do it--in my own family, some have gone through pregnancies with gestational diabetes without so much as a follow-up for mom or baby, or a worry about a future monster lurking for both of them.
But I haven't closed the door, so to speak. I seek out God when this subject comes up, in public or private, and I pray for guidance. Sometimes even a control freak PWD like me realizes every decision may not be mine alone. I also don't want to cast a downer on the parents of kids with type 1 out there, especially those of little girls. Things have changed so quickly in the world of D care, it's no surprise children nowadays can achieve the kinds of A1Cs some grown-ups would love to have {:-) Everyone's journey is unique. And the same goes for my fellow OC'ers, who may have different views. Your diabetes may vary, of course. I just wish sometimes that I were braver about making decisions with mine, especially the big L-I-F-E ones. I wish I had the imagination to see a world with children as a real possibility instead of an abstract thought.
