Mom Guilt Meets Ignorant Lady
Well I finally decided to give this blogging thing a try. I'd like to add some notes before I get started.
1. I do not consider any information that I will share medical advice.
2. I am doing this so that I can educate people and give people the opportunity to see life through my eyes as a Type 1 diabetic.
3. I am a diabetic but that does not mean that I allow diabetes to define me (some diabetics will only refer to themselves as a person with diabetes, I am not one of those people).
4. If you have feedback, I'd love to hear it....privately.
5. English was never my strong class in school. I am a science and math gal through and through.So if my punctuation is off I'm sorry but I'm not sorry.
Alright, here goes nothing.
I wasn't sure what to start with but this comment has been playing around in my head for quite sometime so here it goes.
"I hope that Lorenzo (my son) doesn't ever have to deal with that (meaning my diabetes)."
Yes, you read that correctly. You can pick your jaw up off the ground. It was said so casually to me at the nail salon I'm not sure my face had time to register what had just been said .
So here's what I want people to ask themselves, especially women with children. Do you have mom guilt? Do you constantly try to figure out what is best for your children? Go back and forth with ideas until you find one you can live with? Well I do too.
Before I even thought about having kids, I was thinking about whether it would even be a good idea to have kids. I also thought about how much work it would be, not only, because it is a lot of work to grow a human, but also, because I would have to do it while managing my diabetes and my post-ablative hypothyroidism. What I thought it would be, multiply it by a thousand and that was how hard it was for me.
Let me just tell you how very real mom guilt is and how exponentially worse it is when people know you're a diabetic and that you're planning on having children. I know people have wondered if it was even possible for me to have healthy children given my situation. That hurt to hear. I may be diabetic but I do NOT consider myself to be unhealthy. I have had type 1 diabetes for 20 years and sometimes find myself healthier than others without diabetes.
Things I've thought about....Am I a selfish person because I want to have children despite my disease process? What about the risk it can be to my family? What is the percent chance that I could give my kids my disease? Would my kids hate me for it if they develop diabetes?
I guess the bottom line is, I worked my butt off to ensure that my son had the best chance at a "healthy" life. I had hemoglobin A1C's (levels they check to monitor how well your blood sugars are controlled) better than I had in 20 years of my disease. I was so tightly controlled and well managed that I wish I could live like that constantly....without the pregnancy part. It is so refreshing to have tightly controlled glucose but I can't send the doctors my blood sugars weekly unless I am pregnant. Well I could they just wouldn't do anything with them.
This woman's comment I'm sure will sit with me until I'm six feet under but what an opportunity she has given me to share a story. She was ignorant and lacking a filter and the understanding that I did the best I could to give my son the best chance at a "normal" life. However, if the good Lord decides that Lorenzo needs the same mountain to climb that his mother has been climbing every day since she was 7 years old then how amazing an opportunity I have as his mother to give him something I didn't have, someone who understood what I was going through since day 1? (I definitely have people who understand where I am coming from now) I do believe God has a plan and I am ready to live to find out what his plan will be. Maybe it's further advancements in technology? Maybe it's a cure? Time will tell.
I do plan on having more children despite my disease and I know that there are many other women that would make the same decision. The bottom line is, it is possible to have healthy children even if you are diabetic but the most important thing is tightly controlled blood glucoses. And that was shared with the ignorant lady at the nail salon.
1. I do not consider any information that I will share medical advice.
2. I am doing this so that I can educate people and give people the opportunity to see life through my eyes as a Type 1 diabetic.
3. I am a diabetic but that does not mean that I allow diabetes to define me (some diabetics will only refer to themselves as a person with diabetes, I am not one of those people).
4. If you have feedback, I'd love to hear it....privately.
5. English was never my strong class in school. I am a science and math gal through and through.So if my punctuation is off I'm sorry but I'm not sorry.
Alright, here goes nothing.
I wasn't sure what to start with but this comment has been playing around in my head for quite sometime so here it goes.
"I hope that Lorenzo (my son) doesn't ever have to deal with that (meaning my diabetes)."
Yes, you read that correctly. You can pick your jaw up off the ground. It was said so casually to me at the nail salon I'm not sure my face had time to register what had just been said .
So here's what I want people to ask themselves, especially women with children. Do you have mom guilt? Do you constantly try to figure out what is best for your children? Go back and forth with ideas until you find one you can live with? Well I do too.
Before I even thought about having kids, I was thinking about whether it would even be a good idea to have kids. I also thought about how much work it would be, not only, because it is a lot of work to grow a human, but also, because I would have to do it while managing my diabetes and my post-ablative hypothyroidism. What I thought it would be, multiply it by a thousand and that was how hard it was for me.
Let me just tell you how very real mom guilt is and how exponentially worse it is when people know you're a diabetic and that you're planning on having children. I know people have wondered if it was even possible for me to have healthy children given my situation. That hurt to hear. I may be diabetic but I do NOT consider myself to be unhealthy. I have had type 1 diabetes for 20 years and sometimes find myself healthier than others without diabetes.
Things I've thought about....Am I a selfish person because I want to have children despite my disease process? What about the risk it can be to my family? What is the percent chance that I could give my kids my disease? Would my kids hate me for it if they develop diabetes?
I guess the bottom line is, I worked my butt off to ensure that my son had the best chance at a "healthy" life. I had hemoglobin A1C's (levels they check to monitor how well your blood sugars are controlled) better than I had in 20 years of my disease. I was so tightly controlled and well managed that I wish I could live like that constantly....without the pregnancy part. It is so refreshing to have tightly controlled glucose but I can't send the doctors my blood sugars weekly unless I am pregnant. Well I could they just wouldn't do anything with them.
This woman's comment I'm sure will sit with me until I'm six feet under but what an opportunity she has given me to share a story. She was ignorant and lacking a filter and the understanding that I did the best I could to give my son the best chance at a "normal" life. However, if the good Lord decides that Lorenzo needs the same mountain to climb that his mother has been climbing every day since she was 7 years old then how amazing an opportunity I have as his mother to give him something I didn't have, someone who understood what I was going through since day 1? (I definitely have people who understand where I am coming from now) I do believe God has a plan and I am ready to live to find out what his plan will be. Maybe it's further advancements in technology? Maybe it's a cure? Time will tell.
I do plan on having more children despite my disease and I know that there are many other women that would make the same decision. The bottom line is, it is possible to have healthy children even if you are diabetic but the most important thing is tightly controlled blood glucoses. And that was shared with the ignorant lady at the nail salon.
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