Chronic Illness and Babies

Sometimes I’m pretty sure that I’m crazy. I get myself worked up over the most random of things- worrying myself for virtually no logical reason. The thought enters my head and it won’t go away.

I haven’t written much about this over the years, mostly because I really do realize how ridiculous some of these worries are. I can see how illogical some of these thoughts are. I shrug them off and push them from my head- but they always seem to find their way back.

Today’s gnawing worry? Having children and not having children.

I always said that I didn’t want children. When I was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes 2 1/2 years ago I let that facade go. It was all a lie, anyway. I didn’t realize it until I saw my doctor mouth the words that I’d been dreading since I first started noticing my peculiar symptoms. The very first question- which I asked my doctor after diagnosis through hyperventilation and tears- was, "Does this mean that I won’t ever be able to have children of my own?" She gave me a lengthy, sterile explanation but reassured me that though women with Type 1 diabetes were told not to conceive years ago, much has changed since then. She told me that many of her patients were able to have children- they just faced greater challenges during pregnancy. She told me that proper planning is key with women in my condition and also explained to me the fact that as a disorder with a genetic component, Type 1 diabetes does have a chance, albeit small, of being passed on to any offspring. The thought left me feeling ill.

I mean, I don’t want to pass this on. I don’t want my children to have to deal with the stress of living with a chronic, life-threatening illness. I don’t want my children to have to deal with the stress of losing insurance, losing the ability to pay for their life-saving medication, losing their eyesight or a limb or their kidneys or their heart. I began to wonder if it would even be ethical for somebody with my condition to have a child, knowing that there is possibly- as high as a 10% chance- that I could pass this on.

But then I started thinking about cancer and obesity and Type 2 diabetes which has an even stronger genetic component and can be just as deadly- and about how many people choose to have children of their own even though these problems are found in their families. Women with a history of breast cancer still have daughters, knowing full and well that their daughters may also die slowly, painfully, and prematurely from malignant tumors.

They do it. So does that mean that I should? Does that mean that I shouldn’t feel guilt or worry? 

Regardless of if I got pregnant tomorrow or in five years with extensive planning I would be considered ‘high risk’. This means no homebirth, no birthing center, no intervention-free childbirth- none of the options that I always assumed would be at my disposal. If I do ever have a child of my own, I will be on my back in a hospital bed with tubes attached everywhere and doctors and nurses checking in on me constantly. Women who give birth in hospitals are more likely to have c-sections because doctors are impatient and want babies born within a specific time frame. I don’t want to have to have a c-section unless it really is absolutely necessary because me or my child is in danger.

I’ve always had romantic visions in my head of what childbirth would be like for me. I always assumed that I’d give birth at home with a midwife or at a birthing center. I always assumed that it’d be as free of intervention as possible, no drugs or cold medical equiptment.

My world fell apart the day that I realized that I would be dead right now if not for advances in medicine. I would be dead likely within a couple of weeks- a month at most- if I decided to forgo my medication. I would be dead. If I lived 100 years earlier, I would be dead. Evolutionary theory- survival of the fittest- would have seen me dead long ago. I wouldn’t have seen the age of 22.

I don’t know why it was so painful for me to come to this realization. I am not dead. I can have children. I should be thankful. I am thankful. It was just a hard pill to swallow, I guess.

Anyway, all of these issues turning and churning in my head have left me open and vulnerable to other worries.

What If I did everything right- I got married, I planned a pregnancy, I saw my doctors and my endocrinologist and my diabetes educator and they gave me the "go ahead" to start trying to conceive- and I wasn’t able to? What if my painful periods and cramping really do mean something, and I’m never able to get pregnant? What if I wait too long and have to suffer through infertility, multiple miscarriages, and stillbirths like my mothers identical twin sister did (my mom had children in her early and mid twenties. Her identical twin waited until her early 30s)? Could I handle that? I’m not ready to try yet. I’m not married, I’m not financially stable, I can’t provide in the way the way that I want to- but what if  right now is my only time? What if I do wait until I’m 30 or 35 and I can’t do it? 

It would absolutely tear me apart. For that reason, I’m scared.

Over the last couple of years I’ve pretty much convinced myself that I will have many problems in trying to conceive a child. I have marks against me as it is and I know that not wanting children in my prime child-bearing years is another mark against me. Wanting to wait until I’m ready is a mark against me. My chronic illness is a mark against me. My family history is a mark against me. My painful periods are a mark against me. My lengthy use of birth control (I’ve been on it for 10 years already) could be a mark against me (though, this is debatable).

I don’t have a neat way to wrap this up. I don’t know that there is a neat way out there for me to wrap this up. It is what it is. Only time will tell how this will all play out.