Our family
I come from a non-LDS family of 3 children, my husband is descended from a long line of distinguished LDS pioneers and is one of 8 children. We have one son, Richard O., who is 2 years old and who has Type 1 diabetes.
Richard O. came along after we had been married 5 years. At that point people (mostly church members) had started to ask questions about our desires to have children. What they didn't know is that I have struggled mightily with my health since my college days: I have battled multiple issues with autoimmunity, depression, being underweight, and extreme stress. I was surprised when we didn't get pregnant right away after we started trying in earnest 2 years into our marriage, but at that point I couldn't face the word "infertility," so I just tried to relax about it, kept working at my job, and waited. Finally, 6 months before our 5th anniversary, I decided to chart my basal body temperature with a special thermometer. It was clear that my cycle was a little "funky", and it actually appeared like I wasn't necessarily ovulating every month. After about 4 months of faithful daily charting , we conceived.
As far as pregnancy goes, I coasted through the first 2 trimesters -- no morning sickness, no real aches and pains. I felt like Superwoman. I finished out the school year at my job as a music and theater educator, and made arrangements to take a medical leave of absence. We bought a house in Ithaca, where my husband grew up and had been working for the past few years. Everything seemed perfect.
One week after we moved to Ithaca, I went back to my old OB in Binghamton for my monthly checkup (at 28 weeks), and she noticed that my fundus measurement seemed a little off of the curve. She got me in for an ultrasound, and we discovered that my our son had dropped from the 52nd percentile to the 28th, and my amniotic fluid was low. He had stopped growing. She put me on strict bedrest, transferred my case to a perinatologist in Syracuse, and for the balance of my pregnancy I had visits 2x a week to make sure that our son Richard was still doing okay. I had to do daily kick counts, and call in if I didn't feel him moving enough in the womb.
The doctors told me that he would likely have to be born early, because the number one complication of IUGR was stillbirth. My husband was beside himself with grief and worry, and accused me of eating too little and not drinking enough. It was hard to convince him that I was trying my hardest to care for our baby -- but I suspect that the stress of the move may have contributed to the complication.
Thus, we tried our hardest to keep our little guy in the womb as long as possible. Eventually, I became toxemic, and just a few days after Thanksgiving, he was delivered by emergency C-section after an attempt at inducing labor (it was basically one REALLY HARD 12-hour long contraction. Ow.) He was 35 weeks old, and weighed only 4 lbs, 3 oz. He was taken straight to the NICU, where he stayed for 7 days.
We were lucky in that he came out breathing on his own, and was able to leave the NICU relatively quickly. It was so scary those first few weeks, though, because his little heart would sometimes struggle to keep beating while he nursed. The monitors in the NICU would bleep and buzz, and he would just shake and cry. It was so incredibly hard to leave him each time after I nursed him.
He seemed to be doing great for most of his 1st year of life -- he was gaining weight, eating pretty well, and keeping pace with his development. Just a few days after his 1st birthday, he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. This was a severe blow to our family, and we have spent most of the past year coming to terms with the difficulty and severity of dealing with this awful disease in a young child. We were hit hard once again a few months later, when he got a stomach bug and was hospitalized for a week. He was so sick that we could NOT control his blood sugars or his ketones, and he had totally ceased eating and drinking other than nursing. I found a team of feeding specialists in NJ, and I moved there for 1 month to pursue intensive treatment.
Today, Richard O. is doing great, and I am profoundly grateful. However, I would be lying if I said that the trials and heartbreak of the last 2 years hadn't affected my thoughts on having more children. I desperately want Richard to have siblings (hopefully at least 2 or 3), but I fear another complicated pregnancy, and I especially fear having another child with this awful disease (the odds of siblings developing Type 1 are around 6%, which sounds low, but is actually 15-20 times greater than the risk of the average child with NO siblings with Type 1). At the same time, I'm 30 years old now, and it will NOT be getting any easier for me to conceive. The one thing I have in my favor is that my mother managed to have 3 children in 4 years starting at age 30.
My husband and I are still dealing with the trauma of the past 2 years in our marriage, so I don't forsee us making an earnest effort in the very near future, but it's on my mind ALL THE TIME. I feel like the clock is ticking, and time is running out.
Richard O. came along after we had been married 5 years. At that point people (mostly church members) had started to ask questions about our desires to have children. What they didn't know is that I have struggled mightily with my health since my college days: I have battled multiple issues with autoimmunity, depression, being underweight, and extreme stress. I was surprised when we didn't get pregnant right away after we started trying in earnest 2 years into our marriage, but at that point I couldn't face the word "infertility," so I just tried to relax about it, kept working at my job, and waited. Finally, 6 months before our 5th anniversary, I decided to chart my basal body temperature with a special thermometer. It was clear that my cycle was a little "funky", and it actually appeared like I wasn't necessarily ovulating every month. After about 4 months of faithful daily charting , we conceived.
As far as pregnancy goes, I coasted through the first 2 trimesters -- no morning sickness, no real aches and pains. I felt like Superwoman. I finished out the school year at my job as a music and theater educator, and made arrangements to take a medical leave of absence. We bought a house in Ithaca, where my husband grew up and had been working for the past few years. Everything seemed perfect.
One week after we moved to Ithaca, I went back to my old OB in Binghamton for my monthly checkup (at 28 weeks), and she noticed that my fundus measurement seemed a little off of the curve. She got me in for an ultrasound, and we discovered that my our son had dropped from the 52nd percentile to the 28th, and my amniotic fluid was low. He had stopped growing. She put me on strict bedrest, transferred my case to a perinatologist in Syracuse, and for the balance of my pregnancy I had visits 2x a week to make sure that our son Richard was still doing okay. I had to do daily kick counts, and call in if I didn't feel him moving enough in the womb.
The doctors told me that he would likely have to be born early, because the number one complication of IUGR was stillbirth. My husband was beside himself with grief and worry, and accused me of eating too little and not drinking enough. It was hard to convince him that I was trying my hardest to care for our baby -- but I suspect that the stress of the move may have contributed to the complication.
Thus, we tried our hardest to keep our little guy in the womb as long as possible. Eventually, I became toxemic, and just a few days after Thanksgiving, he was delivered by emergency C-section after an attempt at inducing labor (it was basically one REALLY HARD 12-hour long contraction. Ow.) He was 35 weeks old, and weighed only 4 lbs, 3 oz. He was taken straight to the NICU, where he stayed for 7 days.
We were lucky in that he came out breathing on his own, and was able to leave the NICU relatively quickly. It was so scary those first few weeks, though, because his little heart would sometimes struggle to keep beating while he nursed. The monitors in the NICU would bleep and buzz, and he would just shake and cry. It was so incredibly hard to leave him each time after I nursed him.
He seemed to be doing great for most of his 1st year of life -- he was gaining weight, eating pretty well, and keeping pace with his development. Just a few days after his 1st birthday, he was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes. This was a severe blow to our family, and we have spent most of the past year coming to terms with the difficulty and severity of dealing with this awful disease in a young child. We were hit hard once again a few months later, when he got a stomach bug and was hospitalized for a week. He was so sick that we could NOT control his blood sugars or his ketones, and he had totally ceased eating and drinking other than nursing. I found a team of feeding specialists in NJ, and I moved there for 1 month to pursue intensive treatment.
Today, Richard O. is doing great, and I am profoundly grateful. However, I would be lying if I said that the trials and heartbreak of the last 2 years hadn't affected my thoughts on having more children. I desperately want Richard to have siblings (hopefully at least 2 or 3), but I fear another complicated pregnancy, and I especially fear having another child with this awful disease (the odds of siblings developing Type 1 are around 6%, which sounds low, but is actually 15-20 times greater than the risk of the average child with NO siblings with Type 1). At the same time, I'm 30 years old now, and it will NOT be getting any easier for me to conceive. The one thing I have in my favor is that my mother managed to have 3 children in 4 years starting at age 30.
My husband and I are still dealing with the trauma of the past 2 years in our marriage, so I don't forsee us making an earnest effort in the very near future, but it's on my mind ALL THE TIME. I feel like the clock is ticking, and time is running out.
Comments
I think he'll be more supportive once Richard O. is in preschool next fall.
I went to my OB 3 months ago for help on getting pregnant and she just told me i was young and i'll be fine and gave me some multi-vitamins to take. Well it's been 3 months since then and still nothing. And it's been a year now since we've been trying. It's nice to have the encouragement to keep on trying and maybe one day we will get pregnant with our first child.
I do have a question though? Where can I find a good thermoneter to check my ovulation? I've looked around but i'm not sure which ones are better than the other.