I Suck at Having Babies!

Simply said, I suck at having babies.  My immune system attacks my own children, I miscarry 90% of the time and even when I do carry a baby to term, it is not without a major pregnancy complication to manage, gestational diabetes.  I was diagnosed with that at 28 weeks with Riley.  I am going to start the "I suck at having babies club".  I have several friends who are trying to have their second child after an easy, uneventful first pregnancy.  Some of them are now facing the shock and pain of miscarriages, some of them are finding out they are having trouble conceiving at all this second time and one of them lost her uterus to cancer when she was only in her mid-twenties.  She had no children at the time and that effectively ended any chance of her ever carrying her own child.  Join the club ladies....why do so many of us suck at having babies??!!  If I could drink we would all go out tonight and toast to that.  Rain check?

I vividly remember the day two sweet ladies from Infant Toddler Services walked into my living room to evaluate Riley when I suspected she had a speech delay.  They were so kind and gentle as they evaluated her and they pointed out many positive things they saw in Riley throughout the evaluation.  But in the end, they said Riley did have a speech delay significant enough that she qualified for speech therapy services.  I naively asked the question I wish I never had...."She has met all her developmental milestones up to this point.  Why would she suddenly be behind on this one?  What could cause this?" "Well, speech delays are associated with autism and that could be one reason", they answered me.  All at once the air was sucked right out of my chest.  I couldn't breath.  I couldn't talk.  I couldn't think.  On a cold December morning I sat there on my living room floor, Christmas lights twinkling from the mantel and a beautiful tree smiling down at us, and I slipped away from the lights, the hope, the one shred of happiness I had left.  I slipped away from it all.  Exactly one week prior I had delivered my sleeping baby.  I was postpartum and still cramping and bleeding from the procedure.  Exactly one week prior we found out Vickie's cancer had returned.  And now this.  But miscarriages, I could handle.  Cancer, I could handle.  My one miracle baby girl, the only one who made it into this world alive, the light of my life, my sweet girl having autism.  That I could not handle.  It was too much and I just slipped away.  I'm still not completely back.  The anxiety, fear and worry that "autism" caused this mother is more than I can describe.  Riley was eventually evaluated at KU and by perhaps one of God's greatest acts of mercy and grace in my life, she scored within the normal range.  They told me she was not autistic.  Her speech blossomed with therapy and after just six months, she was discharged.  Riley is still slow to come around with speech.  She acquires new language skills on the tale end of the "normal" range according to developmental charts.  I still touch base with her speech therapist from time to time to update her on Riley.  She tells me Riley is doing great and being a little behind is fine, as long as the skills are coming.  I only need to get concerned if she stops progressing.  She has been out of therapy for a year now and she is progressing fine, on her own time.  A study released in 2012, two years after Riley's birth, has sent shivers down my spine at the realization of the bullet we may have dodged. 

A major study recently conducted by researchers affiliated with the UC Davis MIND Institute found that mothers with gestational diabetes are more likely to have children with autism and other developmental delays.  When I came across this study I nearly had a panic attack.  I had no risk factors for gestational diabetes when I was pregnant with Riley.  I was not overweight.  I was not obese.  I had never been diabetic before.  No one in my immediate family has diabetes.  Unfortunately, diabetes runs strongly on my father's side of the family, effecting my grandmother, two out of three of my aunts and one of my cousins.  I must have inherited the gene somehow.  Exercise and healthy eating (ok not that healthy, but healthy enough :)) has kept me from becoming diabetic in my non pregnant life, but pregnancy is just more than my body can take.  It pushes my diabetic-predisposed genes over the edge and I become diabetic while pregnant.  It happened with Riley and I found out today it is happening again with this pregnancy.  I am already sticking myself with a needle once a day to give myself medicine to help keep this pregnancy, I am already stressed to the max just worrying if this baby is going to make it.  Now I will have to stick myself with a needle an additional three to four times a day to test my blood sugar and I will have the added stress of yet another pregnancy complication that adds to my high-risk status....even more doctors appointments, even more ultrasounds, more consults with perinatologists and nutritionists, a strict diet to adhere to....but even so, I could manage all that.  The one thing that frightens me to my very core is this new study (found here) linking gestational diabetes to autism.  Is this why Riley was late to talk?  Will this cause problems for baby girl I am carrying now?  Stupid, stupid genetics.  I knew I was at risk for getting this again with this pregnancy.  I have been on an anti diabetic medication since I became pregnant and I have been watching my diet so closely that I actually lost five lbs in the my first trimester and I have yet to gain a single pound in this pregnancy.  I am 21 weeks and weigh less than I did when I got pregnant!  I have done everything I could to prevent this but again I say, stupid genetics!

To my list of things to worry about I will add, will my baby have developmental delays or autism?  "I can't do this I can't do this" I cry to myself.  "I was so stupid to get pregnant again.  I should have just been happy with the one beautiful, healthy child I have."  Breath in.  Breath out.  "You can do this.  You can do this.  You have to."  I do have to and I will.  I was so well controlled with Riley.  I ate perfectly and only had two blood sugar spikes after I was diagnosed.  I exercised every day.  I can do this again.  Please, please God keep our baby girl healthy.  Please protect her little brain from any harm.  My baby is breech right now.  I hope she turns so I don't need a c-section.  But if she doesn't, while they are in there perhaps a little tying of the tubes is in order.  I don't think I can ever be pregnant again...because I suck at having babies!  To my sweet little girl, hang in there baby.  I know it's tough inside mommy's messed up body.  I'm doing everything in my power to keep you safe and healthy.  The rest is up to God.  Hold tight to Him little one.  I don't carry babies very well, but lucky for us He does.  He is carrying me right now and He is carrying you.  Press into Him sweet one.  Feel his nail scarred hands as they hold you, protect you, heal you and as they do the same for your mother.

I love you always and forever and no matter what.