Should t1s be advised not to have children?

[ExtremelyW0rried]

Why do you keep coming back to remind us of your dogmatic views regarding the future of your children and their children? We have discussed these concerns in your previous posts. We really have no way of knowing exactly which genes we will pass on to our children.

If you carry on indoctrinating your children with your views you are in danger of driving a huge wedge between you and your children. Do you really want them to be terrified of having a relationship when they are grown up just in case they or any future partner has diabetes. It is likely that your views will make them up sticks and move far away from your influence. Is that what you want your children to do? I think not ... No... I hope not.

Diabetes has not and will not ruin my life.

I don't really mind if they move away when they are adults. I doubt we will have much in common anyway. My son particularly I expect to probably only be exchanging Christmas cards with. But that's not t1 related obviously. Just how I think it will be.

 

[miszu]

I don't really mind if they move away when they are adults. I doubt we will have much in common anyway. My son particularly I expect to probably only be exchanging Christmas cards with. But that's not t1 related obviously. Just how I think it will be.

Wow.... Its been a long time since I heard (read) a mother saying something so upsetting. I want to believe ur attitude is caused by ur current depression. Get well.

edit.So many are advising u if not begging u to see a professional. U have children u r responsible for...too much...Im off this thread.

 

[lucylocket61]

I don't really mind if they move away when they are adults. I doubt we will have much in common anyway. My son particularly I expect to probably only be exchanging Christmas cards with. But that's not t1 related obviously. Just how I think it will be.

Please, please think carefully about what you have just posted. I believe your children are only about 2 years old and 8 years old? I think you may have post natal depression. Did you feel this way before your daughter was conceived? You were already a mother of your son, and a T1 then. What changed your outlook?

Post natal depression may not appear at birth. It can come on over 18 moths or so after the birth, many things, including breastfeeding, can delay its onset. And PND can last for 5 or 6 years after the birth.

This level of disconnection with your children, and negativity about a relationship with them, is unusual and often associated with late-onset post natal depression.

 

[Ambersilva]

I don't really mind if they move away when they are adults. I doubt we will have much in common anyway. My son particularly I expect to probably only be exchanging Christmas cards with. But that's not t1 related obviously. Just how I think it will be.

Words fail me.

 

[Juicyj]

I had gestational diabetes which went on to become t1 a couple of years later, would I of denied my child the chance of life had I thought there was any risk.. well life is all about risk every day we take them however children are our blessing and our gift in this life and I feel privileged to have this gift. I would always choose the gift of life and if there was the small risk my child develops t1 then they have the best support available to enable them to live the life they want to lead.

@ExtremelyW0rried it strikes me that you need to get some support for the sake of your children’s mental health, your role as a parent is to help them to develop the tools they need in life to become the best they can be, if you cannot do this for yourself then seek help so you are doing them a favour and addressing these issues you face.

 

[ExtremelyW0rried]

I had gestational diabetes which went on to become t1 a couple of years later, would I of denied my child the chance of life had I thought there was any risk.. well life is all about risk every day we take them however children are our blessing and our gift in this life and I feel privileged to have this gift. I would always choose the gift of life and if there was the small risk my child develops t1 then they have the best support available to enable them to live the life they want to lead.

@ExtremelyW0rried it strikes me that you need to get some support for the sake of your children’s mental health, your role as a parent is to help them to develop the tools they need in life to become the best they can be, if you cannot do this for yourself then seek help so you are doing them a favour and addressing these issues you face.

Yes and I will always help them whilst they are still children. I've just found that all they bring is worry, not their fault of course, and if they do have children of their own I want nothing to do with the grandchildren. I love my children but I hugely regret them too. If I'd known how much anxiety they bring I wouldn't have had them.
How can any parent ever feel any happinesss or relaxation ever again once they have children when the worry of something happening to them is so great? And imagine that worry with a t1 child, where they could easily go to bed at night and never wake up. I'd never sleep again.

So yes, by the time they are adults I will be done I think.

 

[Juicyj]

Hello @ExtremelyW0rried Do you not think some of what you feel is from just doing a parenting role without t1 ? All parents have worries about their kids that’s absolutely natural but taking that one step further means you are creating unnecessary anxiety for both yourself and them. I love spending time with mine and live in the moment as much as I can so try not to worry about the future and what may or may not happen, yes I do also have worries about the future but the more you think about the future the more you stop living in the present. Every post you have written that I have read expresses fears, worries and anxieties, all of which can be managed, getting some support would mean your quality of life could be improved, isn’t this an incentive for you to seek help ?

 

[Fairygodmother]

I’ll ask my children what they think of this view. There are plenty of things about humans they say they have cause to worry about such as overfishing, excess use of plastic, unkindness, cheating, overpopulation, extinctions, violence - I could go on. If they were concerned that they were born to a T1 mother then I think they’d be unlikely to tell me in case it were hurtful but I’ll ask them to be honest.

I’ve certainly never regretted having them. They’re lovely, and I know I’m biased but I think the world’s better, not worse, now they’re here.

Neither of them has T1 but if they had it wouldn’t have fundamentally changed their essential selves. It would have made their lives more complicated, have made some of the things they enjoy doing less easy, but they’d still have rich full lives.

As I said, I’ll ask them.

 

[ExtremelyW0rried]

Hello @ExtremelyW0rried Do you not think some of what you feel is from just doing a parenting role without t1 ? All parents have worries about their kids that’s absolutely natural but taking that one step further means you are creating unnecessary anxiety for both yourself and them. I love spending time with mine and live in the moment as much as I can so try not to worry about the future and what may or may not happen, yes I do also have worries about the future but the more you think about the future the more you stop living in the present. Every post you have written that I have read expresses fears, worries and anxieties, all of which can be managed, getting some support would mean your quality of life could be improved, isn’t this an incentive for you to seek help ?

Probably to a degree. I know all parents worry about their children. Personally I am finding motherhood a long joyless anxiety inducing slog. I feel very trapped by the children but know it would be even worse if anything happened to them. Somehow it is possible to wish they weren't here but also be devestated by the idea of them not being here.
I have nothing in common with my son at all. He has high functioning autism and he is very very hard work. He doesn't do down time or relaxing or occupying himself.
I haven't had any time away from my daughter since she was born over two years ago (apart from the odd hospital appointment) so have lost touch with all my friends since I don't go out anymore.

I just cannot imagine having to add t1 into the mix of all that too. Plus I just don't want them to suffer for years like I have. It is suffering when you are a child. I want them to be able to have a care free childhood without having to plan everything to the nth degree. To be able to go to university if they want to and go out and eat and drink with friends and not have to be the sober 'boring' one all the time who has to drive and look after everyone else. I want my daughter to be able to be excited about being pregnant instead of monitoring every blood sugar obsessively and worrying about stillbirth and birth deformaties. I just do not want this for them and perhaps when I had them I didn't realise quite how much I didn't want this for them. If I'd thought about it more and realised that for me having t1 is a life sentence and not something I would ever want to put people i love at risk of.
Unfortunately I have now and I will never forgive myself.

 

[SueJB]

Should people carrying the genes for red hair be advised not to have children? Red-haired people have a much higher risk of developing skin cancer, which will affect their entire life.

Just as sensible an argument as the OP.

I could maybe see the point if there was no treatment, and t1 was an automatic death sentence. We're lucky that is no longer the case.

I'm type 1 and red headed or was the latter not the former and I'm still positive.

 

[Fairygodmother]

Reading what you’ve just written makes me wonder if it’s not the whole mix of things that you’re dealing with, not just T1, that’s making you feel desperate. Your life seems currently to be a maelstrom of other people’s needs, as well as your own. Two year olds are precious, glorious, and exhausting! Add a son with autism to that, top it all with isolation and you have a situation that’s ripe for depression and burnout even without T1.

You don’t say how old your son is or whether he’s in education yet. If he is, then can you get to any mother and child groups near you with your daughter just to talk with others? I seem to remember from another post that you said most of your friends were working. Children’s playgrounds are good for chats with other mothers too, and fathers.

As @Juicyj said too, seek help! Talk to Your G.P. practice and see if they can find you some? Ask them if they know of any groups you could join? If your son’s at school ask the people there if they know how you could get some help?

It sounds as if you’re overwhelmed by everything. Of course your daughter would be able to go to to University if she develops T1, she’d be able to go out and eat with friends, be driven by someone else who stayed sober, travel, have fun, sometimes be stupid, marry, have children of her own, have a decent job . . . I did! So have many others.

 

[Japes]

On the T1 point of view, as my parent was diagnosed in his 60s, and now in my 50s, I'm in the process of being re-diagnosed (as my GP thinks I'm not T2 after all which I'm finding a blessed relief than the current state of affairs and it's most certainly not ruining my life) it wouldn't have been possible for him to be advised not to have any of his four children.

From a professional specialist educator's point of view, a number of parents have privately expressed similar views about their high functioning autistic children, however, it's always accompanied with a sense of loving their children, and whilst they would prefer their children, for their sakes, not to be autistic, they love and accept them as they are. I don't sense that with you which is sad for everyone.

From the point of view of a child who always felt out of place and not convinced of being wanted or loved for who they were, from a very young age, it's a horrid situation for both child and adult to find themselves in and affects both badly throughout life. Now, after much flipping hard work, I can accept the circumstances of little or no parental contact, and only the occasional message from the one sibling when she needs my help, but explaining to others this is my situation, it's how my life is, can be complicated! I rarely speak of it.

Please, please, get help and support. For all of it. For your sake, and your children's.

 

[enzina]

Well, my father had the same type of diabetes like i have. Back in the eighties they called it juvenile diabetes, so T1. He also developed it in his late forties, just like me. He died of another, not diabetic related illness a few years later.

Moderator edit to remove belittling comment

 

[Fairygodmother]

Just as a follow up to what I wrote earlier, the first three years of being a mother were the hardest. I had two children just 16 months apart - I reckoned that it’d be good to get the hard work of T1 pregnancy done and dusted with asap! And I wanted two, not one.

It was tough, I remember, as well as joyful. Lack of sleep’s a depressant. Not being able to complete a thought in my head let alone read a book was a real constraint. Getting one dressed while the other, just dressed, undressed herself again, was a short course in the trials of Prometheus. I gave up trying to tidy up and was suspicious of other people’s tidy houses, surely nothing was ever created in them, nothing ever happened. The only thing that raised my spirits was to get out and see other people, especially if they too had small children, toys all over the floor, piles of washing up, unironed clothes, dark shadows under their eyes and a need to sit down, drink tea and yawn.

If you can get through this bit it’ll only get better!

 

[Fairygodmother]

The other thing that helped was to get out to an evening class one evening a week while my husband stayed at home with the children. We didn’t have mobile phones back then so couldn’t be contacted. Leave your phone at home (let them know at the class that you’re T1 and what to do in case of hypo). Just two hours of sploshing paint on paper, forming something from clay, making a picture with collage, drawing a life model, screen printing, when you have to concentrate fully on something that’s not your daily life, is wonderfully restorative even if the final product of your two hours of sploshing, forming, printing, drawing is c***. Just don’t do anything that requires homework!

Can your husband have the children for one evening while you get out and out of yourself?

 

[Geordie_P]

Assuming this is all for real, I would have to say it doesn't really look like diabetes is the main issue here.
Is it possible the title could be changed to 'depression and type 1' or something like that because the question itself looks like an unhelpful diversion?

I definitely want the original poster to find the help she needs, and agree with Fairygodmother above and the other posters who are looking into ways to address personal issues and well-being. That looks like the way ahead.

 

[lucylocket61]

Your sons Aspergers/autism wasnt caused by T1. So even if you had not been diabetic, you would still have had him. You should have a support worker for your son, and on going back up and input from when he was diagnosed, any educational statement and whereever he goes during the day,

I cant see why you cant have any time for something for you while he is out during the day. You can get some free nursery care for your daughter as well, from whoever is involved in your sons care - sorry, cant find my words this morning.

I know quite a bit about AS in the UK.

 

[porl69]

Words totally fail me on this thread.

 

[JohnEGreen]

Brother in law T1 two adult children neither are T1 diabetics though oldest does have CF youngest does not it is not a forgone conclusion that children will be effected even in the case of CF where it is a one in four chance with every pregnancy.

Grandson's father's father and mother both T2 paternal grandfathers father and mother both T1 grandson not diabetic neither is his father or uncle.

My advise be grateful for your life and your children it's all you have the moments of joy happiness laughter and tears live it and allow them to live theirs.

And no I believe you are wrong in your question by all means inform but do not try to pressure or push people into making such a decision.

And please do seek help for your depression.

 

[LooperCat]

Please, get some help for your mental health x