but yea, i know what you mean about the chemicals! everyone's worried about our ozone and global temperature, when evidence of major pollution is right inside us, with the increase in disease.
I, myself, am worried about my daughter developing type I diabetes like me. I was told growing up that it took one genetic marker from each of your parents and even if a child had both markers it was still a slim chance, like winning a raffle prize you didn't really want. So let's see:
- My maternal grandmother had type I like me, but managed to survive to adulthood and have three children before dying of complications at the age of 42.
- My father had a first cousin with type I diabetes and his mother died from complications of lupus, also auto-immune related.
- My uncles on both sides have type II diabetes
- My mother has also been diagnosed with type II, sprue and hypo-thyroidism, also auto-immune related.
- I didn't find out until after my daughter was 18 months that my father in law and grandmother in law both have type II
I am relieved though, that diabetes is so much easier to manage even than when I was diagnosed at five back in 1982. I use a tiny little insulin pump that runs on triple A batteries and I can change the site often enough to avoid infection. I can count carbs instead of living on peanut butter crackers and raisins. And I managed to successfully have a child of my own, who suffered no complications from the pregnancy and by all accounts is perfectly healthy and "normal".
So my takeaway from ALL of this? You can't predict or plan for everything. I really wanted a child, because I love my husband and I love my grandmothers and my family and I really wanted to pass that on to a new generation. She reminds me so much of my grandparents and my mother and my husband and yet she's her own little wonderful person. Right now I'm just enjoying her as she is, thankful that she's healthy, but keeping an eye out for symptoms. When she's older I'll make sure she knows what to look for and to start getting her thyroid checked at 30 and to start looking out for type II diabetes when she's approaching forty.
Ultimately this is you and your husband's decision together. And it is pretty hard to make, but diabetes is no longer a death sentence or a prison sentence, if anything because I have to take better care of myself, I'm healthier than most of my peers.
I was told when my first child was born that he had a 6 % higher chance of getting diabetes that the general population. I don't know where that stat came from, but the OB is the one who told me. They did check his glucose immediately after he was born. We have two son's, who are now 24 and 22 years old and so far no diabetes for them. I don't know anyone in my family with diabetes either, no records of great grand parents having disease and I know my grandpa's didn't have it. My gramma's died in car accidents before I was born, without the d. Who knows?