I’m 24 and married with T1. My husband and I are thinking of starting to expand our family in about a year. I have heard many different things from different doctors and friends on how I should proceed. My A1c has been under control for about a year now and I have not had any major problems in about 2 years but I have heard from some that this is still not enough. I also hear that having a baby while diabetic is not a smart idea and i should look into other options. I need some advice from my fellow T1 community instead of people that “think” they know how to help me. I don’t really know anyone else that has T1 or had a child so i cannot go off of experiences I’ve seen. If I keep up my stats will I be ok to start trying in a year? Any advice or information helps. Thank you.
@Avillaness hi Ashley. first, please, pardon my opinion. if you control your blood sugar to the point of non detection, you have exactly the same issues with childbearing as any other woman in the world. it doesn’t guarantee success, but it does eliminate diabetes.
passing T1 to your kids is a gamble and t1 doesn’t typically follow family lines, last time I looked it was close to 100:1 against. meaning if you had 100 kids… likely one of them would be T1… don’t have 100 kids.
opinions are like “elbows” (<- I used a different word here) everyone has one.
here comes the advice: go on with your life, boldly. don’t apologize. seize the moment when one comes up or wave as it passes you by.
I couldn’t imagine my life without my child now., but kids are serious business, and it takes a lot… including courage.
Hi Ashley @Avillaness, another comment from the male portion of our species. Many years ago, childbearing for a woman with diabetes was considered "not-advisable’ but possible; actually more than 50 years ago it was an OG/GYN doctor who got me on the path to better diabetes management after I had ignored my care for ten years. One of the practices of this doctor was guiding women in their child bearing - and this was in the days when a ‘simple blood sugar test’ still took a day to process.
Today, with the awareness of good diabetes management techniques and the advancement in our tools, childbearing is only marginally more risk for a woman with diabetes as long as she is serious with her diabetes management. It is a known fact, that of all persons diagnosed with TypeOne Diabetes, at all ages, only have about a 10% chance of having a first degree blood relative with TypeOne Diabetes. That percentage is much higher amongst persons diagnosed with “Non-Autoimmune-Diabetes” in all its configurations.
A good place for information will be talking with or listening to Kerri Sparling, publisher of articles and diabetes speaker; she was diagnosed at age 6 and has [at least] two children. A link: https://sixuntilme.com/wp/
Best wishes for you, whatever you and your husband decide!
good story @Dennis, never heard that one before.
ditto on Kerri, she’s one of us, nice, smart, and reachable. she’s even a member here but not active recently @sixuntilme
It is a strange sounding story @Joe as to why I was seeing an OB/GYM specialist. I had met this doctor socially and had been to dinner and the opera with him, his wife [also a physician] and my fiancé. Mary, my fiancé, had worked for him for ten years since she graduated college, was huis secretary and managed the multi-physician practice. When we were getting our marriage license, a blood test was required and I hadn’t seen a doctor in years - he offered to do my blood testing under one condition, that I would take care of my diabetes [he said he didn’t want his dear friend burying a dead diabetic within a couple of years] and regularly see a GOOD doctor for diabetes care.
I agreed, he drew the blood and the next day he had an appointment made for me with the medical director of Joslin diabetes Clinic. The rest is history, the doctor welcomed me to Joslin and made me part of the wonderful care and diabetes research. I was called whenever something new needed human trials.
Hi Ashley!
I am 33 (diagnosed T1D at 9 years old) , married for 7 years, and for a very long time had the same questions that you have. Like you, for the last 1+ I have overhauled my diabetes management and we are trying now to conceive. Here is a link to the other thread I started that lists the book that really kicked my confidence level up for carrying a baby with T1D: Prenatal vitamins and DHA - Pregnancy - JDRF TypeOneNation Community Forum
Let me know if you read it!
Hello! This is my first post and I’m very excited to post a response to this question.
I was diagnosed when I was 19 years old and a sophomore in college. My husband and I got married when we were 24, tried to get pregnant in January 2013 (and succeeded), and welcomed our son Miles on September 23, 2013 (5 years ago today). He was 9 lbs 7 oz when he was born at 39w0d. My water broke on it’s own, and, with the help of an epidural I had him with absolutely no complications. My A1C before I got pregnant was 5.8, and got as low as 5.4 during the pregnancy. I was using double the amount of insulin by the time he was born, and I had gained ~50 lbs.
We got pregnant again in November 2014 and welcomed our daughter Hannah on July 31, 2015 at a whopping 9 lbs 4 oz. She was born at 38w5d and I was induced with her due to high blood pressure. Same thing as with my son, I had gained close to 50 lbs and kept very good control.
I wore my Minimed pump and Dexcom sensor the entire time during my pregnancy. I kept a pretty good diet, but if I wanted ice cream, I’d eat a little ice cream (which explains that 50 lb weight gain 
). If my blood sugar got high, I’d go walk around the block, or pace around the house.
Both of my kids are healthy and active. I read a book prior to getting pregnant that asked you some questions about when you were diagnosed, who in your family has T1D, etc and the response it told me was my kids had the same chance of getting T1D as any other kid born to a non-diabetic woman.
At the end of the day, I very strongly believe that diabetes will change you…but HOW it changes you is up to you. I have T1D, it does not have me!!
I forgot to say I was 29 when I had my son, and 31 when I had my daughter. My OBGYN and Endo both seemed happy when I said we were done after my daughter because your kids get bigger with each pregnancy, and your insulin needs increase so much. I was using close to 300 units in about 48 hours towards the end. I normally use about 90 units a day.
Another thing is you’ll be in and out of the doctor offices a lot between your regularly scheduled OB appointments, endo appointments every month, and a new-natal doctor for ultrasounds. I didn’t mind it as I got to see the baby on the screen more than other people did. We also did genetic tests during each pregnancy to be prepared had anything shown to be abnormal. Best of luck to you!!
Thank you all for your wonderful/ helpful stories and advice!! I understand everyone is different and I have my bad chances but I am gonna go ahead and keep up my management and we are to start trying in a year! Thank you all again!
Thank you so much for your story! You don’t understand how much this helped in making my decision to keep my management up to conceive in a year! Best of luck to you and your family❤️
Thank you for the link! Me and my husband read through it and it answered a lot of questions we had!
Thank you so much for the information it really helped us reach our decision to continue on!
I have 3 kids I’m going to be 28 this month I had my first child at the age of 19 my blood wasnt the best but once I got pregnant it was very well controlled. Honestly I was always told I shouldn’t have kids if my blood wasnt good but I tend to do what I want and now I have 3 beautiful children