I read a line of post recently that was heart breaking.
“We have a child recently diagnosed with diabetes and I was wondering if those who have a child with diabetes, how much it played a role in having any more children?”
To begin with; in no way, shape, or form will I attempt to make any decision on what is right and what is wrong in this instance and neither should anyone else. How personal a decision to make.
There are so many disease states out there where genetics play such a role in this decision process. I could state all sorts of numbers with all sorts of diseases but that is not my purpose here; but I think this is a heart-wrenching-call on so many young couples that I would seek the input of others.
Keep the post to YOUR experience and HOW you came to the decision. Perhaps we can help even one person in this oh-so-personal-process. I will say this about our situation being well after the fact.
Having our second child diagnosed at age 13 in 2009 (our youngest of 3); we are not sorry about that decision on bringing another child into this world after diagnosis. Even now that Rob has been diagnosed, angry as we are/were; we also know that life is life and there is a whole long list of things that could happen with/to our kids in their lifetime. We could not and do not live life that way.
This was OUR decision and clearly yours may/can be different.
Rob means the world to us and his smarts, business sense, loyalty, and sense of humor are traits this world needs, and what we love so much about him. Does he want diabetes; of course not. And it is no picnic to manage this day in and day out.
Perhaps we are asking the wrong people. Perhaps it is not the parents alone where we should be seeking this answer. I REALLY SEEK input from those people who have diabetes. Perhaps they can give incredible insight to the answer parents seek. It is a really tough question: If you have diabetes, do you wish you were never born?
No one would want anything to happen to their children; should it stop you if the odds are increased by a common denominator? Only you and your spouse/partner can answer that question. I wish you luck in your search and hopefully some comments added here can give you food for thought.
I am a diabetes dad.
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