Switching lanes

Eight weeks into my pregnancy, a phone call from the doctor’s office made my blood run cold.

“Your blood sugar is very, very high,” said the nurse in her Jamaican accent. “It is very bad for the baby.”

“What does that mean, ‘very bad for the baby?’” I asked.

“It’s very bad,” she answered, providing no other guidance.

It was late Friday afternoon. I had nowhere to turn and she had no other answers. The doctor would be in on Monday. Until then, “take good care of yourself,” she said.

So began the longest weekend of my life. It continued into the longest 16 weeks of my life, during which time we had no idea whether eight weeks of cooking in very high blood sugars had done something terrible to the sweet baby girl growing in my uterus.

When we finally learned that the sugars had simply made her sweeter, the relief caused Husband and me to drop to the curb in the parking lot of the hospital and cry.

Being diagnosed with a disease when you’re pregnant brings a terror you can’t imagine. Knowing that your physical failing could doom another being to a lesser life is a burden I can‘t describe. Seven years later, I can still conjure the feeling in its full glory.

Looking back, though, I realize that while the risk to our daughter definitely wasn’t worth it, being diagnosed while pregnant carries a bit of a silver lining. Learning to manage a disease so that you don’t kill your child makes you learn fast and learn well.

Again, seven years later, the results are manifest. My endocrinologist calls me the kind of patient that would put him out of business. He doesn’t have much of a sense of humor, so I feel pretty certain he’s not joking.

Truth is, I’ve been a damn good diabetic for all the days of the disease. I’ve taken all of my meds, even when I didn't want to. I've pricked my finger a gazillion times and changed my diet to meet my blood sugar fluctuations. I’ve said no to things I wanted — not every time, but most times. And I’ve recalculated my life to meet the disease head-on.

As I sit here today, two weeks after surgery, it’s beginning to sink in that I won’t have to do that anymore. I’ll have to be a different kind of careful, sure. The kind that every healthy person is.

But I won’t have to turn my family around from our pursuit of a weekend breakfast meal because I forgot to do my shot. Again. And I won’t have to worry whether I have all my meds before I board the plane. And I can let myself think about watching my Urchin live out her dreams.

Awesome as it sounds — don’t get me wrong, it sounds terrifically awesome — it’s going to take some getting used to.

Happy Thursday, friends.