The Guilt

I am a "by the book" kind of mom. If the rule says, "no peanut butter until the age of 2 (age 3 if history of allergies)," then the kids didn't get peanut butter until the age of 2- and not a day earlier. I breast fed, and always did "back to sleep." There were no blankets and pillows in the bed, never put the children around second-hand smoke, cut grapes and hot dogs into microscopic pieces, took a CPR and first aid course, and blah, blah, blah. Some people may think that it's unnecessary to follow arbitrary rules, but I need to do it. I need to know that I did everything within my ability to keep the kids safe and healthy. But for awhile, I thought that I gave Ashton diabetes.

I had always had problems with my periods, but went on a birth control pill as a teenager and that really seemed to help. I went off the pill 3 months before Chadd and I got married (that's another rule: be off the pill at least 3 months before attempting to get pregnant.) We were ready to start our family. By the time our wedding rolled around, I was already having problems. It took another year for me to get a diagnosis.

I was diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). PCOS occurs in about 10% of women of childbearing age. There are many symptoms of PCOS, not all of the women get the same ones, here are the ones I was fortunate enough to have:

• amenorrhea (complete loss of period)
• infertility (due to amenorrhea)
• rapid weight gain/obesity (usually carrying the weight around the waist)
• acne
• hirsutism (increased hair growth)
• high cholesterol
• anxiety/depression

PCOS messes with a woman's hormones. A typical woman with PCOS cannot process insulin, which gets stored up in the body, and that extra insulin appears to produce excess androgen (a mostly male hormone), and that gives all the wonderful symptoms like gaining weight like a guy (all around the gut-think "beer belly").

I was finally diagnosed with PCOS and I started fertility treatments. After awhile I couldn't take it anymore. I wasn't getting pregnant and I hated myself; I couldn't look in the mirror and I was completely miserable. We decided to stop trying to get pregnant and just treat the PCOS. My primary care physician referred me to an endocrinologist who put me on Metformin (birth control pills are a long term treatment, which is why I didn't know I had PCOS in the first place). Metformin is used to treat Type 2 diabetes, because it helps the body regulate its insulin. Thus, it helped me regulate my insulin, and then all of the other symptoms started to reverse. After 2 months of Metformin, I started to lose weight and my acne started to clear up. After 3 months I was pregnant!

Fast forward to June 16, 2005: We were in the hospital, it was the middle of the night, and the doctor was in the room checking on Ashton, there were nurses everywhere, and I was a wreck because I thought that I gave this disease to my son. I told the doctor that I was on metformin when I got pregnant (remember- it's a drug that treats insulin resistance) and I wanted to know if I was the cause of his newly diagnosed disease. He assured me that I was not and we spent the next few days learning about possible causes for the disease (the medical community knows that this is an autoimmune disease, they just don't know what actually causes the body to attack itself).

Still, when it was time for me to stop the birth control pill and go on the metformin to get pregnant with Lorelei, I was still apprehensive. But I followed all the rules: took my vitamins, made all my doctor appointments, and nursed.