Heavy heart.

Recovery time for Jorge until the diabetes went away: 3 weeks. 

Recovery time for Alex until the diabetes went away: 6 weeks.  

"Rachel, after one of these pregnancies your going to end up keeping this illness.  And there is a high chance it will be insulin dependent too.  Not to mention what it is doing to your body, that we don't know about yet, while pregnant." -quote from my endocrinologist. 

Then there is research like this that shows that:

"The 8-year postpartum diabetes risk was 52.7% (130 diabetic cases of 302)" and sadly, " Risk was increased in women with autoantibodies to GAD and/or insulinoma antigen-2 (adjusted hazard ratio 4.1; P < style="font-weight:bold;">women who required insulin during pregnancy (4.7; P <>30 kg/m2 (1.5; P = 0.04), and women with more than two prior pregnancies (2.5; P = 0.02). Women without these risk factors had a postpartum diabetes risk of 14% by 8 years, and risk rose incrementally to 96% by 8 years in autoantibody-positive women."

So that pretty much sums up..me!  The risk is great.  So whats the big deal about having diabetes with insulin dependence for the rest of your adult life?  Well, there are lot's of risks to having diabetes : such as blindness, heart disease, nerve disease and kidney disease.  

My point in all this is to say that I want to be here for my children.  I want to be healthy and alive for as long as possible.  And with each pregnancy I take the risk of increasing my chances of keeping diabetes.  Not only that, but I can not take the risk of keeping the diabetes and then getting pregnant again.  There are more risks associated with that decision than would be worth the risk to my body.  

All this has led Jorge and I to decide that Eva will be our last "natural" child.  Through lots of prayer we have decided that I am going to get a tubal ligation.  Well, actually Jorge feels that he would rather get "tied" because he isn't so sure about the hormonal risks associated with a tubal.  Im convinced that I would rather be the one to get the surgery.  Anyway, this is a painful decision for me to make.  But not one that I feel guilty about.  I know what it's like to grow up without a mom because of medical issues that took her to early (she too was told not to have anymore children..then got preggers with me.  11 years later she died).  And I do not want to even travel remotely close to that road.  I know the Lord is in control of the number of days I have.  I just want to make the best decision for ME and for the circumstances.  

Who knows why I am sharing this on the world wide web.  I guess because I just wanted to vent.  Its a sad thought.  No more birth.  But I can't wait, should the Lord allow, for us to bless another little baby into our family that would otherwise not have one (through adoption).  Just because I may not birth them doesn't mean I can't still get our soccer team!  lol. 

So I would ask for you to pray specifically that God would see fit to keep me from postpartum diabetes.  That my numbers would return to normal quicker than they had with the boys.  God's will be done for sure, but if possible that that cup would pass from me.