Mommy Guilt

I am shocked at how often "mommy guilt", tries to rear it's ugly head. As if we don't have enough to worry about with our day to day activities, we have the guilt we place on ourselves as mothers to deal with.

I was thinking today, about M. I was thinking back to the few months leading up to his diagnosis. It was a nightmare. His behavior was unbearable. He would throw fits, the likes of which I'd never seen nor dealt with. I remember crying in my mother in laws bedroom one evening, because I was convinced I had failed as a parent and that his behavior would never change. The next day he'd lay...all day. He'd just lay there. He would lay on the floor and push his little trains back and forth. He'd sleep and lay. That was about it.

I struggled to not compare him with his brother...after all, each kid is different, but their activity levels were so drastically different, it made it difficult for the two of them to play together. S would want to run and jump, M...not so much.

He was 3...and so horribly thin. He stopped eating and when he would eat, he'd only want carbohydrate rich food. We got to the point, that we no longer let him eat unless he'd eat something healthy. We stopped letting him drink with meals, because he'd guzzle his drinks and then not eat.

I type those words with a pit in my stomach. It's been well over a year since he was diagnosed...a year and a half. It breaks my heart to think how he must have been feeling. He had to have been miserable. He was only asking for what his body was telling him he had to have at that point.

I remember going to an amusement park with some friends right after M's 4th birthday. His mood was all over the place. It was hot that day...unseasonably hot in fact. M was so tired, he rode in the wagon most of the day. He would drink full bottles of water and within thirty minutes ask for more. I eventually stopped giving him so much, because he just kept having to go potty. I could just kick myself now!

Not long after that the weight loss that he'd experienced had become quite evident and I was at my wits end with him. His behavior, refusal to eat, extreme bed wetting...

Then, I got my answer. It was the answer I thought was coming, but the one I hoped was untrue.

I know, that at the time, I was doing what I thought was right as a parent, but I still feel horrible about the added pain I was putting him through...ugghhh...mommy guilt at it's finest.

Praise the Lord, M, is thriving now. His insulin pump has been a wonderful change to our life and has made the last year a much smoother ride!

I just recently read about a new transplant they can do called Islet. It's fascinating. They take the islet cells from the pancreas of a deceased person and place them in the liver of the diabetic patient...over time, the new cells repair the pancreas and the pancreas begins producing insulin....amazing!