Dr Ashley Ng

When I was in high school, my idea of a perfect life was to have a steady job somewhere and a family with two to three kids. I saw myself as a family focused person and couldn’t imagine being in position where my job and my identity would be closely intertwined. As the years went by, so did the years of study (and accompanying degrees) and ambition to climb the career ladder.

Sure, having children was something that still bubbled away at the back of my mind. I had no shortage of people around me reminding me of this. But there was always something else I wanted to do to “line my ducks in a row” before we got to that stage and I kept saying to myself that I still had time on my side. Besides, I didn’t feel ready to be a mum yet, I selfishly still enjoying life without having the responsibility to care for a tiny human.

2019 ended up being a massive year of “ticking off” the life milestones. It wasn’t long before my endo sat me down to have another discussion about planning for pregnancy. Because with diabetes, there is little in life you want to leave unplanned. I knew this was on the cards and it was one the reasons I had been trying to get on top of my diabetes management and my A1c within range over the past year. Except this time round, I left the appointment with an actual referral to a pre-pregnancy clinic.

I was a ball of mixed motions when my first appointment came round. There were nerves, excitement, trepidation and gratefulness for being accepted into the clinic in the first place. We went through all the usual information around diabetes and pregnancy; the risks involved (especially with diabetes), how the care process works and what the next steps were.

The endo I spoke with was beyond lovely to put my worries at ease and made me feel like I would be coming on board a very supportive team if/when I fell pregnant. I left the clinic with a long list of bloodwork to do, things to read (which I think are still sitting in my bag untouched), and action items to complete.

Everything seemed to be tracking well and we were given the official green light to start trying. The only thing that was odd was my thyroid function tests. It seemed to be jumping all over the place and my endo(s) couldn’t figure out why. My usual endo had put it down to the different pathology labs’ interpretation and ordered a repeat of the tests for my next appointment. Then my sugars started to play up and I thought it was because of my thyroid and stress at work.

Until my period tracker said that I was late…but it must be from the stress at work…

Three days later I woke up in the middle of the night (okay about 4am…) needing to pee. Then suddenly I thought “what if…”

Even though we had been trying for months, we had started to become a bit blasé about the whole “start a family” thing since nothing had happened so far.

But what if…

To be continued…