Determination, thy name is infertility

Well, you all are the perfect antidote to my stupid doctor! If ever I start to doubt that I can do this, all I have to do is go back to the comments on my last post to get re-energized.

I’ve been thinking about my doctor, and why she is (in my mind, anyway) so relentlessly negative. I believe she would say that she is trying to help me be realistic. What she doesn’t realize is how determined an infertile woman can be to get pregnant. I see my diabetes as my main obstacle now. And the way to control the diabetes is to eat right, exercise and get fit. Once I do that, I can move on to the next step of actually trying to conceive again. And I want to get to that next step with every fiber of my being.

My guess is that she typically deals with people who are more resistant to making changes than I am. I perfectly prepared to eat 1,200-1,500 calories a day, exercise 5-6 days per week and severely limit sweets and junk food for the rest of my life, for a few reasons.

First off, as I may have mentioned before, I want to have a baby. Hell, I want to have more than one baby, and I’m 35 years old, so time, she is a wastin’. I can’t afford to sit around being in denial and not dealing with this problem. My second reason is also infertility-related, in a way. There are so many terrible complications that can happen to you if you don’t manage this disease properly. And just my intensive interaction with the medical profession for my infertility has been enough to make me less than interested in having any preventable medical interactions in the future. I’ve had really nice doctors, but given a choice, I’ll skip the hours spent in waiting rooms and then again on the examining table, the endless labwork, the constant wrangling with the insurance companies over bills, the bruises, the tests and so on and so on.

Also, while many people with diabetes seem to believe that complications won’t happen to them, I don’t feel that way at all. Infertility happened to me. Why wouldn’t complications from diabetes?

And finally, I’ve seen the results of poorly managed diabetes firsthand. I saw my dad in the emergency room, incoherent and drifting in and out of consciousness with a blood sugar over 700. I saw him in the ICU on IV’s and machines for two days while his body recovered. No thank you. That is not going to be my life.

I’ve come up with a plan for dealing with Dr. Negativo. I spent Wednesday evening (after working out and eating my healthy dinner) constructing a spreadsheet to track my blood sugar levels, my food consumption and my exercise. I am the queen of spreadsheets, so believe me when I tell you that this sucker is comprehensive. I’m also going to incorporate an “inches lost” section, after several people suggested tracking inches instead of weight loss as a way of measuring my progress. I have to go get a soft tape measure before I can add that one though. And if my next appointment doesn’t go more smoothly, I am going to see if I can switch to another doctor in the same practice.