Tag: Gestational Diabetes

Confusing An Embryo With a Live Baby

I think a lot of the emotion on the pro-Life side of things comes from misinterpreting an embryo by thinking of a live baby. Our frozens from the medical assistance we received to conceive my oldest son didn’t take when we tried for a second child. We had frozens leftover from our second attempt that did succeed but we knew that we had taken an unacceptable risk with my pregnancy and our son’s well being with that effort (if we had known, we would not have even tried but I am forever grateful that we did). Not wanting to simply dispose of these frozens, we did donate them to a couple trying to conceive. After initially receiving the good news of a pregnancy, that hoped for event subsequently failed to progress. I am still glad that we chose to give these frozens a chance.

For many years, it seemed that we had been lucky with our youngest son as there were no unfortunate effects. Then, around late 2014, I realized that he couldn’t see at a distance very well. An eye exam resulted in glasses. Due to the pandemic, follow-ups with his eye doctor were delayed. In that intervening time, his eyesight worsened significantly and an option that might have been available as a corrective could not be employed due to his now age of 17 (he actually was glad and I was glad for him – he didn’t want to do that one). Now, he does eye drops before sleep to hopefully hold the line on any more regression of his eyesight worsening.

Though my husband had tended to blame my son’s love of computer games and Discord relationships, in researching the issue, that potential cause has never been proven. What has turned up in studies is a statistical effect from gestational diabetes. Due to my age at his conception, a condition that I had only experienced late in the previous pregnancy, emerged as early (or even earlier, unknown to us) as 6 weeks gestation. It took insulin and Metformin both to control it and I still ended up on bedrest for 6 weeks as he was so large my womb could hardly tolerate it and threatened to deliver early.

I have admitted to my son my probable complicity in his condition. He has been very kind about it, acknowledging that I did not intentionally damage him. I do feel responsibility regardless. I share my story because although medical science has made it possible for women of an advanced age to conceive and successfully carry a pregnancy, better to have your children when you are still young enough to do so without extraordinary measures. My son has always felt like my reward – my peacemaker (a story on CD told in song by Joanne Shenandoah that I listened to in the first days of his conception). He is the sweetest son and I am glad he is in our lives.

Baby Remains In Mother

No matter what happens to separate you, your baby becomes a physical part of you always. I find this knowledge beautiful.

While pregnant, the cells of the baby migrate into the mother’s bloodstream and then, circle back into the baby. It’s called “fetal-maternal microchimerism” – the presence of a small number of cells that are genetically proven to have originated in another individual. Not directly originating in the mother.

For 41 weeks during pregnancy, these cells circulate and move, backwards and forwards. After a baby is born, many of these cells will stay in the mother’s body, leaving a permanent imprint in the mother’s tissues, bones, brain, and skin. Every child a mother has will leave it’s imprint in her body.

Studies have shown, cells from a fetus could be still found in a mother’s brain, even 18 years after the baby was no longer present in her. Even if a pregnancy doesn’t go to term or the mother has an abortion, these cells are still present in her bloodstream.

A mother’s body is designed to protect her developing baby, regardless of the physical cost to her personally. This effect goes both ways, the baby’s cells help repair the mother, while the mother’s body builds the baby. If a mother’s heart is injured, fetal cells rush in and change into different types of cells to assist in mending her heart. It is known that sometimes a mother’s illness will vanish during pregnancy.

This is all part of nature’s plan that allows a baby to develop safely and survive.

And those crazy cravings you have while pregnant ? What were you nutritionally deficient in, to make your baby cause you to want to eat that ? I had gestational diabetes with my two late-life pregnancies. The fetus was craving sugar and that made it difficult to control my blood glucose. I found it surprising how the body inside my body could take over control.

So, if you have intuitively felt your child, even when they are not physically present, that is because they are still in you. Science has found this much proof that this is a reality. A mother carries remnants of her child within her for years, maybe forever, after they are no longer within the mother’s body.