oh baby

Just today, I’ve finished a post I had in my drafts, wrote a whole other post, and now I’m working on a third post. Tumblr really is my therapy and my journal. I guess I had a lot I needed to get off my chest today.

In my last post, I talked about feeling left behind because my 2 best friends got pregnant within a month of each other and now they’re moms to toddlers. Here’s the backstory.

Before the pandemic, we would get together for dinner once a month if we could. November 2019, Ashli broke the news to me that she was pregnant. Rissa had already known, but Ashli told me at dinner. A few weeks later, I get a frantic call from Rissa that she thought she was pregnant and she was scared to take a test. She eventually took one, and she told Ashli that it was positive, and later on, she told me. So now, my two best friends were pregnant. I had an IUD in. We always joked about getting pregnant together. It wasn’t meant to be for me though.

I live with my boyfriend. We’ve lived together for 3 years, been together for 4. Originally, he moved to PA from DC and transferred his job at Uhaul to a location near our apartment. After a few months working there, he decided to go back to school. He worked out a deal with his dad that his dad would pay his living expenses and tuition so that he could focus on his degree and not have to worry about a job. He is supposed to graduate this May. 

When we found out that my friends were pregnant, we talked about trying. He was in his third year of his undergrad degree. If we had been successful at that time, he would have had one more year in his degree to complete after I gave birth. He saw how much I wanted to be pregnant too and he’s known that I’ve wanted a baby for a while, so he was on board to try the next month after we found out Rissa was pregnant. That was January 2020. Early in the month, I got my IUD taken out. A few days after I got it out, he let me know that he wasn’t ready and that he wanted to finish his degree before we try. I was absolutely destroyed. I eventually made peace with the decision and we’ve been very conscious of safe sex because I refused to go back on birth control. BC has messed up my hormones and cycle, so I wanted to be off it to see if my cycle regulated itself. Spoiler alert: it has. I now track my cycle each month and we use condoms when I’m ovulating. We’ve been at the point where we’re ready to say, if it happens, it happens. But there have been some outside factors.

My best friends were both engaged. Rissa’s wedding was this past September. I didn’t want to be pregnant for her wedding because I didn’t want to miss out on the drinking fun as her MOH. Ashli is getting married next August. If I get pregnant now, I’ll be very pregnant and ready to pop by her wedding date. Since I’m also in her wedding party, I can’t risk that. So now, Liam and I are at the point where it’s ok with us if I get pregnant because by the time I give birth, he’ll have his degree and hopefully a job and be set. However, we still can’t because of the upcoming events. 

Liam has been very adamant about wanting to be set with life and a job and everything before we try, but I just can’t help but feel like every time someone I know announces a pregnancy, it’s bittersweet to me. I’m so happy for everyone else, but I’m so ready for it to be my turn. I almost want to ask myself, if they can do it, why can’t I? But that’s not a fair question. I love Liam, I love his dedication to getting it right for us, and I have never once wanted to make him feel pressured to do anything. I’m just sad about what I’m missing out on. I have always wanted to be a mother. I love babies and kids. I just have to be patient because my time is coming.

other life things

I just posted an update post on my diabetes, but there is so much more happening in my life that I just need to get off my chest. 

I don’t know if this is just my mental issues showing up, but I feel so overlooked. I guess one of the hardest life lessons I’ve ever learned is that people choose who they care about and sometimes you’re just way down on that list even if you have that person higher up on your list. These past few years, it has felt like I’ve slipped further and further down people’s lists though.

My boyfriend is in undergrad. He’s an older student, so he’s been working very hard to get the most out of his degree. We live together, but sometimes it would feel like we just coexisted in the space. We’ve had a few arguments and conversations about this, and he has promised me to try and put me first more. I don’t want to distract him from his studies, but sometimes I just need more.  He’s number one on my list and I’ve felt like I bounce in and out of number one on his list, behind his school work. I know he’s going through this program so he can better himself for me and our relationship, but it sucks when you’re down in the trenches. We’re working on it and communicating more. We’re doing well now, but this is just one example where I felt this way.

My two closest friends got pregnant back to back. They were also engaged while they were pregnant, and one just got married almost 2 months ago. I was MOH in that wedding, and I’m a bridesmaid in my other friend’s wedding next year. Both of their babies are over a year old. They were pregnant in the beginning of the pandemic, so I didn’t get to see them throughout their pregnancies. One of them didn’t even get to have a baby shower. I wasn’t able to visit them in the hospital after they gave birth. I wasn’t able to hold their babies for a few weeks. I was gutted through all of this. I didn’t get to be involved in any of their new family, and with the pandemic, I didn’t get to see them as much as I would have wanted. So it’s started to feel like I’m just an outsider to them. This stupid pandemic has closed our social circle, and it feels like any of us only spend time with our immediate family. I want to be around them more and spend time with their kids more, but I don’t feel as welcome as I used to. I know I can count on them when I need them, but I don’t feel like part of their daily lives anymore.

Another facet of that is that they can bond over being a mother. I was given hope after I found out that they were pregnant that I could try to become pregnant too. Things didn’t work out (not because I couldn’t get pregnant, but because we decided not to try- the timing wasn’t right), and I was devastated. Unrealistically, I hoped that I would be able to be around their kids more to fill the void left by the devastation of not being able to get pregnant when they were. But as I said before, COVID messed that up. Anyway, here I am. Auntie Chelsea. No kids of her own. Surrounded by mothers. My friends have changed (in a good way), but I feel left behind. They get to bond over their babies. I just get to watch and smile at their stories. They worry over their babies and comfort each other. I feel like I have nothing to contribute because why would they listen to someone who doesn’t have a child and hasn’t been through it? We have two other friends who have children as well, and I feel the same way with them. Left behind because I’m not a mother. I feel like I need to have a whole separate post about my feelings about pregnancy and babies, so keep an eye out for that. 

Feeling left out and overlooked is a very hard feeling to work with. Would I be bothering them if I tried to address it and asked for more time to spend with them? Have things changed permanently and this is just how it’s going to be for the rest of our lives? Should I just give up on the idea of being friends in person? Is this a product of the pandemic or is it a product of cell phones? It’s so easy to just text someone, so is that why people don’t hang out in person as much anymore? I’ve been able to communicate with Liam, but I miss spending time with my friends, laughing so hard our stomachs hurt and the only sounds we make are high pitched seal noises. I had a glimpse of it during my friend’s bachelorette party, but I guess I would like it to be a more frequent thing. How do I make that happen if I don’t feel like they want to spend that kind of time with me anymore?

years later...

I haven’t written on here in a very long time, but there are some things I have to get off my chest. So, I’m throwing it all into the tumblr universe where it’ll probably get lost in the endless streams of posts. Here goes....

Last time I wrote, I was just about to turn 24 and I was diagnosed with diabetes. At that time, I had more testing to get done to figure out the type and a game plan. God, so much has happened since then. It’s been 3 years since my diagnosis. I’m now 27, and having a real hard time.

After the additional tests, my doctor informed me that it was Type 2. And I also had a fatty liver. The game plan was for me to start a medication, work out, eat healthy, and lose some weight. I tried. I really did. I’m not the best at taking daily medication- hence why I had to change my birth control to an IUD when I got together with Liam. I still tried to remember to take the medicine every day, but missed some days. Also in this time, I started to drive for Uber so I could afford a personal trainer. Since college, I’ve tried to workout at local gyms, but I couldn’t get into a routine and couldn’t figure out an effective way to workout on my own. In college, I would go to strength and conditioning when I played softball. I knew that having a professional making me do exercises and pushing me to work hard was the most effective thing for me. I decided that a personal trainer would be the way to get started in a workout program, then I could take what we were doing and replicate it at a normal gym. I saw my trainer for 3ish months. As much as I hated some of the things I had to do, I loved working out there. Unfortunately, it was still too expensive, even with the supplemental income from driving Uber. Eventually, driving for Uber became too taxing on me as well. I stopped going to the trainer and got a membership with Liam to the local YMCA. That didn’t last long either. We cancelled our membership because we stopped going. I stayed away from the gym for a while, but eventually signed up for Planet Fitness again. I went a couple of times over this past summer, but with COVID, I didn’t want to workout in a mask. I’m fully vaccinated, but the Delta variant and other spikes scared me away from the gym again. I haven’t worked out in months.

As I said before, I’m really bad with taking medication daily. I have a real concern that this issue is PTSD from a time in my life that I really don’t like to think about. I wasn’t addicted to pills or anything that crazy. I was just manipulated and degraded into taking a medicine that I really didn’t want to. This happened at a time in my life where I was at my heaviest and eating worse than I ever had. My sophomore year in college, I met a guy. I ended up losing my v card to him which sent us on a years long abusive, manipulative, and toxic on/off relationship. I was convinced I loved him and he loved me but that he had issues that if I could just help him through, then we would be together and we would be happy. Well, he was a drug addict, an alcoholic, and a serial cheater. This is such a cliché trope, and I’m disgusted that I let it go on for so long. But when you’re almost 250 pounds and a guy who said he loved you and was the first guy you had sex with, still wants you, even if it’s just for the control and the game, you stick around. I loved this guy. I loved his family. Even when our relationship was “off”, I was over his house all the time. I bonded with his family so much that they were convinced that I was the “it” girl for him. They wanted us to stay together. When I first met him and was introduced to his family, I was still relatively in shape from playing softball. I gave softball up soon after meeting him, and that’s when my health declined and I put on the pounds. So he met me when I was lighter, and watched me gain weight. Can you see where this is going? Eventually, we got to a place where I wanted to be together, but one of the things he said to me was that he would consider it if I lost weight. Why didn’t I run screaming as soon as he said that? I was convinced he was it and I was in love and I had NO sense of self worth at this point in my life. I wanted to do what I could to keep him. (God, I am gagging at my younger self just thinking about all of this years later). Since I was so close with his mom, we had many conversations revolving around my weight and how I wanted to get rid of it and be healthier. She mentioned that she had a coworker who lost a ton of weight from a medication that a doctor prescribed. She offered to take me to the doctor and pay for the first month’s prescription. So to the doctor we went. I was desperate to lose weight and this sounded really easy. Well, as I am sure you can tell by now, everything about that time was fucked up. The doctor took my vitals and prescribed the medication, but here’s the kicker- they didn’t send me to a pharmacist to pick it up. They only gave out the prescription in office. I wish I could remember the name of the medicine so I can look it up again, but I was freaked out by this point. However, the desperate girl that I was, I took the medication. Just thinking back to how I felt on that medicine scares me so much right now. I was lightheaded, dazed, spaced out, and more. I felt so off from that medication, I quit taking it after a week or two and I told the guy and his mom that I would never take it again because of how it made me feel. 

Eventually, I wised up and cut that guy out of my life for good. It took way too long after that incident, but I did it. I’m still fighting the lingering baggage from that train wreck. I’m in a very healthy relationship right now, so I’ve been able to address the baggage from the relationship side with the support from Liam. I still haven’t been able to work through the baggage I earned from the whole doctor saga. To this day, I hate taking medicine, even ibuprofen. I haven’t taken my diabetes medicine in well over a year. I ignore all phone calls from my doctor’s office because they’re trying to get me back in to do bloodwork and assess where I’m at with my disease. I’m terrified to do that because I know my A1c is still too high and I don’t think I can handle them lecturing me. I’m getting to the point though where I’m terrified that if I don’t do anything, I will die. Diabetes is no joke. So how the hell do I get past my fear of doctors and medicine? Everyone that knows about my diabetes has told me at some point that I need to do something. They just don’t understand that I know that, but I have a mental block. I have waves where I think I can get over it because I know I’m probably getting to dire times, but then the block expands to twice it’s size and all of a sudden I can’t get over the hurdle anymore. 

This post is long enough, so I’m going to stop here. But this is where I’m at currently- terrified of the doctor and the medicine they want me on, terrified that I’m going to have to start shooting myself with insulin, terrified that maybe I’m too late for everything, and terrified that I can’t get over myself to work on my health.

introduction.

I was recently diagnosed with diabetes. There are still a lot of unknowns. We don’t know what type, late onset type 1, or type 2. We don’t know the cause. My liver could have a condition that caused it. I have more tests coming up in the next week to get some answers. I’m starting this blog because I’m terrified. I have a lot of thoughts and concerns and feelings about being diagnosed as a diabetic, so I decided to write them down and get them in front of me so I can make peace with what’s going on in my body. I don’t expect many, if any people to read this (besides my boyfriend lol, hi Liam love you <3), but I want to start with a summary of my life up until this point. 

Born September 5th 1994, I turn 24 in less than a week. I’ve always been overweight. My memories of my doctor’s appointments always revolve around the doctor saying I needed to lose weight. Through 8th grade, I played soccer and softball. I played basketball for a few years as well, but gave that up early. I hated running suicides (and running in general). I was a goalie and defender in soccer. Those positions didn’t involve as much running as a forward or midfielder. Entering high school, the rumor was that you had to run a sub-8 minute mile to make the varsity soccer team. NO THANKS. I gave up soccer after my 8th grade season for that reason alone (kind of a running theme, pun intended).  I continued to play softball through high school. The team was not the best. When you have t-shirts that say “Winning isn’t everything”, that’s a definite hint that you won’t be winning any state titles anytime soon. Given the nature of the softball program, it’s safe to say that I was safe from a vigorous workout in practices. These sports were the extent of my working out in my childhood. I never did physical activity outside of practices & games. I also was really lazy and would come up with excuses to get out of things I didn’t want to do in practices like long runs. I convinced myself that I was an athlete and I was burning all of these calories so I could eat anything I wanted. And, boy, did I eat. I would always have a huge snack/meal right after school & I would sneak food whenever I could. I never ate healthy snacks though. We would have junk food in the house and that would be my go-to. So not only was I eating a lot, I was eating junk, and I was barely working out to counter the empty calories I ate.

I always wanted to play softball in college. I didn’t know the recruitment process, and my high school coach told me that I wasn’t good enough to play in college, so by the time I graduated, I had no plans for continuing to play. Eventually, the spring/summer before I went away to college, I got in touch with the coach at the college I planned on attending. I ended up trying out as a walk-on. There weren’t a lot of girls vying for spots on the team, so I wound up on the roster. Little did I know that playing in college included strength & conditioning sessions outside of practices. At this point, I had never been in a gym, let alone lifted weights. My first workout started with being chewed out by the s&c coach for not doing the summer workout, that I had no idea existed. Then, I blacked out attempting planks on a bench with a yoga ball. I was chewed out again for not properly nourishing my body. Todd, the s&c coach, asked what I had for breakfast. I said a pop tart. I had just bought a huge pack of pop tarts from Walmart & I was excited because they were a quick, tasty breakfast that I got for relatively cheap. Todd pretty much banned me from eating the pop tarts that I had just bought because they were just sugar & empty calories. What a change...

Fast forward two years, I was ending my sophomore year of college. I had lost some weight that I gained between my senior year of high school & freshman year of college. I was at a steady weight with no real change for a while. I hadn’t played on the field at all that past season. I had no desire to do the summer workout Todd sent us home with. I lost my motivation and my heart for the sport I loved growing up. I made the decision to not be on the team for my junior/senior year. 

Junior & senior year were a blur of working as many hours at my internship & overloading every semester to get as many credits as possible for when I decided to sit for the CPA exam. (I majored in accounting) I was always on the move and too often I would stop by fast food restaurants for a meal. I also spent a lot of time at the bar during the second semester of my senior year. I was back to never working out, and the pounds piled on. 

I graduated in 2016 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Accounting. 2 months later, I started at my first job as an accounting clerk. I started eating better (aka not eating as much junk and trying to avoid fast food), but I still didn’t work out regularly. Towards the end of my employment at this company, around November 2017, I started to lose weight at a rapid pace. I also was desperately thirsty all the time and I frequently had to pee. I was always tired. Hindsight is really 20/20 because looking back, I know that all of these issues were symptoms, but at the time I was justifying everything. “oh I have to pee a lot? well I’m drinking a lot of water so it’s healthy, I’m good. I’m so tired, must be my body adjusting to working full time. Losing weight? I’m just really stressed out so that’s why”. 

I ended up dropping ~30 lbs in 3 months. I have never lost weight like that before. Since I kept justifying it, I never wanted to go to a doctor to discuss it. I’ve lost another 5ish lbs since dropping the 30 lbs, but I haven’t had any of the other symptoms since last winter. I had googled my symptoms before and saw the word diabetes, but immediately denied it since I didn’t have the symptoms anymore. I convinced myself that it was probably a thyroid issue, but that I should see a doctor anyway. August 16th, I went in and had blood taken. A few days later, I received a call from a nurse with my results, possible diabetes. They wanted to do another blood test to double check. I had to go to a LabCorp and get more blood drawn. This past Wednesday, I had a follow-up with my doctor. She explained my test in more detail. It was either late onset type 1 or type 2, but we would need another blood test to know. I also had high levels of liver enzymes, so I needed my blood tested for that & an ultrasound to check out my liver. I go in for that next Wednesday, my 24th birthday... 

And that’s where I’m at today. There’s more to the story, but I’ll probably cover that in future posts. After the first blood test & phone call, I went to my parent’s house and sobbed to my mom. I’m still having a hard time verbalizing the diagnosis to people without crying. That’s why I’m doing this. I’m hoping that with the more I talk about it, eventually I’ll be able to make my peace with it.

My name is Chelsea, I am almost 24 years old, and I am a newly diagnosed diabetic.