kids.

Something that has been weighing on my mind a lot lately, has been the subject of children. As a child, I had zero interest in playing house, playing mommy or babysitting small children. I was more interested in playing outside or reading books. Even throughout my teen years, I refused to babysit and the thought of being around small children made me anxious, and want to run.

I haven't really shared this with many people, but this topic has been in my mind the past few days...

Around the age of 21, my feelings did a 180. Call it the early rumblings of a biological clock, or maybe my fear subsiding, children became a lot less frightening and perhaps even cute at this point in my life. At this time, I was in a serious relationship, and close to 22, had an unplanned pregnancy. At the time, I was overjoyed, and extremely excited. I was fascinated with motherhood, and my fears quickly fell away. Though not expected, I was in the middle of grad school, and was in a stable relationship, and would be able to fully financially and emotionally support a child. I was extremely ill through out the pregnancy, ending up in the ER biweekly for dehydration. At 16 weeks, I felt much more ill, and proceeded to once again go to the ER for what I thought was dehydration. I found out that I had had a miscarriage, which was earth shattering.

The next few weeks were a blur, and the months following were so emotionally taxing. My relationship fragile as it was, before the pregnancy, ended, and resulted in me moving back home with my mother, and trying to struggle through the spring semester of grad school. It was during this time, that I was initially diagnosed with Crohn's. So many thoughts consumed me- if I had been diagnosed earlier would my baby survived? Why wasn't this caught earlier? Can I even have children? This was one of my darkest times emotionally and the thoughts still occasionally haunt me.

With each passing year, I find myself wanting children, to be a mother, more and more. I know I'm young to start thinking this way, but at the same time, I realize that it will be quite the undertaking for me to have children. Even with the AIH diagnosis, I still will be able to have children. I will have to have an extremely planned pregnancy, with close and careful monitoring. I also will have to make sure I'm healthy enough myself in order to sustain a pregnancy (in remission from both diseases).

 I have asked my medical team if my illnesses would prohibit me from having my own genetic children, and there should not be an issue, but if there is, there are many many other options. There is so little research on Crohn's and pregnancy, and even less on AIH and pregnancy. I have yet to find a single study/case report/ anything on Crohn's, AIH and pregnancy, and my GI kindly informed me that he would gladly write a case study on me one day, to be the first of its kind. 


I'm not looking to have children tomorrow, or even next year. It may even be ten or fifteen years down the road.  There is no time line, no magic age, no impending doom. I also know while extremely unlikely, I may not be able to physically have children. This will not stop me from having children, biologic or otherwise. I want to be able to half the mother the mom has been for me. I want to love, teach, provide for and nurture. For someone who once gagged at the thought of playing mom, I find myself in awe of watching dads and moms playing with their kids on the beach, squealing at pictures of my coworkers children, and occasionally daydreaming of one day experiencing parenthood. I know that I have such a long way to go, and that's fine with me. Plus this girl has got to get herself healthy, finish school, buy a house and ya know, maybe find a significant other and have a stable and loving relationship before the thoughts of actual parenthood cross my mind...