Funnily enough, my mum has been T1 for longer than I've been alive, and I never thought of her as being much different from anyone else; she just had to have injections every day and occasionally would feel a bit poorly and need to eat some biscuits quickly and that was it. It felt 10 times worse when my daughter was diagnosed! Probably something to do with the fact that mum also always just got on with it without complaining, and then I had to do everything for my daughter at first and then discovered how complicated it all is. I'm a classic case of thinking I knew all about diabetes just because my mum had it, and then finding out that I actually didn't know very much at all!
And when I finally did let the tears out for my daughter, I think I was actually also grieving for the second child I never had. I've always known I wanted to be a mum, and I always wanted two children. Well it took two years to get my daughter, and when she was finally on the way I decided that as long as she was healthy I wouldn't mind if I didn't have another one, but if I could get one more in before I was 40 that would be great. Unfortunately that was a lot easier said than done, as I'd managed to have one child completely naturally then obviously everything works, and I couldn't let go of the fact that I really wanted another one. We tried for at least four years to get another one but didn't succeed, and no matter how much I told myself that it wasn't going to happen and I didn't really want to be having babies in my 40s anyway and be grateful for what I've got, I could never quite shake the deep down feeling of hope that I might still get lucky. And I was aware that wanting it so badly was quite likely contributing to the problem but I still couldn't let go.
When my daughter was diagnosed I realised that she needed me more than ever and it would have been a terrible time to bring another person into the family, and I think only then did I finally start to let go of the idea, and then when after the grieving came out I at last felt like I was starting to accept the fact that I'll never have another child and that hope went away. My hubby and I were united in the decision that we didn't want to put ourselves through IVF or any other "artificial" way of getting pregnant, but his whole attitude towards having children was "if it happens it happens, if it doesn't it doesn't". I really wish I could have thought like that too, but it just didn't work for me