Guilt.

Twenty-two going on twenty-three years of juvenile diabetes and not a single complication. Even endocrinologist can't belive how well my body has handled the destructive disease.

I take care of patients who have lost limb, organ, and life to it's power. But not me. Nope, my body is fully functioning...for me. For my children not so much. My diabetes took out it vegenence on the kids. How unfair of me to allow it to do so.

What I wouldn't do to take on the wrath of this disease on my body and spare my children.

I naively thought I had two healthy pregnancies, but perhaps I was so preoccupied with the joy of holding my plump babies, I never stopped to think how the affects of the disease put them both in the NICU for days with hypoglycemia. My OB always referred to my pregnancies as healthy deliveries and while my gut told me they weren't, I chose to believe all was well and continued to get pregnant, even after the loss of the twins.

Lots of people miscarry. I was just one of the millions of women who did, right? Maybe. Maybe not. And while the pregnancy with our twins wasn't planned, Claudie's was. In fact, it was almost forced. I wanted a baby! Losing the twins pushed me to the brink and I knew the only thing to heal me was another child. So for months we tried and were disappointed, thinking perhaps God had given us all we were to have.

Then after almost 9 months of failed test, a positive one. It was a sign.

All would be well.

But all was not well.

Mom died.

We found out this pregnancy was a daughter.

We would name her after mom.

All would be well.

But all was not well.

Our daughter died.

I know only ultimately God has the power to give life and take it away, but I played with fire. I didn't know I was playing with fire, but it embers were consuming my child. The embers that never touched me, consumed my Claudie.

I can barely breathe from the it's all-consuming guilt.

All is not well.

My daughter is dead and my hands are stained with her blood.