Jan 7, 2006 my daughter Sophia was born. Perfect in my eyes. A girl came to my room and asked if I wanted my new baby to participate in a study (TEDDY) to see if she carried the gene for Type 1 diabetes. I consented and then never thought about it again until I got the results that were negative. Just what I thought it would be.
4 1/2 yrs later after our usual summer vacation Sophia started drinking and peeing excessively. Being an RN I knew immediately what was wrong. At first I tried to rationalize that it was summer so of course she was going to drink more thus pee more. I quickly made an appointment with her pediatrician and the day we went my husband said “don’t worry about it. you don’t know what is wrong.” I just shook my head “no” and cried. Although I knew what the pediatrician was going to tell me, it was devastating to here it come out of her mouth “Sophia has type 1 diabetes and must go to the Barbara Davis Center immediately”. I cried and cried. Sophia said “it’s okay mommy, I feel fine”. Now when we go to her pediatrician’s office she says “this is where they told me I had diabetes and you cried” 
We immediately went to BDC and it was all a whirlwind and Sophia could not understand why she had to have a shot vs a medication she could take in her mouth. Sophia’s blood sugar was brought under control in one dose of fast acting insulin and a dose of long acting so they sent us home and told us to come back on Monday morning. Myself, husband, and 3yr old son were tested that day for the autoantibodies and I was negative, my husband has two, and my son has one. It was a very difficult few weeks w/ Sophia trying to get used to shots and begging the parent who was not giving the shot to save her from the other Eventually it started to get better. Sophia would say “I wish my name wasn’t Sophia so I wouldn’t have diabetes” and “when will I get better”. My approach was to be completely honest with her about her disease and the fact that she will always have diabetes and if she does not take insulin she will die.
She is now 5 and can tell you what a normal pancreas does and what insulin does in a normal person vs what her pancreas does and why she must take insulin from a shot. It has seemed to make it easier on her in some weird way that she doesn’t have to wonder when it will end. It’s just how her life will be. She will still say “I wish I didn’t have diabetes” and I say “I wish you didn’t have it too. Everyone who has diabetes wishes they didn’t have it and everyone who loves someone with diabetes wishes they didn’t have it”. One time she was wishing this wish and I said “you know, there is nothing we can do to change you having diabetes so we have two choices to make. We can be sad and stay in our room and cry all the time or we can be strong and learn to take care of your diabetes, be happy, and have lots of fun”. She chose the latter. Such a smart AND strong little girl 
She often questions “what is wrong with that person” when we see someone out in the community with a disability or an advertisement/poster of someone with an illness and I tell her “that person has…see, everyone has something. You have diabetes. Not all of us know what we have yet but we all have something” and she is beginning to develop the sense that we are all the same and we all have "something’.
In less than three months of diagnosis we celebrated Christmas, Sophia started the Omnipod pump, and had her tonsils and adenoids removed all in the same week!! And what an experience that was. Being a newly diagnosed type 1 and new on the pump her doctor’s wanted her to spend the night at the hospital. Not sure why because we managed everything ourselves. The staff kept trying to give Sophia regular Sprite slushies and we had to consistently remind them that she was diabetic. When we first arrived to the floor and I requested a Sprite Zero the nurse said “why” and I told her and she said “we don’t have that here. didn’t you bring your own?”. Gee, I didn’t know that The Children’s Hospital of Denver would not be equipped to care for a diabetic child and I had to pack our own food for our stay there. My husband called down to the cafeteria and they sent some up…
Two weeks later we celebrated her 5th birthday with a bounce house party. Things are starting to settle down a little now and today she is at her first overnight at her Uncle Rob and Uncle Shad’s house. She seems to not dwell so much on this disease but knows the routine, what she has to do to stay healthy, is eager to show others/strangers how she checks her blood sugar and where her pump is, and it’s just a way of life now. I still have days when I secretly cry for her, me, and my husband and son who may develop diabetes but she is a strong little ray of sunshine and I love her