I always thought that the whole concept of maternal instinct was a load of bollocks. People kept telling me that once I was a mother I would understand it, but I didn’t believe it, especially after our twenty week scan. I was absolutely positive our little kidlet was a boy, so much so that I had refused to even consider girls’ names. ‘Oscar Harry,’ I would say when anyone asked. ‘We’re sorted. That’s what he’ll be named.’ When the sonographer told me that she was 99.9 percent sure that the baby half way through gestating was a girl my first response was ‘She’s going to get teased at school with a name like Oscar.’
As it turns out, maternal instinct is a thing, something I worked out pretty damn quickly when I learnt how to decipher between a ‘this-is-just-me-being-a-baby-and-not-having-words-yet-but-can-I-please-have-some-cuddles’ cry and a ‘this-is-something-serious-mum-please-take-action’ cry.
The way I see it, maternal instinct is just another name for intuition. And that is something we all have. What we do with it though – and just how tuned in we are to our own instinct – is completely individual.
Some of us have a finely-tuned ear, able to pick up whatever our intuition is telling us, never second guessing it and simply accepting and acting accordingly.
Others hear it, ignore it, try to convince ourselves of something more convenient. Because sometimes it’s just easier to believe what we want about a situation or a person than to try to work out what doesn’t feel quite right.
That intuition can be a life saver. But it doesn’t work in isolation.
I wrote a few weeks ago about how my resilience level contributes to how well I respond to situations around me. And it seems that there is a very distinct connection between how resilient I feel and just how much I pay attention to what my instinct is gently whispering. Or yelling.
When my resilience levels are high, I listen to any and all messages of intuition and trust what I am hearing unreservedly. If it is telling me something, I believe it and act accordingly. When not feeling resilient, there is other noise in there. And that results in me either not recognising what my instinct is telling me, or I just outright ignore it.
My diabetes intuition has been put through its paces over the years. It’s what tells me that a pump line needs changing, even though it feels fine. It knows when to calibrate according to Dexcom instructions, rather than the more lackadaisical approach I take most days. It alerts me to an off CGM reading, suggesting I double check with a glucose reading.
When I pay attention, it pays dividends. Clean and new pump line in and glucose levels continue along their merry way, as compared with a site that is producing numbers that can only be because insulin absorption is not happening properly – even if I don’t want to believe it. A well-calibrated Dex equals numbers I know I can implicitly trust rather than double guessing every number I see. Double checked CGM number – even if it is smack bang in line with what my glucose meter tells me – gives me the confidence that Loop can and should continue to hum along quietly and do its thing.
It’s not rocket science. It’s just paying attention to what my intuition is telling me, instead of trying to explain (or rather, excuse) things away with pretty much anything else I can think of. Because, you know, if it walks, swims and quacks…well, you know the rest.
I know there have been times when I’ve certainly almost deliberately ignored my intuition, instead convincing myself that something, or someone isn’t necessarily what appears before me. Sometimes, it takes a while – often far too long – to realise that I should have listened to my intuition in the first place just believed and accepted what it was saying. It can be easy to get swept up – especially when I am not feeling resilient enough to see what is right there in front of me.
And then I wonder how the fuck duck I missed it in the first place.
Diabetogenic 
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December 13, 2018 at 12:48 pm
Dennis Goldensohn
A very interesting reflection on yourself. I think as a diabetic and being one for a while, you tend to sometimes fall into a false sense of security! This can be quite an issue since your body’s motabolism is changing every minute of every day.
At times I say to myself, am I feeling that good or am I so used to the way I feel that it is a false pretense to the actual BG number that is current. So I go and check and at times the number as you say is right on and good and other times,well let’s just say not so good.
In my mind, it is learning what and understanding what your body is telling you and not ignoring it. And there should be check points during the day where you might say, let me check and be sure that what I am feeling is right.
I think being a diabetic for over half a century, T1D, in my later years I am more in tune with instinct and what I am feeling. When I was younger and had to work and raising a young family, you tend not to LISTEN to instinct and what the signals are that your body is transmitting to you. So you continue this way and you either crash because you are hypo or hyper.
In the time that I have been a diabetic, I have listened to others who are diabetics say to me, how do you control and understand what is happening as it relates to being a diabetic. I just tell them, listen and understand what your body is telling you and use your instincts to corroborate what these signals are telling you.
As you stated so eloquently if it Walks, Swims and Quacks it is a DUCK!
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December 13, 2018 at 2:50 pm
Rick Phillips
Oh I so had one of these last week. One would think that pumping double the insulin in a 24 hour period might suggest that something is wrong. Oh no, keep pumping. Then I was 280 with 24u IOB and it dawned on me that hey maybe it was the set? Oh yeah so I changed it out and got out the heating pad to soften the bump that was the size of small ice cube. Yeah, ducking intuition override.
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