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For 27 years I have been proudly childfree. I swore to everyone I never wanted anything that would interfere with being able to go on impulsive day trips, sleep to noon or afford a nice little apartment on my measly wage. I didn't mind kids, and in fact I work with them, but I never wanted any myself. And then my maternal instinct kicked in. At first it was little twinges as I saw cute toddlers play together, but now it's a full blown longing to feel babies growing inside of me and to suckle one at my breast. I want all those little moments I'm witness to, from the energetic toddlers running off with a giggle to the teenagers trying to be adult but still looking to their mothers to help them interact in a grown-up world. If I was a normal person, I'd still have a few barriers to climb over, such as the complete lack of available fathers in my life, but such things could be solved with starting some intensive internet dating to search for a suitable mate. A second income would let us upgrade from my 1-bed apartment to something bigger and I could settle in for some breeding action. Life, unfortunately, isn't that simple. I've got bipolar 2. I'm functional and can hold down a job for 18 months out of every two years, but only with constant medication that's taken years to find a good balance of. This is main problem no. 1 Lamotrigine, a mood stabiliser also used to treat epilepsy, causes congenital deformities so foetuses have a far higher chance of developing cleft lips or cleft palates. Quetiapine, an anti-psychotic that complements the lamotrigine, leads to foetal dependence. In short, my baby would be born addicted to the medication and will start to suffer from distressing withdrawal symptoms, possibly severe enough to need intensive care. There's a good chance this medication will also lead to behavioural problems, but that's not been proven due to ethics preventing any sort of controlled experiments. It's also expressed in breastmilk, so I'd either have to bottle feed or stay off of it for at least 6 months post-birth. Now, I do have an incredibly supportive family and I'd try to select a stable father-to-be, so there's a possibility I could come off these medications, withdraw from the quetiapine and keep myself carefully monitored, but to be frank I'm terrified of the thought. Before the quetiapine I was a paranoid, suicidal mess who got admitted to an inpatient ward a few Christmases ago because I could no longer ignore the persistent urge to strangle myself to death. I am honestly convinced that I won't make it through the whole 9 months + time needed to try and conceive without starting to go off of the rails again. Problem No 2 is that I'm not an isolated case. The last 3 generations of my mother's family have all suffered depressive illnesses, which for most of the women began as severe postnatal depression. My dad's side is also a smorgasbord of crazy so it's pretty likely that I'm going to pass some sort of genetic predisposition for madness onto my child. That's cruel, completely cruel to condemn a child to going through all this poo poo and suffering that I've lived through. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, so to imagine condemning my blood to this is sickening. Basically, E/N, I'm grieving. I've got a thousand reasons why I'd be a terrible mother but all the logic in the world isn't quelling my longing to hold someone in my arms who's part of me. My friends are mostly mothers, manchildren or years away from thinking about settling down, so there's no one to talk to until I finally get my therapy sorted. I just want to hear from someone who understands. Edit: gently caress, it would have helped to check for typos in the title as well as the post. How do I edit that?
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 17:01 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 12:24 |
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I think it's commendable that you're able to look at yourself somewhat objectively and know why it would be a terrible idea to have kids. That said, is adoption or fostering an idea? Or would you not be eligible to do so because of your condition? Start dropping hints to your sibling(s) about how great an idea it is to have kids? Edit: I'm an irresponsible autist with diabetes, terrible eyesight and a predisposition for cancer. I've long ago decided I'm never passing these genes along. But I've never had any urge to have kids so maybe it's easier for me to say. DS at Night fucked around with this message at Mar 16, 2013 around 17:23 |
| # ? Mar 16, 2013 17:21 |
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Have you thought of asking Rob Lowe to be your sperm donor?
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 17:39 |
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Yeah, go with a doner, the dude below me has a point
thegayurge fucked around with this message at Mar 16, 2013 around 17:59 |
| # ? Mar 16, 2013 17:45 |
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codswallop posted:I'd try to select a stable father-to-be But would he select you back? In addition to granting you a womb full of babies, he's going to bankroll your way out of your apartment. Let's face it, you want a fairy godfather.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 17:56 |
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I am completely ignorant when it comes to mental illness. Is it possible that your recent desire to have babies could have something to do with you being bipolar?
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 17:58 |
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Have you actually asked a specialist about your medications? I'm pregnant and on Seroquel and Zoloft, and it's MUCH safer for me to be on my medications than off of them during pregnancy. For the both of us. The medication specialist I saw said nothing about babies being addicted to Seroquel. I can tell you from my personal experience that getting off my medication was a terrible idea, although it was for a noble cause, it ended up putting myself and the baby at greater risk. I went to see a maternal fetal medicine specialist at about 4 months pregnant, and she put me back on my Seroquel and Zoloft. I was also given the ok to take Neurontin, which if I'm not mistaken has the same dangers as Lamictal. I decided I was doing well enough with just the Seroquel and Zoloft, though. So I think you should definitely see a specialist before you decide anything. Honestly, had I known going off my medication would be so terrible I probably would have really reconsidered this pregnancy, but it's a little too late for that. And my baby has been being monitored by a specialist and he seems to be doing perfectly fine so far. If I ever ended up pregnant again in the future there is no way I'd ever stop taking my medication. Not for anything or anyone. It's loving terrible. When the specialist said I could go back on my meds it was the happiest I think I've ever been in my life.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 18:00 |
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Safe and Secure! posted:I am completely ignorant when it comes to mental illness. Is it possible that your recent desire to have babies could have something to do with you being bipolar? It's way more likely that she's just responding to tons of social pressure to be a mother.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 18:02 |
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thegayurge posted:Yeah, go with a doner, the dude below me has a point 
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 18:10 |
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Here's a way to look at it. You have a ton of time left to have kids. Providing life keeps looking up, how much better off/stable are you likely to be in five/ten years? While you don't want to ignore the future, it's not a race. You have some room to get situated. Channel those feelings into researching your options, dating and saving money.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 18:10 |
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I don't see what any of that junk has to do with babies. Just get one of those manchildren to impregnate you.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 18:29 |
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Reene posted:It's way more likely that she's just responding to tons of social pressure to be a mother. Maybe, but it seems like a rather extreme response, and I don't see why mental illness couldn't make that response stronger than it should be. "longing to feel babies growing inside me" is not quite as  as "longing to ejaculate inside a woman", but it's pretty close, and I don't think anyone would say that guy was just having a normal response to "tons of social pressure to have sex".Thinking of people as "available fathers" or "suitable mates" to be "selected" is pretty weird, too. HUMANS, PLEASE HELP ME EXECUTE SUBROUTINE SELECT_SUITABLE_MATE.EXE.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 18:37 |
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I think there are more parallels there than you think. Anyway maybe I'm just used to hearing women talk about this poo poo in the same way. The degree of fixation may well be a bipolar thing, but the desire itself is not unusual.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 18:46 |
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codswallop posted:If I was a normal person, I'd still have a few barriers to climb over, such as the complete lack of available fathers in my life, but such things could be solved with starting some intensive internet dating to search for a suitable mate. You should be straight up front honest with any one you date that you're looking for a long term baby-daddy.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 18:48 |
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codswallop posted:If I was a normal person, I'd still have a few barriers to climb over, such as the complete lack of available fathers in my life, but such things could be solved with starting some intensive internet dating to search for a suitable mate. A second income would let us upgrade from my 1-bed apartment to something bigger and I could settle in for some breeding action. How about you make a list of everything that would make you a good girlfriend first?
There's bipolar and there's bipolar and you're not really looking like you're in the first group.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 18:48 |
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Safe and Secure! posted:I am completely ignorant when it comes to mental illness. Is it possible that your recent desire to have babies could have something to do with you being bipolar? Sometimes an aspect of manic or hypomanic episodes in bipolar disorder is making big life changing plans/decisions that seem like a good idea in their mental state, but actually aren't so much. On the one hand, the OP seems pretty rational about the possible downsides of this decision. On the other there are a few things in her post that make me wonder, mainly the way she seems to be fantasizing and idealizing parenting. And more significantly the way she's glossing over huge problems like finding a guy willing to father/support a child with her right off the bat and the problems regarding income, living situation, etc. But then people without bipolar do the same thing when it comes to something like having children, so who knows?
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 18:57 |
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OP, do you live near a military base? Child support is automatically deducted from their paychecks and sent to you, no ifs ands or buts! Plus I think as the mom you can shop at the PX.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 19:19 |
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Have you tried using the OP as your dating profile?
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 20:18 |
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Reene posted:I think there are more parallels there than you think. Probably, because I don't really understand what you mean by "parallels". 
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 20:23 |
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Safe and Secure! posted:Probably, because I don't really understand what you mean by "parallels".
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 20:38 |
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CountingCrows posted:Have you tried using the OP as your dating profile? "Bipolar girl with long personal and family history of mental illness and inability to hold job seeks rich stable large-penised breeding male to fertilise her and provide her with new home and income. You will provide psychiatric care during each pregnancy and in the event she does not kill herself and/or you before labour, will require you to babysit the drug addicted brood of kids while she attends therapy. No manchildren." Form an orderly queue gentlemen
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 20:39 |
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Cicero posted:I think it's that from an evolutionary perspective, both of those things are urges that you'd expect men/women to have, because if they didn't you wouldn't have nearly as many babies. Not so much. I was referring more to cultural or social expectations. In particular, it's no more abnormal, in cultural parlance, for a woman to view people as "potential fathers to be selected" as it is for men to view people as "potential sex partners to be selected." That isn't a value statement about those things (because they're both pretty awful and objectifying) only an observation that neither is especially abnormal. They're even encouraged in many ways. And anecdotally you'll definitely find dudes that think ejaculating inside of a woman is the best thing ever for reasons.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 20:47 |
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SA, I knew your particular charm would raise my mood.No Manners No posted:But would he select you back? Let me put it this way, I wouldn't date myself, which is why I've been kind enough to stay off the dating scene for a while. Volume posted:You should be straight up front honest with any one you date that you're looking for a long term baby-daddy. I'd have to assess his compatibility with SELECT_SUITABLE_MATE.EXE for a few dates, but the "I'm keeping the baby, I know where you live and I'm not on birth control" talk comes well before the cock goes in. I'd refuse entry without condoms until I've had at least 6 months of solid assurance that this person is a decent adult without venereal diseases. Goobish, thank you for telling me about your pregnancy. I saw the psychiatrist yesterday to up my lamotrigine and she reminded me yet again about not even thinking about babies until I got some solid advice and a professional look through my life and drugs. She's going to be sending for me again in six weeks so this time I'm going to talk to her properly about all the implications then.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 20:57 |
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Poison Cake posted:Here's a way to look at it. You have a ton of time left to have kids. Providing life keeps looking up, how much better off/stable are you likely to be in five/ten years? While you don't want to ignore the future, it's not a race. You have some room to get situated. Channel those feelings into researching your options, dating and saving money. I think this is the best advice on the thread. Single mother here, not bipolar but severe ADHD and I had to go off meds before pregnancy to conceive, all during pregnancy, and for a year of breastfeeding. All that while holding down a full-time teaching job. It was really, really loving hard. Parenting is also really, really loving hard. If you follow Poison Cake's advice, you have not a goddamn thing to lose. Even if the desire to have a child passes (and, well, it won't), you will come out ahead. Love your future child enough to get yourself to a stable place.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 20:59 |
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Ireland Sucks posted:
I'll make sure to get a sexy picture of me cradling one of my cats so they know just what they're letting themselves in for.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 21:02 |
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This is literally every bad woman stereotype come true
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 21:10 |
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Have you considered adoption?
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 21:20 |
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codswallop posted:I'll make sure to get a sexy picture of me cradling one of my cats so they know just what they're letting themselves in for. Cradling? Just one of your cats?  Put up a sexy picture of yourself doing that with all your cats and you'll have more babies than you can fight in no time. E: Toriori posted:Have you considered adoption? Oh yeah, this might also be a good idea. I'm gonna go ahead and assume that you didn't give birth to any of your cats, and that you still love them in spite of that. Babies probably aren't much different. Safe and Secure! fucked around with this message at Mar 16, 2013 around 21:25 |
| # ? Mar 16, 2013 21:20 |
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Adopting a child would be a way around the physical risks of the medication, OP, and you wouldn't be running the risk of bringing a child who is more susceptible to mental illness into the world. Having said that, whilst I don't know what the system for adoption is where you are, I can't imagine it would be at all easy to get the authorities to let a single woman with what sounds like a fairly serious mental health problem adopt a child. I'm with your psychiatrist here - you need to sort out your life/health in general before even thinking about having kids. I know the biological clock ticks away for women, but you don't have to do this immediately, even if you want to have children as a long-term goal. You're still young enough to wait a bit.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 21:28 |
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Ireland Sucks posted:"Bipolar girl with long personal and family history of mental illness and inability to hold job seeks rich stable large-penised breeding male to fertilise her and provide her with new home and income. You will provide psychiatric care during each pregnancy and in the event she does not kill herself and/or you before labour, will require you to babysit the drug addicted brood of kids while she attends therapy. No manchildren." You'd probably get a lot more responses than you'd think with that ad. Granted they'd all be breeding/pregnancy fetishists who would glaze over the employment and borderline stable on meds that would have to be discontinued during pregnancy issues and would laser focus on "want to move in with you and become your brood mare."
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 21:28 |
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Safe and Secure! posted:Cradling? Just one of your cats? That is a beautiful image, but I'll need a few more cats first. Do you think I should knit them some baby bonnets too? Safe and Secure! posted:Oh yeah, this might also be a good idea. I'm gonna go ahead and assume that you didn't give birth to any of your cats, and that you still love them anyway. Babies probably aren't much different. True, but cats also poo poo where you tell them and can be abandoned for a day with some food on the floor. For my work I've had to go to a couple of heartrending seminars on child safety and how to spot child abuse. One of the risk factors for abuse is mental illness in the parents. That terrified me completely, because even if I solved the whole pregnancy/breastfeeding conundrum by proving myself able to provide for an older child, I might end up being an unfit mother. I know I'd never want to harm a child but I'm still thinking that if I've already gone through times where I haven't been able to look after myself, can I look after another human? I know I'm going to sound incredibly stupid now, but this: NaturalLow posted:Sometimes an aspect of manic or hypomanic episodes in bipolar disorder is making big life changing plans/decisions that seem like a good idea in their mental state, but actually aren't so much. On the one hand, the OP seems pretty rational about the possible downsides of this decision. On the other there are a few things in her post that make me wonder, mainly the way she seems to be fantasizing and idealizing parenting. And more significantly the way she's glossing over huge problems like finding a guy willing to father/support a child with her right off the bat and the problems regarding income, living situation, etc. Scales fallen from my eyes. Yes, I've been in a hypomanic mood for while now. I also work with a pair of mothers who like to talk about how great their kids are while we watch the little ones run around and play. The maternal instinct has been there for about a year, but the horrible grief that occasionally wells up started about 6 months ago and has been hitting me far more often as I get iller. And there I was thinking my desire to eat at restaurants every night and to learn how to skydive were the only fixations I had to control.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 21:30 |
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codswallop posted:I'll make sure to get a sexy picture of me cradling one of my cats so they know just what they're letting themselves in for. OP, I'm glad you're able to have a sense of humor about this. I'm only 24 and still on the fence about whether I would ever want a child. I take medication for ADHD, depression, and insomnia, at least some of which would be risky to use during pregnancy. Even though I have no current plans for a family, it is something I've thought about and I've concluded that my health has to come first, even if that would mean fulfilling any unforeseen FILL WOMB WITH BABIES urges through adoption or with the help of a surrogate mother. If you're really serious about this and it isn't just a phase brought on by working with children, go back to the doctor who prescribed your medications and ask their opinion. Are your concerns about your current prescriptions blown out of proportion? Are there other, safer medications you might be able to take during a pregnancy? Do they think pregnancy is inadvisable altogether? Before you get worked up about what you can/cannot do to become a parent, talk to a doctor. Also, you're 27 - you have almost ten years before you reach a point where pregnancy usually becomes difficult. Don't start looking for sperm donors or evaluating all of the men in your life as potential fathers. By all means, get out there and start dating, but focus on building a healthy, adult relationship with a man that doesn't revolve around babies. Time is on your side.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 21:31 |
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I understand, OP. I'm bipolar and really want to have kids with my husband, but I'm terrified of post partum psychosis or depression. Right now I have an implant to keep any accidents from happening while I'm on medication, and as time goes on, I think we'll probably end up adopting if I'm stable enough to take care of children in the future. If I were you, I would work on the obsessive thoughts about having a kid, since it looks like you have at least some insight into your situation. It's hard to deal with and it sucks really, really bad. Being told to adopt or just deal with it is hard to hear, too. You'll be okay if you don't have your own children, and there are tons of children who need loving homes. You're not alone in feeling sad as hell about maybe not being able to have your own kids, if that helps you at all. It's not the end of the world if you aren't a mother, and it doesn't make you any less of a person or less of a woman, despite what societal pressures make you believe.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 21:37 |
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codswallop posted:Let me put it this way, I wouldn't date myself, which is why I've been kind enough to stay off the dating scene for a while.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 21:38 |
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Jesus wept, this is another way your brain is trying to kill you. Look, I really understand the inappropriate baby-boner reflex, but have you learned nothing from your experience of being crazy? Like, the important lesson that your feelings and urges can be really messed up because your brain doesn't work properly*, and so the way to be safe and not hurt others is not to act on those feelings and urges, but rather to step back and try to evaluate the situation objectively? Because you know that your having a baby any time soon would be a horrific idea. Not just for you, but for the baby. You have loads of time to get better---including learning techniques to manage mood swings via CBT or DBT while you have to go off or reduce meds because of pregnancy---and find a partner who wants to be a parent, and whom you trust to be a good parent if, God forbid, you flip out and hav to go inpatient. Your biological clock has years on it. If you have a baby five years from now, you'll probably be in synch with the bulk of your baby-having friends. You don't have to act on your instincts right away. This is the central principle of being a sane, well-balanced human. And when you're considering putting a baby into a situation where they have a mum whose mental illness isn't managed well (needing six months to recoup every two years is not "ready for parenting" territory)...have you read The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls? I'm not trying to be mean, but this pushes alllllll my buttons. Sorry if I sound brusque or rude. I wish you all the best, and hope that you can get to a place where you are in a good position to be a safe and loving parent someday, if that's your choice. *My brain doesn't work properly, either.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 21:42 |
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There is adoption, but there is also becoming a Foster Parent.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 21:49 |
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Is adopting a child out of the question? If you are worried about going off your medication or passing mental disorders along you could just find a baby lying around on the street and take it home with you. edit: Or you could get a dog.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 21:50 |
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The fixation on the physical aspects of pregnancy and nursing also sounds pretty gross. OP, if you need any more incentive not to loving do this, pregnancy is a miserable time that will hit your health very hard. And that's the best possible scenario.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 21:51 |
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Seriously, thank you. It's good to know I'm not alone in this. AlbieQuirky, no need to apologise, I posted to SA because I wanted to hear people be blunt with me. When I was staying as an inpatient for my suicidal urges, back when they thought I was a standard depressive, I had to go to the psychosis section because it was the only place with a room free at Christmas. There was a woman suffering from post-partum psychosis there and it was the saddest and most terrifying thing to listen to at night. She'd be raving into the early about how the nurses were keeping her from going out and protecting this MP she was ordered to look after, screaming at them for their anti-government actions. When she tired herself out completely the only sounds that could be heard were her sobbing for her child. If I give in to my daydream desires, that could be me. I know it logically. I'm just dreaming for the day someone flips the magic switch in my head to make me all better, or failing that my emotions catch up with my good sense and I can go back to being content with becoming the crazy cat lady. 
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 21:52 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 12:24 |
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Uh...yeah. Do not have kids yet and I'm not even sure you could adopt at this point. You don't seem to be in a stable place. It strikes me that you want a kid because it feels like something is "missing" in your life or that you're not completely satisfied with your life, but having ~*YOUR BABY*~ will fix that. That's not always the case and, with kids, there's no taksies backsies. Talk to your therapist about this ASAP, and please, PLEASE do not get pregnant until you've hashed some of this stuff out.
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| # ? Mar 16, 2013 21:53 |
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