Between my current state of health and aging, I feel the baby-craving hormones going nutters — I want another child. Not necessarily a baby, ’cause I wasn’t enchanted by the baby phase, but still another child of my own body and genetics.

Part of the pressure is my own physical health — if my maternal grandmother and aunt are any guide, I’m going to need to consider a hysterectomy soon to avoid the further ravages of endometriosis (which I keep running into brick walls on trying to get diagnosed). The time I was pregnant I experienced fantastic physical health, and it took a few years before I started to feel run down and ill. While it’s not as bad as at its absolute pre-child worst, it has gotten bad enough that I am aware of how much harder it is to get up and go. Pregnancy would offer another respite, and if I were able to get clipped shortly afterwards, then it would increase my quality of life. As that is my main goal for myself right now, it weighs very heavily on my mind.

Now, I know there are some out there who are terrified of passing on their bipolar to their children. An example from the world of celebrity is Emilie Autumn, who herself opted to have an abortion when she fell pregnant rather than risking passing on her disorder. I respect her choice — after all, I’m not in her shoes, so I cannot fairly judge her. And, I think many of us know, that many neurotypical people would perhaps consider it inappropriate of the mentally ill to procreate. Mrs. Bipolarity said it most concisely — we are deserving of creating life. Not to toot my own horn, but I like to think my genes have a lot to offer — I come from a family of gifted folks, with talents for the arts and languages, and other such things. Just because I have bipolar is no guarantee my children will get it, and I sure as heck am doing my best to provide a stable life because that is what I value, and because it will go a long way towards helping my children not have trauma that could trigger it. Having said that, I’ll consider myself successful if my child(ren) make it to and through adulthood with a minimum of therapy, hee hee.

Still, I like to think that we have a good chance of getting through another kid better than the shaky start on the first one. We know more after having her, we’ve got my diagnosis, my meds seem to be stabilizing me out enough to be of some use, and that means that my husband feels like he’s able to actually express how he’s feeling (my instability makes him feel he has to stifle it to protect me — whups). But that’s also counter-balanced against the fact that we’re all getting older and tireder; while his parents are incredibly supportive, they’re in their late 60s/early 70s.  Which also makes the decision-making ‘need’ to be sooner rather than later. I wish I could just dive into getting everything clipped and tied up and save the rest of the family having to think about it, but for now, the brain and body and hormones want what they want, which is an even number of children.

Ah well, we’ll see what happens. For the moment, at least I continue to wallow in the whole relishing how good things are!

<3