I wanted to be pregnant if only for the possibility of helpful hormones.

Pregnancy is great for some women with depression,” my psychiatrist says. “The hormones can help.”

I think of my women friends with depression who tell me that pregnancy nearly killed them. That depression was only alleviated by taking their meds, and hoping everything would be okay. That they love their children, but hell if they’d ever get pregnant again.

Medication-free, I rely on strict sleeping hours, a careful diet and daily exercise to be the brighter side of human. Skip one of those for a day, and depression erupts into my life like a Jenga puzzle tumbling down.

I curse my fragility. I swear that there are normal people out there who don’t have to do so much. I rail at God for making my life so complicated, so difficult, so precarious.

Even with these three ingredients firmly in place, they take me to mid-afternoon. As complicated as my relationship with medicine is, I begin to worship the pills that would give my un-conceived children ten heads (okay, I exaggerate, not ten heads, but no guarantee on developed lungs, heart and brain).

My psychiatrist checks in: How is it? How are you doing?

It’s hard.” I replied. And that’s the good version.

I have read the bad version. Nearly ten years ago, I went on a quest for camaraderie. I headed to the bookstore and read every memoir on living with depression that I could find. Nothing scared me more than motherhood with depression. I read wonderfully written books like Sometimes Mommy Gets Angry by Bebe Moore Campbell, The Beast and The Ghost in the House by Tracy Thompson, Beyond Blue by Therese Borchard and essays whose titles and authors I now forget.

  • What if I have no pregnancy glow?
  • What if the hormones make me suicidal?
  • Will I have to choose between the potential health of my unborn babies and my life?
  • Will I be able to take care of babies?
  • Will the sleeplessness and responsibility send me to some dark place?
  • Will my children be scarred because I lie in bed all day and can’t get up to take care of them?
  • Will ECT be the only thing that can cure me? If so, will I forget the birth, my childhood stories, my grandparents?
  • Will I be so sick that I’d happily surrender my memories?

Postpartum depression could kick my ass! If I make it that far.

On the other hand, I want children. I snuggle next to my partner and say “Babies!” And we get big Cheshire cat grins on our faces.

I’m a Mama’s girl. I have a great Mama! She understands me; knows how to take care of me; checks on me; gives me soft cotton socks; lets me lie to her and say “I’m fine,” when her gut tells her I’m not. She knows when to butt in, and when not to. She wears imperfection like grace, and gives love and affection like a rainstorm.

I kiss our teenager all over her face, and examine her outfits before she walks out the door. I realize that I am turning into my mother, and it’s one of the better parts of my life. With the teen, I have learned that I can.

I can wash clothes, help with homework, walk to school, and cook dinner while feeling like my world is coming to an end. I don’t smile as much. I snap more than I should. Most of my professional work is undone. But . . . I can be a mommy – while being depressed.

So it is with confidence, terror and the strange sense of ability that I face the prospect of motherhood. I assume that these feelings won’t go away for a long time. But living with a bipolar depressive condition helps me to make peace with extremes and contradictions.

The doctor says that we can try again.

With confidence, terror and capacity, I try. We try again.

 

Previous entries in The Miscarriage Chronicles

The Loss of Blood (Part 1)

The Loss of Blood (Part 2)

Sacrifice

Activism Revisited

Next entry in The Miscarriage Chronicles

Barren Woman Bible