A little over a year ago, the process of weening off a few of my medications concluded. Brandon and I had decided it was time to start a family.
Some of my bipolar medications may cause birth defects, so I had to stop taking them in order to try to conceive.
I was fine until September or October of last year. Then I noticed I was having pretty bad anxiety. One night while I was working on a mural project, I called Brandon in a panic. I felt out of control like I was about to have a panic attack. Luckily, he was able to calm me down and talk me through my anxiety.
My anxiety continued to slowly and insidiously creep in until I was experiencing it all the time.
Around Thanksgiving I noticed I was starting to feel down.
This was around the time I started sleeping more and drinking more to regulate my melancholy mood and try to control the anxiety.
Alcohol is a depressant; however, so after I drank, my mood would feel lower and my anxiety would increase. I’d end up drinking again to try to combat the effects of the alcohol and it turned into a vicious cycle.
In January, the stress of trying to conceive really started getting to me. I felt like a failure every month I found out I wasn’t pregnant. I don’t know if it was because I actually wasn’t getting pregnant and I was disappointed or if I felt that way because I was letting other people down, like my mom and Brandon. I think it was more the latter because I would also feel terrified every time I thought I might actually be pregnant.
I had a conversation with Brandon about the stress I was feeling and asked him what would happen if I didn’t get pregnant. Would he be disappointed? How would he feel if we couldn’t or didn’t have children? Was he set on having a family including a child?Talking through these questions we realized that we were both kind of ambivalent about having a child and we each thought the other person really wanted to start a family. We were trying to conceive because I thought he needed a child to be fulfilled and he thought the same of me, which wasn’t accurate. That definitely took a lot of stress off my shoulders. I was immensely relieved that it was okay if I never got pregnant.
Now, I needed to have a conversation with my mom about how I was feeling. All her well intentioned encouragement and reminders that she was praying for us made me feel guilty and stressed out that I was failing her as a daughter. I told her about the stress I was experiencing and she agreed to stop talking about it so much. I felt really bad having this conversation with her because I didn’t want to hurt her feelings. She wasn’t doing anything wrong. She was just being supportive, but I also knew how badly she wanted us to get pregnant and I couldn’t handle letting her down.
My poor drinking habits continued and got worse through April when my depression really started becoming unmanageable. I didn’t think it was “that bad” yet because I wasn’t suicidal, but then Brandon encouraged me to talk to my doctor and get back on antidepressants because we didn’t need to wait for it to progress. We needed to start treating it so I could function again.
When I had to get back on an antidepressant we decided that my mental health was most important and decided we were going to stop trying to conceive and just see how things played out naturally. Then after thinking about it more, I realized I probably needed to get back on birth control because it would be risky if I got pregnant while taking these medications since they can cause harm to a developing baby.
I was trying to figure out how I was going to tell my mom we weren’t trying to get pregnant, but she brought up the conversation herself. Once she learned I was having trouble with depression again and needed to get back on some of my meds, she explained that she would rather me be okay before anything else. She said it was okay if we didn’t have kids. In that moment I knew that I was enough and I wasn’t going to let anyone down if I never had kids. What a relief!
Hearing that from my mom and knowing that Brandon was actually kind of excited about the idea of not having kids, gave me the courage to be honest with myself. I never pictured myself with children. I’ve always been terrified of the idea and I don’t think I would be able to handle it or be the mother I would want to be because of my mental illness.
Some people think it’s selfish to decide not to have kids. but did I make this decision or am I being responsible and logical since I struggle to be okay without medication? Am I childless or childfree?
I think it would be more selfish of me to decide I really wanted to have my own children and go forth trying to conceive knowing that I may need to be on medication during my pregnancy that could cause birth defects. That to me would be selfish because I would be putting an innocent baby in harms way just because I wanted to be a mother. Luckily, there’s no part inside of me burning to be a mother.
If we decided to have children in the future, we could always adopt.
Part of me is so relieved we don’t have to have children. And this part of me is very big. It’s like I have permission now to live the life I think I’ve always secretly wanted, and that’s a life childfree without children. I’m very much looking forward to spoiling my niece more and my future nephew. We have plenty of friends with children that we enjoy being around. And that’s enough for me.
I always thought I wanted to have kids because it was what was expected of me and that was the next step. I always knew that was what you had to do. I never questioned it. I never thought there was another option. Now I know that’s not the only way.
Remember if you’re reading this:
You are enough.
There’s no one road map for how to live your life.
You can trust in your own decisions.
Listen to your body and mind.
Love yourself most so you can be honest with yourself and others.
I didn’t realize you’d been trying to conceive! Your decision to stop trying makes so much sense, both for your health and what it sounds like you want in life. I’m weighing that decision for some of the same reasons. This is the first story I’ve read about someone who was happy and relieved to stop trying, and I really appreciate this perspective. Thank you so much for sharing!
At the end of this letter, I felt relief and happiness for you (even though we are strangers)!
Living my life without kids on my own terms feels so liberating. You get to choose how you want to live your life, no one else. Even more so without kids!