Posted by headachequeen on November 16, 2004, at 14:03:16 [reposted on November 17, 2004, at 5:07:51 | original URL]
In reply to Re: Topamax and depression, posted by bridgey1128 on November 16, 2004, at 12:43:25
> Heaven help me when I have to go through a REAL crisis with my kids. I think we have done a really good job and I really think we are excellent parents, if I do toot my own horn but at the same time they are still little and have experienced so little. At times, I didn't think I would live through my son's stressful baby times and toddler years. Not that he was bad or bratty. He is ADHD and he is VERY sensitive. So dealing with his frustration being ADHD and undiagnosed and MY frustration because I was bipolar and undiagnosed....you can just imagine the battles we have had. I would love to have another child except for the fact that I do not want to have to go off my medication. I don't want to have to start all over again. I think I would just be putting myself through an emotional roller coaster. Knowing how crazy I was when I was pregnant and all the emotions that went with it, I am not sure I want to go through that again and being off medication. Then having to go back up again on my meds and the side effects. And dealing with my weight and weight loss. I just DON'T WANT TO! By the time we would be able to afford another baby, and yes I know no one can actually AFFORD another baby...hehe but this would be a necessity..Our daughter would be in Kindergarten (she's 3 1/2 and our son is 7) and our son would be in 3rd grade. After that long I am not sure I want to start all over again. I think it would be so hard.....
>It is a huge adjustment..
When our third child was born, our son was almost six and our daughter almost nine...
we had become used to the limited freedom...
that second cup of coffee after dinner and being able to entertain without the ups and downs of life with baby...
and no, you never can really afford a baby <g>
My husband was suddenly obsessed with the fact that the world could not support more children...
global warming, the shortage of fossil fuels and I forget what-all...
was this really the world into which we wanted to bring a child...
I was not supposed to have any more children... we had lost three under disastrous circumstances, I do not do pregnancy very well and our son was born several weeks early but survived..our daughter was definitely unplanned and a surprise...
but she went full term and over term...
she is still stubborn come to think of it and her teen aged years were quite the experience...
she was an angel of a child until she hit seventeen and then life became a whirlwind crossed with a volcano as she made up for all the problems she had missed...
she is now one of my dearest friends and supporters and I have to say that I would not have managed the past few months without her support and friendship...
she is the true Celt... has the second sight and generally knows in advance when I am going to have a seizure....
was up all night walking the floor the night before that massive chaos of a couple of weeks ago... and called yesterday afternoon to warn me that there was one coming last night...
and she was right but it was not a major manifestation, just one of the old nocturnal experiences (as she foresaw... at least she is telling me in advance now !!!! and her father is no longer pooh-poohing her sight... he used to simply snort and tell her to come into the real world...
he is a sassenach and I do not know if he will ever really understand the Gaelic mind poor soul...)However we had our times from the time she was seventeen until some time around the time she was in college...
it was really an agony...
Jekyll and Hyde I think was based on the author's experience with a teen-aged child...I would not have missed the experience of the unexpected and unplanned baby for the world...
but I would gladly have missed those years...
would give my right arm to have missed the experience...
it is though why I have so much experience in that area to share with others who are walking where I have walked and crawled and sometimes simply lain down and sobbed in pain and frustration...
my beautiful brilliant daughter and why was she doing this to herself?
what had I done to cause this?
of course the parents blame themselves...
it is a parent's way of being...
we are ingrained with guilt from the moment of the child's conception... we are supposed to make all things wonderful and special and easy for the child and when things don't go well it is our fault... that is part of the pregnancy and birth experience...
I think it is probably part of the female genetic make-up... one of those chromosomes that sets us apart from the male..
although I know my husband suffered acutely through it...
he blamed himself too....however, as to affording it...
I do not think anyone is ever truly ready, financially or emotionally -- one just copes...
but really, to think the world situation is contingent upon one child??? that was taking it much too far... that is what happens when one marries a thinker....however, the med balance is such an intricate thing...
maybe it is best to enjoy the two you have and preserve your own well-being... you are certainly being logical and thinking of their well-being over your own maternal and bioligical urges...
that is so incredibly commendable...and, having adopted two wonderful and beautiful little girls, well, one was eighteen and the other twenty-one by the time it was done, but they are my little girls and always will be..
they have become bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh... in fact the one looks so much like me that I think my parents have some heavy questions to answer <gg>
her baby and school photos are incredibly and eerily like mine... and today she is more like me than my own children...
hmm maybe *I* have some answering to do...but I started to say that it is always a wonderful and fulfilling option that does not put your health at risk....
and you are obviously such an incredible parent that it would be a shame to curtail those skills ...
man but my mind does take to tangents on the morning after....
a real pushy broad that is I
kat
poster:headachequeen
thread:416940
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20041114/msgs/416943.html