Hi, my name is Ashley...
... and I was diagnosed as bipolar (type 2) in the fall of 2011. I am also pregnant with my first child, a son, who is due in June of this year (2012).
My husband and I never planned to get pregnant--nature had been pretty insistent that my previous seven years of unprotected sex without conceiving meant I was not to be a mother. When I was put on Abilify, my psychiatrist warned against getting pregnant--between that and my prior conception problems, we decided to adopt if ever we were to have children.
The pregnancy test came back positive two weeks before I was scheduled to have my IUD placed. I had been on Abilify for about a month.
Pregnancy turned my entire life around. With the blessing of my psychiatrist, I stopped taking Abilify for the duration of the pregnancy (with the caveat that I can go back on it at any time if necessary) and will begin taking it again once my son has been born.
There are very few resources for bipolar women who are pregnant. I have spent hours combing the web to determine how my medication would or could affect my unborn child--how it could or would affect him if I were to breastfeed. There are no support groups for those both pregnant and bipolar (while I'm sure that a support group for one or the other would be welcoming, they don't quite understand what it is I'm going through in its entirety.) My family and friends are 3,000 miles away and my husband's, while physically close, are not emotionally close.
This blog will be my story. Maybe other bipolar parents-to-be will find the information useful or will simply be content in knowing that they are not alone out there.
