A Narrow Miss

I would conceive such a child, because I am such a child. Mental illness runs rampant in my family on both my mother's side and father's side. I have siblings, cousins, and other family members with schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, depression and various personality disorders. I myself have suffered severe depression before. But I also have siblings and other family members who have no mental illness, and so far my children have shown no signs of mental illness. So it is not a given your baby will inherit any such sickness nor be negatively affected much environmentally, because you are taking medication and handling your illness.

I have never seen any of my family members with mental illness successfully raise a child, though. My sister with bi-polar disorder has no children, and my sisters with schizophrenia, paranoid personality disorder, and extreme social anxiety have had their children raised mostly by family; either my parents or the fathers' family. My brother with schizophrenia died, no children.

I do wonder how you might handle it if your child did become mentally ill. My siblings with mental illness seemed to take it very personally when younger siblings became affected, almost like they felt it was their fault. One breakdown seemed to trigger another and so forth.

creative life | children
"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent." ~Eleanor Roosevelt

it ran out a few years ago...right after I got back a positive pregnancy test with my oldest son. I had a sobbing meltdown on the phone with Blue Ass after the service representative told me to go to the state services because pregnancy was a 'pre-existing condition'. I had never received any sort of notification that my COBRA was going to expire, so it was really jacked up.

I would do research to see if there are any health insurance groups you can join - alumnae groups from a school...hobbyist groups that you could qualify for? We ended up going on K*iser through DH's work, and they back-dated the paperwork so there wasn't a lapse in coverage.

I don't have any first-hand experience with using the state services for treatments, but a friend of mine went to clinics and got prescriptions for anxiety and depression. It sounded like it involved a fair amount of hassle. She had a baby on WIC/state assistance and said that her birth went pretty well and she had access to a water birthing pool (in California).

As for your other question...I would probably conceive the child anyway. I just got diagnosed with a chronic auto-immune disease that's genetically transmitted, and rampant in my family. DH's aunt and grandfather had it too, so both of my kids are at risk. While this has been a pretty depressing realization, there is still the chance that they won't develop the disease.

"Too weird to live. Too rare to die." - Hunter S. Thompson

Question one: yes. and lot's of people do. whether it be higher risk of mental retardation, physical disability, or mental illness, plenty of people persue parenthood knowing full well that their child might be born with a disease.
besides, we are making the decision to bring wee ones into this crazy pants world. if we are willing to do that then we're all batshit crazy anyway.

Question two: yes. i am in pa so it's not gonna be the same story as california. my prenatal care was pretty good although visits to the doctor were VERY time consuming. i think people on public assistance need to be very informed about their conditions and vocal about what they do and do not want. especially when it comes to prenatal care, delivery, and post-partum care. i didn't know that our local birthing center accepted medicaid until after i delivered my baby, so do lot's of research and you might be surprised about the services that really are available to you.

good luck!