For the last month I’ve been reading (well, listening. It’s an audiobook. But I digress) Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife. It is a fascinating story of a modern midwife who works in California usually doing home births. There are discussions of stillbirths and miscarriages and these are known as “spirit babies”. I have never been pregnant. I took Plan B at age nineteen when my OCD spooked me into it (I used to be worried I would get pregnant even when I didn’t have sex). I woke up bleeding all over my bed and thought I had miscarried somehow and that there was a dead baby inside me. When I went to Student Health, they assured me that was not the case.
Now that I’m older I understand it is not my best interests to have biological children. Several of my friends have tried to tell me I’m too young to know for sure but I know in my heart I would not be the best mother. I am bipolar one (and have several anxiety disorders though I mostly have a handle on them). A baby would throw my mind (which we have worked so hard to balance) into complete turmoil. My grandma (my mom’s mom) was also bipolar one. My mom’s cousin once told me my grandma was not the same after she gave birth to my mother. By the time she gave birth to my aunt (my mother’s younger sister), she was unable to care for them completely and my Poppy committed her. I don’t want my children growing up without a mother. Another factor is I might have to go off my meds if I ever get pregnant. This is dangerous for those with a bipolar one diagnosis. The last time I was off my meds I tried to commit suicide. I don’t want to sacrifice that even for something I want so badly.
As a child, I fantasized about having “my own daughter”, though I knew I would love my baby despite the gender. Even adoption didn’t hold the same appeal as having a biological child that would kick at my stomach and nurse at my breast. It was a primal need. A woman’s need to have her own baby. Over the last year I’ve gotten better at accepting I won’t be a biological mother. But the book Baby Catcher has opened my eyes….and also my faith. Although it is not an overtly religious book by any means it definitely made me realize that while my dream may not be achieved while on this Earth, there is another place, a better place, where I can swaddle my own daughter or son, let them suckle at my breasts, and love them, love them, love them. I only hope I’m not wrong and that one day I’ll have a spirit baby of my own.
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