Children are one of the biggest blessings in your life. They’re your miracle. Your legacy in this world. They’re your entire world. My mom wanted to be a mother so bad. She tried and tried to get pregnant and suffered several miscarriages, before my debut in 1983. I was her miracle (and dad’s too!). I was the only one. She couldn’t have anymore because she had endrometriosis and had a hysterectomy soon after me.

This major surgery can have serious ramifications afterwards. I don’t feel like a “complete” woman anymore. I don’t like seeing young fertile women flaunting their bodies. All of these negative feelings can lead to depression. No surprise? You struggling to have a family and it’s very impossible because of this condition and then you have to have surgery to in order to save your own life. This can be very depressing. My mother went through a tough stretch after that and wouldn’t be surprised if she had post-partum depression. Who doesn’t it? Giving birth and carrying a child to term regardless of how the outcome is, is very traumatic on your body.

I currently don’t have children nor have endrometriosis like my mother did, but I don’t rule things out. Since I struggle enough with the Triple Threat Disease, I don’t if I want to have my own children. Not to say, that I don’t like children. I just don’t see myself as a natural born mother. It’s not for everyone.

But stumbling upon this article made perfect sense to me as how my depression made its first appearance in my life.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-08-maternal-depression-stress-immune-markers.html

I was in my first decade of life when depression occurred. My mother was working for the IRS at the time, struggling with fertility issues including endrometriosis, undergoing and recovering from a hysterectomy, and she also lost her mother unexpectedly. So, my mom’s stressors affected me drastically and I didn’t know that. I didn’t know what she went through during my first decade of my life. But it does make sense when you think about it. The stress that you’re under can affect those around you especially if you’re a parent.

My maternal grandparents were always fighting. My mother and her siblings didn’t have a great upbringing. It was a volatile household. Long story short, her depression resulted from hereditary and her environment. How we handle our stress is crucial. You may not think much about how our behavior affects our children, but it does.

A customer of mine has four kids and two of them have autism. That’s so sad and very hard to deal with. Every day, I see her numerous times getting her latte and she will always have the kids in the car. They will all be screaming their heads off and sometimes I will hear her say: “I wish I didn’t have you” or yell other things to get them to be quiet. Very sad. I understand that raising children is rough and they don’t come with manuals, but how you control them or parent them can affect their behavior.

I debate back and forth about children. I really do. I don’t care that I’m in my 30’s. I’m not in a rush. I just don’t know how I would handle parenthood. It’s not easy and isn’t supposed to be, but post-partum depression is something that worries me a lot. Living with major depression already is enough, but to have to take care of a child and post-partum depression would probably set me over the deep end.