I'm not sure if this has been covered here, but I was trying to do research and there really isn't much out there.

I've pretty much always known I didn't want children. Maybe my subconscious knew about my neurosis before I did, but I just felt like I wasn't the mothering type. Years later, feeling mental and worthless, I told my husband it wasn't an option. I just have that fear of losing it and being one of those terrible people who ignore their children or put them in the oven. Someone like that, I thought, shouldn't have children. Ever.

But the women in my family don't exactly have luck with fertility and I'm already 28. Lately, maybe it's my obsessive personality or the fact that I feel like my life is otherwise meaningless, I keep thinking about it. Especially since my nephew is almost a year and a half now. Watching him grow, hearing him talking and figuring things out..
I'd taken it off the table without even consulting my husband, so we talked about it at length a bit the other night and he might want children.

So my question to bipolar parents out there, especially to the mothers: How does being bipolar effect having and raising children?

The little research I find is so negative. I keep seeing things like the higher risks of Postpartum depression, postpartum psychosis, higher risks of neglect and infantcide, difficulty with attachment.. Nothing I see says anything positive. So it makes me wonder if I should try at all. I have more fears and worries than hope on my own, but seeing things like that makes it worse. Children are a huge responsibility, lots of work, and you can't exactly return to sender if you don't like how it's going..

What kinds of experiences do the parents out there have? What kinds of advice or suggestions can you give me? I want to make a good decision, not an impulsive one--which is not very easy to do sometimes.