YES. I wasn't dx until after my first child. Although looking back I had "mild" symptoms since I was a kid, mostly episodic depression. But after my first I had such bad anxiety suddenly. I had a really hard time adjusting to the lifestyle change of being a mom, and the normal everyday baby things seemed so overwhelming to me, I just could not understand how people did it every day. I didn't want to leave my house because the baby crying, or being hungry, or needing a diaper, out in public gave me horrible anxiety. Just getting the carseat, diaper bag, etc. all together and us both out the door seemed so overwhelming and not worth the hassle. When he weaned at 18 months I crashed hard. BP is known to be exacerbated in women by hormonal changes, at least according to my primary care and pdoc. Which makes sense, I always had "terrible PMS" depression before having children.

I started a slow crash after my son weaned at 18 months and got into a bad mixed episode when he was almost 2, and felt suicidal for the first time in years. My doc suspected postpartum depression and put me on prozac, which I had been on before and it worked, but this time it just made me crazier. This is what eventually led to my BP diagnosis. I did well on monotherapy with lamictal until I had my second kid (shocker!) and when she stopped breastfeeding at 9 months, same thing. But I was on top of it this time and got on meds faster, though still not fast enough, I was in a pretty bad spot.

Sorry to ramble. Yes, I absolutely think having children either triggered my bipolar or at least made my mild symptoms much much worse. Not sure if it was the hormones, stress, lack of sleep, or all of the above.