to go off most meds and to have a baby in the next two years :)

But assisted reproductive technology yields twins.

I have changed my mind and am now mourning this idea.

No connection with meds - I am off meds completely independently and so far so good, but the p-doc said that he would need to monitor me for many months, because Bipolar is episodic (schizophrenia is not and bipolar is), so one month off meds does not mean anything. All that is good.

So a new child, if I have it, will come with its own need for physical love. I will be happy to meet the child’s need for physical love because I enjoy giving physical love a lot (more than anything else). I will know not to let anybody interfere with my giving the child boundless physical love.

OK. So far so good.

But so what – how will it help resolve the issue of not giving my son physical love in the past? It will not resolve this issue. Nothing will resolve this issue. Having another child will not resolve any issues. It will be just create more problems without solving any existing problems.

So there is no point.

I have also discussed it with someone whom I trust to give me good advice because he (I will call him R.) cares for me and about me and has given me good advice in the past (which I unfortunately did not follow) and has had experience having children in later years himself. His wife had twins at 42. Normal, happy fraternal twin girls, now adults, educated, socially adapted, and all of that - healthy children, in other words. Their birth was a result of a mishap rather than assisted reproduction + the mother had relatives with twins, so she must have had a natural propensity towards having twins. R. and his wife did not plan on having children so late because they already had children when the wife was in her thirties and they thought that they were done, but when the mishap occurred, she carried the pregnancy with twins to term.

I used to know them very well back when I lived in Texas and the picture of my son and me that I wanted to send to my son last year hoping that it would be a "good omen" was taken in their backyard twenty years ago.

So I presented the idea to him after I already narrowed it down to the idea of having a child with G., who wants to have a fifth child. I no longer entertained the idea originally presented in the OP on this thread, but I did entertain the specific idea of having another child with G. while not living with him in the same household. I explained to R. that I need somebody who would spend a lot of time with the child (that is an absolute need) while not taking the child away from me and who would provide financial support (that is a relative need - if I could do without financial support, I would not have that need but I cannot help my financial situation). I further explained that G. has a great record on both fronts - he spends a whole lot of time with his kids and some of the things he does speak of his unusual talent as a father - say, he has a start-up with his eldest child and he roommates with her and they are best friends. No every parent has that good of a relationship with his daughter who is in her early twenties and has a boyfriend, a job etc. He did not take any money for himself following the divorce because "that is for the benefit of the children", etc. I have known him for almost 13 years and the information about his supporting the children financially has been corroborated by his ex wife so it is not a lie.

So I presented it all to R., except for the open relationship part because I did not want to overwhelm him with the unusualness of my situation, at least not right away.

I did send him one letter from Julia to me that said that I cannot raise a child and pointed out to him that I wanted to discuss that, because I felt that having another child to disprove somebody is wrong motivation.

I also sent him the psych assessment with the "self-defeating" thingie. Many years ago when I left law school he wrote to me that it was self-destructive and that my choice of men etc. and other choices were all self-destructive, in his opinion (his family knew my son and me very well and I actually lived in their house immediately upon delivering my son, for a week or two, to have some support and not be by myself in an apartment - I did not want to be reliant on somebody's help but they convinced me to). So self-defeating is not quite self-destructive, but R. did not have education in psychology (he is a professor of philosophy so he has general education but not education in psychology) so he was close enough with his choice of words.

So I told him and wrote to him about this idea.

He was not impressed at all. He thought that it was just a "terrible idea" overall and did not want to isolate the part about wrong motivation and discuss it separately because he thought it was just a terrible idea overall.

Not because of age - he does not see a problem with my age, because of his positive experience with the twins born to their mother when she was my age. Nor does he see a problem with my mothering abilities and skills because his wife and he observed them closely for three years and did not see any problem with them.

So the problem is the impact on my career - it may set me back forever, and I cannot afford it.

He also sees a problem in my not planning to spend the rest of my life with G. "Sure, if you told me that you found somebody whom you did not love, but liked enough to want to spend the rest of your life with, then why not have a baby with him."

But mostly he sees it as another self-defeating choice because I tended to get pregnant precisely when I should not have been getting pregnant. Maria was a case in point, big time. Every child was, but Maria was just an especially disastrous case in point.

Independent of this conversation I had with him and before having this conversation, I also came to the realization that I owe my son money. This is because my mother left me money asking to distribute equally among her grandchildren and I did not follow her spoken instructions (she did not put it in the will). I just gave all the money to Ted. So when I came to this realization, I concluded that I did not have the freedom to get pregnant again before I meet the obligations to an existing child of mine.

So I think that I have given this idea enough thought and consideration, in a calm and non-emotional manner, and have obtained the advice of a person who is uniquely suited (for a long list of reasons) to give me advice on this particular idea. He did defer to my T in the end, though, after he told me of his take on it. Finally, he expressed hope that after my daughters enter adulthood, they would be able to see the situation from a different perspective.

G. himself told me about a month of two ago that if it (a baby) is meant to be, it is meant to be. OK, fair enough. At least if I take the "if it is meant to be, it is meant to be" approach, there is no rush. So for now I wrote to G. that I would be trying to rebuild the connection with the existing children and not having another baby.

I am very appreciative of the support and suggestions on this thread that has a lot of views. I have not read most posts, but will read them at some point. The reason I have not read them - I wanted to go through my own process, independently.

I think the conclusion is great and glad you got there.

Focusing on the children you have and taking it a step at a time is awesome.

Thank you. I am relieved. I am sad but relieved.

I know it's disappointing when you have to let go of dreams, no wonder you are mourning it. But you do have hope of a long future relationship with your son now, and with time, you will get to spend time with him and be able to get and give big old lovey boy hugs from him. I liked something the mindfulness therapist told me, that I can still fill in the gaps with my kids now - giving them the love now helps heal both of our hurts from the past. For example I can get to feeling very guilty that I was very depressed and worked so much and the impact that had on the kids in addition to the abandonment and lies from their dad... so now that I know that, and I know I can't change the past, I make a big effort to give extra love and hugs and kind words and emotional support to them now. She said this will help fill in the gaps.

That is precisely what I needed to hear.

- went to see the T
- verbalized all of that (the long post from April 1) to her, in a condensed form
- she said that all of that shows a clear mind on my part and she is happy I can go through decision-making in this way

So far so good!

I'm struck by how unemotional this is. If I didn't know what you were planning for, I never would have guessed it was having a child.

I understand that would be signing up for 20 years of hard work, but I will end up with a meaningful r/s.

Do you want to have a child in order to have a meaningful relationship? I'm not sure what you mean by this, maybe you can clarify. Certainly, in any case, there is no guarantee of this with one's children.

Ultramar, If you had read further into this thread you would have a clearer idea of the content . Maybe you can read the responses by the OP made recently?

I'm only just starting read this thread and am more and more shocked by the 'reasons' given for planning on having a child. The latest I have read is: And even if I do not end up with the best r/s, I still will have accomplished raising a child from cradle to college.

So that... you can have the sense of accomplishment of having raised the child.

I am just not seeing where the *child* as a separate human being with their own -enormous- needs fits into this.

I just don't think it's childrens' job to fulfill the needs of their parents and this is where I see this going.

Yea you're a little late in the convo. She talked through her ideas dreams and traumas and came to a solid and healthy conclusion.

Ultramar, thanks for reading, but you are wasting your time, for two reasons:

As Christina and BlueInanna pointed out, you are reading the beginning of thread from three months ago and I already made the decision two days ago.

Christina and Blue and some others know the context of my struggles because they have been with me through a lot, over a long period of time. For you to acquire the understanding of the context will take too long. And, since it is no longer needed, there is no point.

Thank you, though.

I'm really happy you were able to make your decision :-) I know its been a long hard process. I know you want to rebuild a connection with your daughters. Can you keep a journal for each of them and answer all the questions you think they'll have, share past and future good memories about them and other things like that? Then come there 18 th or 21st birthday send it to them. This way they can see things through you eyes but process it in their own time.

That is a great idea. Thank you. Never occurred to me.

That's a really great idea! My memory works so randomnly, I wish I remembered more and took more pictures when they were younger. My 11 yr old was asking me last night about stories from when he was a baby ... I thought of a few, but he was saying, "tell me more!" They love that stuff, and if you share a journal all about them, it will show how you've thought of them so much even when not together.