Technically I am not yet expecting. I am expecting to be expecting or is that expecting to the power of 2?

Firstly I apologise for my vagueness when introducing myself, however as I am sure many of you have, I have been on the wrong end of stigma relating to disclosing my having a mental illness. I have therefore chosen to remain anonymous so that my employer does not discover my diagnosis. I would however like to highlight the fact, that I am not ashamed of having bipolar, and that other than not disclosing in the work place, I am happy to talk about it freely with friends and family.

I am a married woman in my 30’s in full time employment living in London. As many women of my age and in my social circumstances, I am ready to start a family. However as a bipolar sufferer this is more complicated than the average woman TTC (trying to conceive), as there are many issues to think about before even throwing away your contraceptive pills. The first thing I did when my husband and I decided that we were going to take the plunge and try for a baby, was try to find a book on bipolar in pregnancy. I was only able to find one book and it was shockingly shabby. It was short and very inaccurate. As a writer and self-professed infomaniac, I decided to take on the challenge of writing a book myself to cover this very subject. Whilst a book may be my long term goal, I am very impatient and thought perhaps writing about my journey as a pregnant bipolar woman, from before, during and after being pregnant as it happens in real time, would be beneficial for any women out there attempting the same shaky expedition.

I will cover everything from medication issues and the extremely high chance of postpartum depression to loving your body and dressing for a happy emotionally action-packed and expecting yummy mummy. I will write about pregnancy when bipolar in general but will also detail my personal journey, which will no doubt unearth issues that I cannot yet even comprehend.

Why ‘Emotionally action-packed and expecting’? My best friend forwarded me a meme of a very glamourous looking woman with the title ‘Bipolar? Me? I prefer emotionally action-packed’. She said that she thought that it described me perfectly. A week and 2 hypomanic nights of insomnia later and the ‘Emotionally action-packed and expecting’ blog was born.