If I were to get pregnant, our baby would be loved. But for weeks, before I would ever find out I was pregnant, she would be exposed to psychiatric medication that can cause serious birth defects—the same medication I take each morning and night to manage my bipolar disorder. By the time I found out, I would be terrified for her health. I would also be terrified that I would have to go off my medication. Our baby would be loved. I would want an abortion.

“Depakote.” My doctor sat beside me in the inpatient psychiatric unit, where I’d been for nearly three weeks. We weren’t seeing enough improvement in my mood, and she was adding a new medication to my regimen. To someone starved for the beauty of the outside world, someone on her third stay in the psychiatric unit that year, it sounded like the scientific name of a strange and beautiful type of seashell. The syllables caught my attention more than the side effects.

My doctor told me it was a mood stabilizer. I don’t remember what else she said about it. My mind was a smear, a smudge, a soupy stain. Maybe she said it was a last resort drug. Maybe she said something softer, something that didn’t imply that I was on the edge of unfixable. I don’t remember. My mind churned. I decided to try it. In that moment, it felt like the choice to hold the seashell of Depakote up to my ear, hoping to hear the peace of the ocean, of life, again.

Over time, I improved. Though I still struggled, I was much more stable. I had been on Depakote for two years before a specialist in reproductive psychiatry told me the medication was “teratogenic”—it has the potential to cause birth defects.

More: https://slate.com/technology/2022/08/abortion-access-mental-health-depakote-bipolar.html