Lab Girl

by Hope Jahren

A manic-depressive pregnant woman cannot take Depakote or Tegretol or Seroquel or lithium or Risperdal or any of the other things that she’s been taking on a daily basis for years in order to keep herself from hearing voices and banging her head against the wall. Once her pregnancy is confirmed she must cease all medications quickly (another known trigger) and stand on the train tracks just waiting for the locomotive to hit. The statistics are pretty simple: a bipolar woman is seven times as likely to experience a major episode while pregnant, compared with before or after. Leaving her to ride it out without medication for the first two trimesters is the cruel reality upon which doctors insist. Early in the pregnancy I wake up and vomit violently until I collapse onto the bathroom floor and lie there for hours, retching and crying in exhaustion until finally, in desperation, I begin to hit my head against the walls and the floor, trying to knock myself out.