Bipolar and Pregnant: How Betsi Fought to be a Mom

In this episode of Bipolar She, Janine talks with Betsi Werling about becoming a mom with bipolar I disorder. The general thinking fifteen years ago, was that pregnancy was too risky for women with mood disorders. Although Betsi and her husband decided they would not have children, a surprise pregnancy turned into quite a harrowing tale.

What followed was one challenge after another: a manic episode during pregnancy with a 14-day psychiatric hospitalization, medication changes including lithium, preeclampsia, undiagnosed gestational diabetes, an emergency C-section six weeks early, and weeks of watching her newborn daughter struggle in the NICU. 

Betsi’s story is not a simple “everything turned out fine” story. It is a story of fear, trauma, faith, marriage, community support, and extraordinary courage. She talks honestly about PTSD from the birth experience, the toll pregnancy took on her and her husband, and the arrival of her daughter that made every terrifying moment worth it.

This is a powerful episode for women with bipolar disorder, mothers with mood disorders, and anyone who has wondered whether mental illness, pregnancy, stability, and motherhood can coexist.

Topics include: bipolar I, pregnancy, mania, lithium, psychiatric hospitalization, preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, premature birth, NICU, PTSD, motherhood, marriage, faith, and support.

Content note: mania, psychiatric hospitalization, pregnancy complications, emergency birth, NICU, and birth trauma

Betsi's Talk For Her Faith Community 

Storytelling Class with Janine Begins September 13 on Zoom

Write Your Hard Story With Janine MORE HERE 

Transcript

Sponsor Tapping For Better Sleep

Janine 0:32

We are supported by the SOAR with Tapping app. Tapping is a powerful science-backed tool that calms your nervous system. I've been using Sore with Tapping nightly for insomnia, and I am sleeping well. Visit the Sore with Tapping app at Apple and Google Play Stores to start your journey towards freedom right from your phone.

Welcome And 988 Safety Note

Janine 0:59

Welcome to Bipolar Sheet. I'm your host, Janine Noel. The content of the show may include suicide. If you're ever in need of immediate support, please dial 988, a suicide and crisis lifeline.

Betsy’s Advocacy And Speaking Out

Janine 1:13

I invited today's guest, Betsy Werling, to come back on the podcast because I was excited to hear that since we spoke, she is now an advocate telling her journey with bipolar one to audiences, including her faith community and classes. The video is in the show notes, and I was especially impressed how she integrated statistics on mental health in Iowa and the warm QA that followed. Her community reached out to her with gratitude, and often they share their own stories with her. I admire her bravery, and as Betsy says it best, it was a big step because once you say it out loud, it is out there forever. Betsy and I are about the same age, and in our 20s and 30s, psychiatry believed women with bipolar disorder should not get pregnant because there was too high a risk of a manic episode, that psychmeds would affect a baby in utero, and that maintaining a life as a mother would be too difficult for someone with a mood disorder. In this episode, we go deeper into the details of Betsy's harrowing experience of managing bipolar during an unplanned pregnancy with mania that led to a two-week psychiatric stay and the choice to use a new medication. But ultimately, through it all, Betsy and her husband Joe had a happy and healthy baby girl. So here's a little bit more of her story.

Work Changes, Anxiety, And Stability

Janine 2:51

So you've had some like big things happen in your life.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Yeah. So this year I've been subbing. I went a whole year without a job. My husband and I like decided that was just fine. And then I had a five-year subbing license that I got in 2023. So he said, Why don't you try subbing? I'm like, Oh, I don't know. I don't know about that. I have loved it. I love every minute of it. It's so fun. I have enjoyed more than I thought I would elementary. Like it, like people are like, oh my gosh, my energy would be so low by the end of the day. But it does something, like it just charges me up. And I have a lot of patience. And I have a daughter, and you know, I already have a lot of patience for her. I decided, I think it was probably my junior year that I wanted to work with college students. So 15 years of my professional life was working at a university. So being at a university is tough because it's always like, what are you researching? What are you studying? Like what's your next, what's your next goal? And for someone who struggles with bipolar, it can be can be overwhelming and anxiety producing because you're kind of like, at what point do you just get comfortable and you're good at your job and you don't have to think about research and right.

Janine 4:28

And that led to some anxiety too for you. Yeah. And you were taking last time I spoke to you, you're taking anxiety medication as well.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yeah, I'm still taking anxiety medication. In since October, though, I have not had an anxious day. The timeline here, what year was your daughter born? 2014. 2014. Okay.

Unplanned Pregnancy And Rising Mania

SPEAKER_00 4:53

I had a manic episode in 2012 and had to be hospitalized and was in there for I think probably a week. And then I got pregnant in April of 2014. That's when we I kind of felt like I was pregnant. So we called the doctor and said, Can you do a test for us? Because we're kind of freaking out because we were not gonna have kids. Like that was not in our plan. And that's so much has changed with wisdom and what to do to have a successful pregnancy. But we were not on that path. Like we thought our time to have children had passed, and we were okay with that. But I found out in April, and then I started having kind of like a manic episode where I thought my boss was trying to fire me and was against me, and it it wasn't true, like none of the behaviors and things that I was saying to people, I mean, was true. It was just in my mind. And so by June, I had no other choice but to go. Like, I just got so combatative one day with my husband and locked myself in the bathroom. And he basically was like, I've got to get you to the hospital. His parents came over and drove us to the hospital, and then I was inpatient on the geriatric side of psychiatry.

Janine 6:30

So I just want to jump in real quick to clarify because you were not gonna get pregnant because it was, was it a bipolar decision? Like I it's too much, it's too much of a risk. It was okay, it was. And then when did you decide when you found out you were pregnant? Were you contemplating what you could do?

SPEAKER_00 6:54

Were you like once I got pregnant? Like there was no, like, are you gonna terminate the pregnant? There was none of that. I mean, we had been married nine years, like in our minds, it was a blessing, but it was super scary. And my pregnancy was I'm like have a manic episode that lasted from about April to June. Like, I was staying home because I had a blowup at work and went to HR and was like, they're trying to fire me because I'm pregnant, and not none of that was true, but in my mind it was true. And I think it was I've thought about this a lot is that it was almost like you don't let the dream of having children come into your mind anymore once you've been told it's maybe not the best because of what might happen if you're pregnant, like postpartum, things like that. So we stopped having the dream of even we weren't gonna go through adoption and we weren't gonna go through surrogacy or anything. We just, and we always said if we were gonna have kids, we only wanted one kid regardless. But we we were not getting pregnant, but we were also, I was also on the pill. So, in some level, we were preventing it, but we also were very fearful because my episode in 2006 was so severe, like I was stuck in memories of childhood, and I it was like I was just my mind was shutting down and I was talking like about things that made no sense to Joe at that point. But like some of the stuff that I was saying, like he's since like years have gone by, and we've talked about like my episodes and stuff, but it was like childhood trauma, and I was it was almost like a horrible, like you're just stuck in your thoughts and you can't get out, and you're like not rational. And so that episode was very scary for Joe because that was the first time he had ever experienced an episode with me, and he was very like, oh my gosh, and it wasn't that I was not truthful with him because I was like when we were dating, like I tried to explain my episode and bipolar, but unless you experience someone in a manic episode, it's too difficult to know how to say it, you know. Like I can't explain it. He saw it firsthand, and between the two things, it frightened us. And I never wanted to have another episode like that. I was working as a director of housing at a small school, and I had 42 students that worked for me, and I had the episode at a meeting with students. I started talking about things that did not make sense, things from years in like college and stuff, like and they were concerned enough to drive me home to Joe, but that episode frightened us so bad that pregnancy for years was off the table. It was not going to happen. We were not going to have kids. So when you did get pregnant, yeah, you're gonna have the baby.

Janine 10:31

Um, yeah, you how many months before you ended up in the psych ward?

The 14-Day Psychiatric Hospital Stay

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Oh, so I got pregnant in April and June, I had a total like meltdown at home, and Joe was scared, so he called his parents and they came over and they drove us to the hospital, and then I stayed for 14 days, and that's the longest I've ever been hospitalized. It was it's very humbling because not only am I healing from having a manic episode that we try to prevent by being on medicine, but now I'm pregnant and there's never been there was never a question like what we're gonna do. Like we're gonna have this baby, but whoa, this was not in our we were not planning this. And so I think sometimes Joe and I even talk about how difficult that time was because you, I don't know, I can't explain it other than just say when you are married, you I think some people just think like you get married, you have kids, and there's this trajectory. And for us, it wasn't happening. So we just we I remember distinctly having the conversation, like almost six months before I got pregnant, just saying, we're okay, right? Like we're not gonna have kids, and that's okay. And so we kind of closed that door forever. That was our conversation. We were like, we're just gonna travel, we're gonna live our life. We have friends, they all have kids, like we're getting kid interaction. I was the last of like our friend group to have a daughter, a child. So they were supportive through my pregnancy. But the hard thing is like having the manic episode that I had that was like it was, I still needed time to recuperate from having a manic episode, but then now I'm pregnant and those have your hormones are all over the place, and you know, so it was just a very traumatic, like it her birth, like she was born six weeks early.

Medication Choices During Pregnancy

Janine 12:55

So, Betsy, I just want to back up a little bit because I think this is something people really want to understand is what happens in terms of medication when you're pregnant. So, usually when you're in the hospital, it is often because they're titrating drugs, find trying to find a new cocktail for you, right? Yes. And so if you're when you were first pregnant, did your doctor change anything?

SPEAKER_00 13:23

I actually had to go on lithium because uh they couldn't get things balanced out for me in the hospital. So we took the chance and I took lithium and well butrin and laminectol, and things kind of stabled out. And I mean, I was stable about August, and then I was retaining a lot of water during my pregnancy, and I was huge, and I had they did not catch the gestational diabetes when they did the testing.

Preeclampsia, Early C-Section, And NICU

SPEAKER_00 13:59

I didn't show for it, but I apparently got it, and so I was retaining water and I was just a mess, and I went in to the doctor and he's like, You're in pre-clampsia, like you cannot, this is not this is not safe for you or the baby anymore. We're taking her tomorrow, and so she came the next day. Like, I didn't get to go home. I had to call Joe and say, You got to come to the hospital, they're not releasing me, and they're they're gonna do a C-section tomorrow. And this was six weeks before she was born or was due, and she was her lung was not fully developed, so she had to be sent to a children's hospital, and we had to visit, like we had to stay in Columbus for three weeks because she was in the NICU, she required a lot of attention and had a lot of needs because of her lung not being developed. So, not only was the pre-pregnancy of getting her hair traumatic, but having her was traumatic. Like it just could not have been like it's the worst case scenario when you're bipolar and you're gonna have a baby, and then all of a sudden your baby doesn't come home with you because it has a lot of needs that you can't take care of at home.

Janine 15:33

It sounds like the pregnancy was very fear-based. It was. You know, fear when you know you're pregnant, and then of course, the fear you're trying to not go into the hospital, but ultimately had to go into the hospital. Yeah. Which must have been, I mean, those places are so like hellish and scary no matter what state you're in. So that's super fearful. And then you're, you know, getting through the pregnancy and you learn that you have gestational diabetes and preclampsia, and all of us, all of a sudden the baby's here, but she's not well. It just feels like such a progression of fear. I'm like, how did you how did you get through that?

SPEAKER_00 16:18

I do have PTSD. Like I've gone, I just kind of wrapped up a series of counseling, like I think in December, but we kind of worked through, like, talked about the birth process and just kind of talking through that. So my seeing her was delayed. And when I walked in, she was hooked up to all these machines and basically everything was doing things for her to keep her alive. And I remember walking from the hospital, one of the early nights saying, Is she going to, is she gonna make it? And Joe's like, I hope so, I think so. But it was a very scary, scary time, and she'll be 12 in October.

PTSD, Gratitude, And New Medical Wisdom

SPEAKER_00 17:11

And looking back, I wouldn't trade being a mom for anything. And I've often thought, like, if I would have known the reward of being a mom, like how I feel now, it was worth going through all of that, but it was scary. And I wish that medicine and science and all of that had different wisdom to give us so many years ago. It was just like, don't do it. And so we didn't do it. Now you can have a health, you can be bipolar one and have a psychiatrist and an OBGYN work neck and neck together and have an uneventful, healthy pregnancy. But that wasn't the wisdom 12 years ago.

Janine 18:02

Makes me wonder if you ever felt judged by others for having the baby. And then also if you felt like concerned that some of your medication was connected to her development. Like, did you ever take on any of that worry? Hopefully, you didn't.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

I didn't, I think because I did not take that on as far as that. I never felt judged. I never felt judged, even thinking about it. Like, I don't know that I've that I always recognize how much stress it took out on us, you know, like it took a toll.

Janine 18:40

Were you just tired, like as a new mom, or did you feel any sort of weird anxiety or mania?

SPEAKER_00 18:48

You know, once we got her home, she slept through the night. She was the best baby, like so happy. And we did not go out a lot because of like her initial health issues. So, like our church brought us meals in, some of our friends brought meals to us, you know. If I could say anything about my husband, he is amazing. And I would not be healthy, and as far along in my diagnosis and where I am today without him, I just feel like God couldn't have picked a better person for me, you know. Like I do feel like God's hands have been in everything in my life, but he brought us to Savannah came to us. She's healthy.

Janine 19:40

It's an amazing story because it's very realistic. It's not saying, oh, I had a bipolar pregnancy that just went went swimmingly. You're saying instead that it was it was one challenge after the next, but ultimately you have a healthy baby and you made it through. So it's a great story for people to hear. Like, if you know, this is possible, you may have even more support now than you did 20 years ago. But even with whatever meds they were going with back then and care for yourself, like it's still this like beautiful outcome, right? Even though it was so hard. Yes.

Telling Your Story So Support Shows Up

Janine 20:23

Well, I'm just really appreciative for you sharing your story because it's actually kind of where I want to take this podcast. I think it makes sense to make it for women, bipolar women, and of course, mood disorders, anxiety, depression, and all that. I want to put more women's voices out there. And your story is really important because there just aren't many stories accessible like yours. So I just really want to build this as you know, a safe place to find these stories of women.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

I thank you for like asking me because it trying to figure out how to tell your story, when to tell your story, and how to get your story out there is a challenge. Like I feel like I've been through, I'm only 50 and I feel like I've lived two lives, like prior to bipolar and then bipolar.

Janine 21:19

I think your story is really good. And I think it is interesting to look at it like pre-bipolar and after the diagnosis. I think that's a nice way to kind of frame your story.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

I think why it's so important for me now to like have a voice and and share my story the way I want to is because if I ever get to the point where I'm not well, it will make sense. And maybe people will step in and do meals and step in and just help without me ever having to say anything because they've seen me when I'm well and I've told them how it would be helpful to be treated when I'm not well. Wow.

Janine 22:02

I don't think many people have the confidence or foresight to do that. I don't, I know that I couldn't say that to my friends or family. So I think that shows that you are in a, you know, very close environment.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

I have listened to a lot of your podcasts from earlier, and I think you have a fascinating story. And I've often wondered like, what would it be like to be in California and be bipolar, like and be in a bigger, you know, what It be like to be in a bigger city where you can isolate and maybe not run into the same person. And is that helpful or being in a microscope living in a small town is that helpful? Like, I don't know.

Janine 22:46

I don't know the answer to it, but I think small town actually is probably more helpful because it's every you know, the cards are on the table and everyone kind of knows each other's business, which I think is I think that's okay. But Betsy, this has been amazing. Thank you so much for coming back on the show. And I just I think it's wonderful that you're sharing your story. And yeah, I hope to stay connected to you because I will.

SPEAKER_00 23:13

So they're gonna record when I do the larger church community.

Janine 23:18

Okay, love to see that.

Share The Episode And Support The Show

Janine 23:22

Thank you to Betsy for advocating for yourself and others through Story. Please send this episode to someone who may need to hear it. It's so easy to forward an episode. Click the little box with the arrow at the top of your screen. Bipolar She is accepting donations to help keep the podcast afloat. So please visit buymeacoffee.com forward slash bipolar she. A five dollar monthly coffee can do great things. And as always, thank you for listening.