Bipolar Disorder Monster taking one more thing - Babies

As anyone who has read my blog, follows me on Twitter, knows me in person or knows anyone of my family or friends, knows that I have an instant connection to children.  I have since I was a child myself.  The 4 yr old that would "babysit" the babies in the room, the one girl/woman that was always asking to hold the babies when they were/are around and someone who has always wanted more than anything to be a mother.  One of my closest friends RT used to call me MIT "Mother in Training" in highschool, a clear indication of what was to come for me, or so I thought.

So here I am.  34 yrs old.  Single.  Sick.  Diagnosed bipolar aka crazy.  Unemployed.  All forcing a re-evaluation on life.  One think that this year has taught me is that there is likely no way that I will be able to have a child on my own.  I always said that if I was 35 and alone, I would have a baby on my own.  It is not, and has never been the ideal option, but it was a viable option.  I was a responsible and good person who could have managed a child on my own.  I have friends who have had babies on their own.  It was not easy, but they have managed and are so thankful for the experience.  They did not plan their lives in the hopes of doing it on their own, but they come to an age where they had no one in their lives and realized it was a now or never time for having a baby.  Something they always wanted, much like myself. 

I believe and think that I am know not able to handle the responsibility and the pressure of a child on my own while managing a bipolar disorder.  The stress and responsibility will likely be too much for me to handle on my own while managing my disease and not doing harm to myself and others.

I have also read and learnt that many mental health illnesses including bipolar disorder are passed down from generation to generation.  I wonder if past generations of my family had experience with mental illness?  I know that there has been some talk of relitves being "crazy" or having addictions, both signs of mental health issues.  Do I want to pass down this disease to another generation??  Is it fair to do that??  Would I want anyone to go through this??  I know that some of my friends who are dealing with bipolar disorder have decided that they are not having children because of the fact that they risk passing it down to the next generation.  What to do?  What to do?

I realize that this declaration of my not being able to have a child on my own means that I will only have to find someone stable enough to want to have a child with me.  Well it sounds easy enough, but who wants to be with the person who is certifably crazy, unemployed, fat, did I mention crazy???  And that that person will want to put at risk their offspring with my genetic pool of Russian Roulette for mental illness.  I had a hard enough time finding men who wanted to date me when i wasn't crazy.

Maybe this is the universes way of telling me that the one thing that I want more than anything is something that I just won't be good at, or can't handle - being a mother.   Goodness knows that apparently if you are a teenager you can have a baby, but not if you are me.  Not if you have played by the rules, been safe, waited until you tried to find someone so that you could make a stable family, with a mother and a father who are good role models.  Nope, I had to get sick and everything had to fall apart.  Yet another thing that the bipolar disorder monster has robbed me off.  This stupid, infuriating disease has taken so much and now it looks like it is taking the one thing that I want more than anything, a child.