I have chosen to not be a mother to no small part because my own mom was bipolar and messed it up. There was no support in the 80s she went weeks without getting out of bed and no one looked after me and my brother except me and my brother. We had a dad but he worked all the time and avoided our own pain to focus on his wife. My advise is don’t do it if you can’t handle yourself — if you can handle yourself with whatever regime and have support network in place for the inevitable times you will NOT be able to be a good mom then go for it. Just have a plan and know if you can stick to it even in a depression or hypo manic plane. Parenting isn’t perfect and you will be more challenged than the “normal” mom just knowing to even ask about “is this a good idea” says you are self aware…one thing I ask make sure if you have a kid it knows you love it and you are not depressed because of the kid…mom sucked at that and I spent years thinking her depression was my fault. Years of therapy couldn’t shake me of that belief. I thought that until I experienced depression of my own and then I understood…it wasn’t me — it wasn’t even her…but for years I thought it was my fault.