Parenting with chronic migraines feels almost impossible some days. But my husband and I figured out a plan that works for us.

• When I started having chronic migraines, it gave me anxiety about my ability to be a present parent.
• After I had my son, my pain often got in the way of the parenting plan my husband and I had made.

"I need help," I called from the bedroom.

The sound of my voice hurt my entire body as I stumbled around like an overtired toddler searching for my migraine-help kit. Even though I'm a migraine pro — this being my 15th year, 11th month, 4th day, and 13th hour of dealing with them, but who's counting — this attack had come on fast. The pain was so intense that I couldn't form a complete thought, much less find what I needed.

Thankfully, my husband showed up right away, followed by my 8-year-old. After helping me settle, I heard my son whisper, "I'm going to stay with her. OK, Dad?" I marveled at his kindness with gratitude; my migraine disease — and its side effects — hadn't always brought out the best in my relationships.

A look back at when it all started

On one sunny afternoon almost 16 years ago, I had my first migraine. After spending the weekend in my dark bedroom, I congratulated myself for making it through a pain that felt like my brain was roasting inside my head.

I had no clue this initial migraine attack would turn into a chronic nightmare, but within a few years, I was having several a month. Eight years after my first attack, my pain was daily. Now, I'm one of 28 million women who live with migraines, and though they can be unpredictable, I have to plan for this uncertainty.

Whether that means bringing relief meds and sunglasses for an afternoon out or thinking ahead about the effect these attacks have on me when family planning, this is a topic that's always on my mind.

Planning for children as a migraine sufferer

Before getting pregnant with my son, I worried so much about starting a family while dealing with my migraines that I took every chance to bring the conversation up with my husband. "But what about my head?" I asked him for the gazillionth time. My stomach tensed at the mere thought of my monthly migraines interfering with my ability to care for a baby.

My husband listened to all of my worries and agreed that there's safety in having a strategy. So we came up with a basic outline: I wholeheartedly agreed to take on the bulk of the day-to-day work, and my husband assured me he'd be there to help. But just like the time I attempted to perm my hair, this plan also proved better on paper.

"Please, can you take him?" I found myself asking in whispers, more frequently than I wanted to.

By the time my kid was 3 years old, my migraines were daily. I was working with doctors, but we hadn't found a solution, and I did my best to parent through the pain. Admittedly, running from my toddler to the bathroom to vomit instead of stacking Legos with him didn't make me feel like a stellar mom.

As my migraine attacks increased, shame oozed in my chest like my kid's play slime. It felt like my parenting plan was failing. Crying alone with a brain on fire, I had to face my truth: Balancing motherhood with migraines was harder than I imagined.

How my husband and I changed our parenting plan

My husband was as big a fan as I was of our initial plan, but clearly, we'd have to change course. We'd entered confusing territory as the unpredictability of my migraines kept me asking him to change and be more flexible with his work schedule.

The previously agreed-upon arrangement that I'd be the primary at-home parent simply wasn't possible, and the schedule we'd created in theory was chaos in practice. The resentment chips were stacking up and building a nice, solid wall between us — one that was hard to ignore.

Over a two-year period, my husband and I had many conversations on our couch about how to manage all the things we had to get done. But it was during one couch convo when we agreed that we didn't want this disconnection and bitterness to become a habit. The foundation of our relationship was stronger than our walls of resentment, and that's when we truly saw how our initial family vision was clogging up our connection.

As we talked, we also discovered why we'd been so reluctant to let our plan go. Some reasons had to do with work logistics, but other aspects ran deeper: We'd made promises to one another that weren't realistic for us and compared our path with the way other families did things. When we didn't live up to those promises or comparisons, we felt like parenting failures.

We took a breath and accepted the changes that were changing us — and then, we changed our plan. My husband and I may not be able to control my migraines, but we realized that we could control our reaction to them.

First, we put into place some practical support systems, like a babysitter to help here and there and friends who could jump in if necessary. We also decided to try things that might help us be more present in our day-to-day lives. This meant I could let my husband know a migraine was happening and ask for help in the moment, rather than trying to push through so we could adjust accordingly.

This new focus gave us more space to be emotionally open to shifting our parenting plans and reevaluating the roles we had set for ourselves, and it lessened the resentment that had built up.

While I'll never be a fan of my unhealthy head, I am a fan of creating a healthier family connection. And because of how we've worked through my migraine disorder together, we've built a structure that helps us all support each other.