Does anyone have experience of being pregnant with a child they just don't want?

[CoddledAsAMommet]

I hope this doesn't upset anyone.

I'm 19+4 weeks with my fourth and I don't want this. I know there's nothing to be done but pretending the whole situation's not happening isn't cutting it anymore.

I have a 20 week scan on Monday and. I don't want to go. If I don't go, does it matter?

I just don't want this child, this situation, any of it. I keep dreaming of giving it to my MIL after it's born and not having to see it again. FWIW I'm not depressed, just logically and rationally I don't want this child.

[Fairylea]

I felt like that with a lot of my second pregnancy. Lots of reasons.

Can you talk about your reasons for feeling this way? Do you think it might be ante natal depression (which is treatable with medication and counselling). What are the circumstances for the pregnancy?

[CoddledAsAMommet]

We'd just finished with babies, you know? My youngest will be nearly 8 and we've got past this stage. I can't stop thinking of all the things I can't do now that had been planned- retraining, changing jobs.... Just being freer.

How will I have time for 4? Even if I could find time, I don't WANT to. I feel it's absolutely being forced on me and my whole life is out of control.

I don't want to feel movements, think about names, and I certainly don't want to see it at a bloody 20-week scan. I want it to disappear.

[Lezprechaun]

Well it hasn't been forced on you, there are options and ignoring the situation certainly isn't helping. Have you spoken to your partner about this?

[CoddledAsAMommet]

I was nearly 10 weeks pregnant when I realised. Now nearly 20. What - realistic - options are there? Because if there are some I'd dearly like to know.

At the moment I have;
A. Move out of the family home once it's born and see my 3 lovelies EOW
B. give it to MIL

And this is when I KNOW the only thing I can really do is get the hell on with it and pretend to everyone for the rest of my fucking life that everything 's ok. When it's not. It's not nearly ok.

[Lezprechaun]

Abortion is legal up till 24 weeks in the UK for one but you would have to move fast. If you were 10 weeks when you found out that's a lot of time wasted when you could have ended the pregnancy if you felt so against it. Is there any reason you didn't?

I don't understand why moving out would help at all or make a difference? Also why give the baby to your MIL as opposed to surrender for adoption? Is there any reason to think she would want to take the baby?

[Fairylea]

What about the baby's dad? Why is mil the first choice?

[TheTerribleBaroness]

I've had lots of long and frank conversations about this with my grandmother who had similar feelings when she discovered she was pregnant with a third. Her other children were at school, she was looking forward to working again, and had even got rid of the pram etc. She is now closer to this baby than her other two children and the child was always the apple of her eye. They bonded as soon as the baby was born, and as she said to me, it was only a couple of years, and it was easy because I already knew what I was doing, and then everything was back on track again.
It'll be fine. You may even surprise yourself.

[CoddledAsAMommet]

Well, option A is move out so DH can look after the baby (goodness only knows what he'd do for child care).
Option B is DH and I stay together and the baby goes.

In both these scenarios I don't have to have anything to do with it. I know both of these are untenable, I really do, but the other reality of having to give up everything, start over, for a child I don't want, is horrific.

I hoped, really hoped, that the situation would change with time but it just hasn't and I'm almost half way already.
I'm very scared and lonely.

[CoddledAsAMommet]

Thank you Baroness. That helps, but I can't pin my hopes on 'maybe I'll bond when it's born.'

Maybe I won't. And then what?

[Lezprechaun]

Agree Baroness. My children are 11, 10 and 2 and the youngest has been by far the easiest. So lovely having older children to share it with, and help pass you nappies or occupy a bored toddler. I was terrified when pregannt and had a lot of "what the hell have I done feelings" even though the baby was very much planned and I had IVF. No regrets at all though and I start at a student midwife in September so has not held me back at all.

However if the OP is dead set against having another child that's a very personal decision and one that she really needs to think about an discuss with babies dad as sticking her head in the sand is NOT going to make it all go away.

[LiberalLibertines]

Can I ask why you didn't terminate this pregnancy when you found out op? Did your dp/ family pressure you into keeping the baby?

[peppercold]

Why didn't you do anything when you found out ten weeks ago? Or have you only just started feeling like this?

[Lezprechaun]

Coddled - first of all you WILL bond! It may take time but it will come. I assume by you ignoring my response about termination that it is something you ruled out? Perhaps in that case it is more fear than not wanting the child? Which I think is very normal with a large age gap.

Does your partner want the baby and do they know how you feel? It may help to discuss your feelings.

[Fairylea]

I had 11 years between my dc. I had awful pnd after my first dc and always swore I would never have another. Then some years (and two divorces later) I met dh and incredibly I felt broody. However during my pregnancy with ds I felt overcome with depression for much of the same reasons as you - feeling like I was starting all over again, giving up everything, hated the baby stage etc. I had a conversation with dh when I told him when the baby arrived he could have the baby and fuck off. I really meant it - at the time. Of course dh was very hurt but kind enough to realise (hope?) I didn't mean it.

For me a lot of it was fear surrounding the birth because dd was such a traumatic labour so I fought for an elective section on the nhs and that aliveiated some of the worry.

However some of the dread stayed with me up until the birth. I remember not wanting to decorate the nursery because I didn't care about the baby and so on.

When ds arrived amazingly it just lifted me out of it. So I do think some of it was chemical depression and some of it was anxiety. Having a baby is anxious for anyone.

Having an older child I was able to tell myself the baby and toddler stage goes quickly and it really does. Ds is 2 now and is just coming through the most awful stage.

I would go and talk to your gp and ask for some counselling. You need someone to talk to properly. And tell your midwife how you are feeling. An unwanted pregnancy you found out about only 10 weeks ago and you're 20 weeks now is quite a shock.

[ThisIsBULLSHIT]

Yes I was pregnant with a child I didn't want. I wasn't in your situation though, I already had only one child, a five year old. I had ante natal depression and I struggled through every single minute of every single day.

I loved my first child sooo much. But I realised I had had PND after she was born for years as the minute I realised I was pregnant second time round, I recognised the sinking feeling and was just gutted.

As baroness I am now super close to the second dd.


Your detachment to your baby strikes a chord with me. My midwife asked me on our first meeting if I was excited about being pregnant again and I said that I didn't want to be pregnant and I hated it and wished I wasn't. She arranged for me to have a superb counsellor and it helped. But all that you say sounds so familiar.
I don't quite know how to advise you but I can say that I really do understand and also that my little dd is now my most favourite person.

X

[CeliaBowen]

The OP does not say she is in the UK.


I hope it all works out for you, OP.

[Athrawes]

Adoption, open-adoption? Rather than having the baby around/living with MIL and you being the one adult in it's life who isn't interested in looking it in the eye.
Not judging, totally understand, I get it. So why not give what will undoubtedly be a delicious wee bundle an opportunity to be loved and make another mother/couple the happiest in the world by giving them this gift?
Turning a bad situation good.
You could do worse than talking to adoption people and seeing what the options are, before you dismiss the idea.

[PicardyThird]

From the way you are talking, OP, I might respectfully disagree that you are not depressed. I'm no armchair psychologist handing out diagnoses, but the language you are using is extreme - this sense that the rest of your life will be irrevocably ruined. 'Horrific' to start all over again (and why is it entirely your responsibility to give up career plans etc - what about your dh?)? Thinking of splitting up and leaving the baby to dh to deal with? And where does the idea of 'giving' the baby to your MIL (as opposed to giving him/her up for adoption) come from? What were things like during pregnancy and after birth with your other three? Were they planned/wanted?

I'm afraid that having 'nothing to do' with this baby is no longer an option - you do have something to do with it, and I am wondering with others why you did not terminate when you found out. I can't help feeling there is a lot more going on here than simply not wanting this, and that you badly need to talk this through with someone.

[lettertoherms]

Coddled, there was a thread on here recently by a woman who felt very much like you describe through her pregnancy, and posted after she had given birth and relinquished her baby into care; in her case she ended up taking her child back and it all ended happily for her. [http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/adoptions/a2100969-newborn-adoption Thread is here]] I think perhaps it might be comforting for you, of course you might make different choices, but it shows one positive outcome from a similar situation.

[lettertoherms]

Sorry, here's the link.

[Mexicantortilla]

Hi OP, my sympathies, see your mw for a referral for counselling, you sound very angry with your dh and mil and it almost sounds like your trying to make them responsible for your anger rather than taking responsibility yourself?
Sorry don't mean to sound harsh but please seek some professional help, I understand some of how you are feeling and have had negative thoughts about my own surprise pg.

[todayisnottheday]

A friend of mine went through this. She was angry, hurt, bitter and a world of other things. She cried every single day of her pregnancy (her 3rd child). She just couldn't see a way to make it work. Like you she thought she was finished and had started to focus on her life beyond small children. Around 8 months pg it suddenly stopped. She said it was that sudden. She just woke up one day and found that she had finally accepted it, like she'd been grieving for the things/life she'd planned almost? Anyway, from there she bonded with the baby very quickly. By the time she went into labour she said she felt the same about this child as she did her others yet hadn't even been able to force herself to buy basic things for it a few weeks earlier. 8 years gosh no 9 now, her dd is just as loved and pampered as the others and mum is starting all the things she had been planning then. I know she feels guilty about what she went through still but, to me, it's no different than someone who finds it difficult to bond after birth. Pregnancy and parenthood effects us all differently every time.

Hopefully things will click for you in the same way. It must be an awful burden to carry around. Do you have rl support?