Planned to fall pregnant age 15

Girl who had kids at 15 & 17 in my school had them removed by age 3

I know exactly how you feel. When I was a teenager a little bit older than you I went through a period of being desperate for a child, really desperate, knitted baby clothes and all sorts. Luckily I didn't have a boyfriend. After about 18 it wore off but I did finally get pregnant at 21.
Good luck to you.

Well yes, I think she knows that. Thats rather the point of her post.

Well done, can't have been easy to achieve.

A girl in my year at school got pregnant at 17, in the first year of her A levels. She dropped out, married the dad and had the baby, worked in a local bakery for years. She picked up her studies again, got divorced and got her PhD and went on to be a uni lecturer. It's amazing what people can achieve when they are determined.

I was 17 when I had eldest and he wasnt planned at all.

When he was about 6 months I saw a friend of my sisters on the bus, 15 at the time (would be late 40's now) and she said she was trying to get PG. I did everything I could to talk her out of it.

After she had twins I saw her quite often at baby clinic and she said that she wished she had listened to me. Obviously she loved them but she hadnt fully appreciated how hard life would be, especially as she ended up with twins. She thought it would be wonderful and cute..... ex had buggered off within a couple of weeks of their birth.

So while you think that the others were all accidents, they think that about you so you dont know. I am not sure that there arent far more of these deliberate accidents than people realise as no one is talking about it.

Perhaps we should.

Did you hate school and wish you could leave? My sister was like this. At 15 she was desperately broody, she never did get PG as a teen but if she had she definitely would have kept it. She was definitely trying to fill an emotional void. We had an absent father and tricky childhood with a self absorbed and emotionally immature mother.

She ended up getting married at 20 and having her first baby at 21. She never wanted anything more than she wanted to be a mum. I wanted to be a mum too, but wasn't in such a desperate hurry. I managed to get to the grand old age of 27! But that's because I'd met my husband and it felt right. If I hadn't, then it would not have worried me to wait a few more years. For me the relationship had to be exactly right, whereas my sis would have had a baby come what may, because the urge was all consuming.

I dont think it means you were disturbed in some way, just that you didnt think it all through which is a common problem for teens. I don't think their brain is fully developed until later. Glad it has worked out for you anyway.

Maybe a lot of that is from the past when there wasn’t really reliable contraception or access to abortion. I remember my Nan (who had got married before the pill had been available) saying to me she didn’t really understand how so many women (of any age group) had unplanned pregnancies considering all the options available.

And immaturity.
How did you support yourself?
Did you have a lot of family support?
Makes a huge difference
15 is far too young to have a child, you were still a child yourself

I’m so amazed at these stories. Thank you for your candour and insights. My dd is 16, almost 17. She doesn’t have a boyfriend, not ready for one atm. But she gave me a card saying thanks for everything I do, one step closer to grandma hood. It is making me wonder now if she’s thinking about stuff. 🫣

No I don’t think you were at all disturb. I had a friend who at the 15, decided to get pregnant by her boyfriend so, she wouldn’t have to go to school !!! Yeh no sh’t !! Although I do feel for her child as he was then brought up by the man she married and I do believe this gave him anger issues as and adolescent. It’s good you and your husband stayed together, as it gives your child/ children a sense of who they are .
As for me, at the age of 15 I hadn’t kissed a boy and the thought of sex and intimacy scared the shite out of me . I do believe you are one of many . Don’t sweat it .

Sorry to hear you were widowed so young.

But interesting you should mention this. Quite a few people I know of who had kids young, then died young - or youngish. I don’t believe in fate, but interesting how they had an urge to procreate - and then it turns out if they’d had kids at an average age, they’d have died childless or their kids would’ve been very young when they died.

That could have easily have been me at 15, I was so broody even as a child. I desperately romanticised it all and remember running through scenarios in my head involving boyfriends and babies. No childhood trauma and parents would have been worried but supportive had it happened. Luckily I didn’t meet anyone at that time because generally it is too young. It’s probably hormonal as well.

I’m just surprised your boyfriend was in on it OP, it’s not unusual for 15 year old girls to be broody but it’s quite unusual I would say for a boy to feel the same.

This has made me remember a girl I was at shool with who when I look back with adult eyes more than likely had a difficult life. She was sexually active before most of us, at about age 13 I think and then became pregnant at about 15 or so. She disappeared and then returned to school when we were about to start our A levels. She had given birth and the baby had been adopted and we were not in any way sympathetic. I feel horrible when I look back as she must have been traumatised, she used to lie down on our common room floor and reneact childbirth, crying and yelling . It gave me a phobia about birth as she said it was like being tortured and then of course she would have had her baby taken away to be adopted, there would have been no counselling, no option to keep the baby. This was the 70's, thank goodness we have moved on

I agree that there must have been something amiss for an adolescent of that age to want a baby more than anything else at that stage in her life. Most girls who feel this way and end up being pregnant with not very genuine 'accidents' usually have unhappy childhoods, neglectful or abusive parents or a physically or emotionally absent parent. Or they've come from the care system and they feel they have no control and no agency over anything in their lives. A baby represents something that they can make a decision about for themselves and absolutely no-one an stop them. There is also often a point to prove, that they will love better, be better, to their own child where their own parents may have failed.

Their family may live in very disadvantaged circumstances where there is overcrowding at home, no space or privacy, possibly an unhappy or abusive environment. That trope of getting pregnant for a council house seems like the only way out of a poverty trap for many young girls. Especially if they don't achieve much at school and are only ever going to scrape by in a minimum wage job. Having a baby offers the passage to adulthood and independence that other young women might gain through education, going to uni, moving to a new town to start a new career or travelling abroad for a couple of years. All of that feels completely unachievable for some girls, so having a baby offers an instant way out of the poverty trap, or so they think. The irony is that it actually keeps them in a poverty trap and a doom loop of low attainment for them and their children.

Edited to say: If none of the above applies to some girls who get PG in their teens about unhappy or abusive upbringings, often it's just about lack of ambition to do or be anything more than they see around them. If their own mother had them very young then it's difficult to argue that they shouldn't be able to do the same. If their own family has always got by relying on benefits and social housing to get them afloat and everyone else in your circle lives the same way then it takes a particular sort of person to say 'no, that's not for me, I want more.' Most people are happy to repeat the only patterns they know and see around them.

I don’t think it’s that unusual op
I think most common reason for that is a want for love

Please be kind to yourself OP, you weren't disturbed for wanting a child at 15, as you said you were just broody and going through the peak of puberty. I remember at 15 thinking my friends and I were so mature, my best friend at the time was also very broody and wanted to get pregnant asap, luckily she didn't until she was 19.

As a teenager you don't have the experience to "know better" you feel like you're an adult but you are incredibly restricted and treated as a child. Having a child yourself may feel like a fast track to adulthood. It's only when you look back you realise how immature you were and just waiting a couple of years feels like a life time at that age, it's why teenagers are vulnerable to being groomed by adult men too, I'm very glad your boyfriend was your age at least. Xx

I also planned my first baby at 15. She was born when I was 16 and 3 months. I went to college and did GCSEs then A levels then other courses. Worked in care, trained as a beauty therapist, went into teaching… then went to uni and got my degree. Was told I’d amount to nothing. To be fair I ended up with lupus and not being well enough to work. But now I have a term time/school hours job which I love. My youngest is 5 and oldest is 26 this week. I’ve got a 23 year old and a 15 year old as well. I’ve admitted to my parents now that my oldest was planned and they agree it’s clearly what was meant to be.. she’s a good kid, currently travelling around south east Asia… has a good outlook on life and doesn’t feel like she missed out by being born to “teen mum”. I had a LOT of support and hand on heart felt having her was easier than having my youngest!!!. There is never a right time or right age to have a baby. Shit happens planned or not and we learn from it.

Mumsnet is the home of priggishness. I am never surprised any more.

Being a teenage mother hasn’t got you a council house for the best part of 30
years, but i guess a 15 year old wouldn’t know that

My youngest is 14 and talks a lot about wanting to be a mum so I don't find this very surprising. I obviously hope she waits a few years, and have told her that, but I'm a bit taken aback by some of the priggishness on display in this thread

I had my eldest at 19 (pregnant at 18). Technically she was ‘unplanned’ but that was because I’d had a few months being useless at remembering the pill every day and not doubling up on protection, so it was almost inevitable. I still wasn’t thrilled when I found out I was pregnant but didn’t consider termination.

So although it definitely wasn’t an ‘accidentally on purpose’ I still wouldn’t class it as ‘total shock accident/part of the 0.1% of contraceptive failures’

Tbh I think most ‘unplanned’ pregnancies fall somewhere in-between.