To think I’ve got myself into the worst mess ever??? Pregnancy related

My worry would be that if you have this baby, your DS and exH will likely want nothing to do with you, quite possibly forever.

@PinkChaires OP has already said ex is in the spare room at parents so that’s not an option. And even if it was, it would be a terrible option.

OP is also going to be effectively a single parent to a newborn with a partner her children haven’t even met. That’s not great.

Op...if I'm wrong I apologise, but was this really an accident? You said you've been very depressed since your break up...you wanted a third child anyway. Was this actually planned and now you're suddenly thinking what have I done? Like I said, I apologise if this isn't the case

Does your youngest have a different father from the older ones?

Butterfingers! Could DS possibly spend majority time with dad? It seems its what he wants. To combat the negativity, i had a baby when my kids were 16 doing gcse, 14 and 9. The 9 year old is profoundly delayed with self harming towards himself and 14 has suspected ASD and is also noise sensitive. A year on and i can honestly say that there were limited problems and its like she was always here. Not trying to encourage/discourage you here, but sometimes in less ideal situations it does work out

I almost never post on threads like this for a lot of reasons. But your honesty and distress is obvious. I think in this situation the counsel I would give is park any thoughts about the men in your life. And your desire to have more children. The most important factor to consider is the children that you already have. They are your primary responsibility and their needs in this particular situation need to be considered ahead of anything and anyone.

As it sounds like you want to keep the baby, first of all I would tell the father and your ex husband. Then go from there, don’t worry about your older kids yet. Just take little steps forward, it seems like a big mess now but eventually it won’t feel like that.

You do have a lot to think about OP, this will obviously completely scupper any reconciliation with your ex husband, and will also cause problems with your son.
There is no chance of a proper family relationship with the father either.
I think you need to think very hard about how you will actually cope with a baby, you need to be brutally realistic, hard as that might be.
Do you go to work?
Would you be able to cope financially?
Do you have friends, family for support?
Also have you double checked the test, with you being on the pill it seems odd that you’re pregnant.

Without wanting to add to your stress OP this pregnancy could well even be twins again unless your current set were conceived with fertility treatment - having naturally conceived DCDA twins gives you a much higher chance of conceiving twins again. To go it alone with one baby under these circumstances is going to be totally different to having twins

Because it’s 2025 she should be able to bring a baby into her already emotional home and emotional life, turning the lives of her 13yo twins upside down?

Gotcha 👍🏼

Do you honestly think you can navigate pregnancy, a relationship with a man who hasn’t met your children, an ex who thought he’d get another chance and your already traumatised children?

This is a recipe for real genuine damage for your existing children.

You may want a third child but is that the right thing to do for anyone in this situation?

Btw i agree with fetchthevet. People are acting like an abortion is going to be a quick fix but the emotional impact on OP, especially if its a wanted baby will be devastating. Op i would honestly forget about ExH as a partner- its clear hes not reliable and hints of abusive by DDs words.

Listen @MaddieInAmess this is your choice. Of course it is.

But you need to be thinking with your head not your heart here.

Of course you can't live your life only considering others, but in this case, I really think you need to do just that. Bringing a baby into a fledgling relationship, with either man, when your son is still hurting (a lot by the sounds of things), is a recipe for disaster and for alienating every person in your life.

Like others have said, don't put your desire for another baby above everything else important in your life. A baby is not going to plaster over the cracks in your life.

Indeed they do. The ops DD already has a sibling. ASD or not, they haven't met their mother's boyfriend and I'm not sure they even know about him do they? I imagine this news will come as a shock. But regardless of who the father is, a teenager with sensitivity to noise will probably not find having a toddler around during their gcses particularly enjoyable.

Is it not possible for DS to either see dad more or even live with him?

Aside from what you want OP please, please think about the impact of a new baby from a complicated situation on the children you have and the children (3 already?) the other man has.

Your children have already been through a hell of a lot recently.

I'm so sorry this has landed on you but I would go against all the advice to put yourself first and suggest putting your children first.

I didn’t
I had an ex husband who creating additional mayhem in the background.
Teenagers going through the usual hormonal stuff where they hate your guts.
The only person being nice to me at that stage was my 6-year-old. And all I could think about was how much a baby would’ve ruined his life and it would.

He would’ve gone to live with his dad.
I would’ve lost him.
Lots to weigh up

OP, you've said you couldn't have a termination (and I understand your feelings) so you'll just have to make the best of the situation. If it was me, I would tell your new partner and your ex that you are pregnant, but I probably wouldn't tell the children until I knew the pregnancy was progressing OK. There are people saying "have a termination, think of your other children", as if having an abortion is the easy option. I think statistics show that most women don't regret their abortions, but some women have a terrible emotional reaction and feel regret and guilt for years. If you had an abortion and regretted it, falling into depression for example, that would effect your existing children too. There are no easy options. But if your gut reaction is to keep the baby then I would go along with that. In my opinion it does not make you selfish (as others have suggested on here) at all.

I am on the pill and have been for 12 years so how this has happened I don’t know.

Well, it happened because I’m assuming your boyfriend didn’t wear a condom and ejaculated inside you. Unfortunately the contraceptive pill isn’t 100% affective. It happens.

I’m very sorry you are in this situation.

Without a pregnancy, it still sounds very very messy and you sound very very confused.

Please do not bring a child into this emotional mess. Think about the upset this will cause to your other children and ex-partner.

Confide in a very trusted friend or family member. Book a termination and counselling.

Dump your boyfriend.

Have some time to be single.

Try and co-parent your children as best you can with your ex and try and get some extra support for your son, as he sounds like he’s really struggling.

Things will all feel better in time.

If it was me, then I would terminate and then stay single for a good couple of years.

If you’re adamant that you want to continue with the pregnancy then you need to understand that you’ll be doing it alone.

That is fine as many women do it, myself included, but you also have to take into consideration the fact that both these men will move on to find someone else and have grown up kids with barely any responsibilities.
Whilst you’ll have 2 teens and a baby to deal with.
Even if these men are both involved, like your ex currently, they will highly likely not co-parent in an equal way and you will be the default parent.

I personally could not imagine anything worse than being 40 and being a single parent to 2 teens and a baby.

For the next couple of weeks, stay single and don’t tell either of them about the baby.
Get an early scan and firstly see if it’s a viable pregnancy and what you want to do about it.

I agree with this - it isn’t a film and everything is going to magically work out. You already have a child struggling - how would you cope with a baby in all this?

I personally wouldn’t be keeping this pregnancy

I had older children than yours, mine were 18, 16 and 13 and 6 at the time that I was pregnant.
They just needed so much support, you think you can take your foot off the gas a bit when they get to the teenage years but actually I found they needed more.
The 18-year-old was really struggling with her levels and it became all consuming, so I was driving her to tae kwon do three times a week otherwise the child would’ve done nothing but studying sleep and eat.
So that was five until seven, 3 times a week, after completing my day at work.
The 16-year-old when she finally got to Uni the first week she was there she was raped with everything that goes along with that.
And the 13-year-old attempted suicide.
So we had all the camhs meetings, in addition to the usual GCSE stuff.
I might be unusual, but with my other children certainly for the first three months of pregnancy I can’t lift my head off the pillow. I’m that knackered. Just getting through the day Workwise would’ve finished me off.

We were made homeless during Covid which was unlucky but with rentals it could happen to anyone.

At that point, it was bad enough having a cat and a dog. Never mind a little one.
I remember the words of my mother when I was planning number four, the more children you have the more worry you have.
I don’t think that really hit me until there was a potential Number five.
And that’s without all the usual financial strains that comes with having older children.
Student Finance stuffed up my income documents when child one and two were both waiting for their loans to come through. So luckily, because I was back at work full-time I was able to just flick them both a couple of grand each to cover their rent while they waited.
If I’ve had my career hindered by a baby, I might not have been in that position to help them. And they could’ve both lost their student accommodation because there was a queue for it, if they didn’t pay plenty of people were waiting to do so.
I realise mine is a bit of a tale of woe and not the norm. But I couldn’t have predicted all that eight years ago either.

mamatoo I was coming on to say exactly the same thing. Please don't prioritize your desire for another child over the needs of your existing children.