To want DSD to have an abortion?

[TessoftheDamned]

Heavy going stuff but really doubting myself on this.

DSD is 14 and we thought was a straight-laced girl, very into her studies, hardly ever goes out, etc. Anyway, has fallen pregnant and just had the nerve to tell us (lives with us full-time, her mother is not in the picture). The guy is 'long gone' as she says, refuses to tell us his name or where she met him. To be honest I'm a bit worried there was some pressure and perhaps even date rape thing going on, but I haven't pushed it as she's very vulnerable at the moment (as one might expect).

She is adamant she is keeping her baby. Although I'm sure it will end up looking to us as parents and her as a sister, we don't want another baby and don't want to look after hers. She's not an adult but it is her body, I'm so torn. I feel like she's doing herself and everyone else a great disservice bringing this heartache, but of course a baby is normally a source of joy...

DH is flabbergasted and shocked, he's still trying to find out who the boy is (she told us 3 days ago). She clams up when we suggest anything other than keeping the baby and refuses to speak to us.

AIBU?

what button said,

I doubt very much, but Tess if you're still out there I don't think you are being unreasonable at all, and I do think she is burying her head in the sand and expecting you to deal with it.

Or maybe she is saying 'nope, want to keep it' because she thinks that's what she should be saying.

definitely needs to know the real picture in either scenario.

Good Luck.

Have any of you been the Grandmother, left looking after the baby? (In my case I was quite happy to as well), have any of you been the baby being brought up by the Grandmother.

Do you understand what it feels like to then when the Mother is deemed old enough to take the child into her own sole care, how that bay will feel, how displaced she will feel, how lost she will feel.

Sorry sod the mother or the grandmother, have any of you really though of the baby in this.

Altkinmum - she lives in the UK in Kent as has been said earlier - it's Quint and I who are abroad.

altinkum - re the educational units - didn't think of that as thought this was an accomodation issue. iirc whether dsd will be able to stay at her current school depends on their poloicy anyway so this may be an enforced option :-(

Hi Tess, just wanted to say I'm sorry that your family are facing this situation. I hope that the doctor's appointment went okay and that you're getting support in RL for this situation.

I can totally understand why you don't want to have the responsibility of another baby; and it's likely that unless ground rules are set up well in advance, that you may become carer by default as you're the one most at home.

However, I do believe that DSD should be presented with all the facts surrounding early abortion (tablets vs operation), adoption, and keeping the baby. Maybe ask your DSD to come up with a plan of action for if she does keep baby- eg how will the baby be cared for, how will she study, what money will she receive etc. I feel that you should support her choice, but make it clear that her having the baby means just that- it's hers her responsibility not yours.

Good luck, and I hope you can all work something out.

As the name say - Don't shoot me but, being devils advocate for a minute....

...I think we are all, as is only right and natural, assuming young girl, healthy baby - manageable situation but, what if it didn't work out like that.

Have you pointed out to your DSD and DH that things do sometimes go wrong and what may be manageable (even if you were completely happy about picking up the bulk of the childcare) with a healthy baby would not be so easy if, God forbid, there were problems.

I know this is a horrible thing to suggest, and yes, if I'm honest I am thinking it might bring into sharper relief the reality of the situation to OP's DH and DSD. It is also pertinent given that you have no idea who the father is and what his background/health is like?

I know I'm probably up for a flaming for bringing this up, but that's reality.

On the other side, I have a relative who had her (healthy) child when she had just turned 16 and has made a fantastic job of it, but she had a lot of financial support from her grandfather and a huge amount of practical support from her mum (plus a substantial inheritance at 18 which has smoothed the way, although she completed her education and has got a good job off her own back).

on a side not an ex colleague of mine was a mum at 15. she was 20 when we worked together. her family kicked her out and she was aloine with a newborn. with the support of ss she ended up coping fantastically well and was a very responsible parent who was very organised and shrewd with her money - an exemplerary (sic) lone parent. however, she was old before her time and world weary. she found having a life away from her dd (nights out with work mates etc) really difficult. not because she couldn't get a babysitter/afford it, but i think because she had missed so much already of ordinary late teens/early 20's social life that she found it hard to relax and switch off from being a mum (and yeh, i know thats hard at any age - hard to explain).

i asked her once if she wanted any more children. her reply was something like 'are you effing serious???? i KNOW EXACTLY how much attention/money/etc a baby needs!! i have given everything i have to dd. i don't have any left for another child. no way'

i think she was amazing. but i know she wasn't happy

Tess, if only there were some kindly, perhaps childless relatives, who were open to helping raise the baby, dsd and baby could board there, she could continue school with baby in a creche, and still be close to all of you. But life isn't a fairy tale I guess.
Maybe if dsd gets one of those dolls that cry and so on, she will have a more realistic idea of what is ahead.
Perhaps she can start to do a lot of babysitting, can you "borrow" a baby from anyone for a week end?

The thread is getting too far ahead with all the speculative possibilities. Am not sure that's helpful to anybody. Thankfully the situation is only hypothetical for 99.9% of us and none of us can truly know what we would happen, what we would decide, if we were in OP's place.

Tess, you need to take this one day at a time. Do what you can now and let the dust settle before you feel you have to make any big decisions.

aack, "what we would happen" in last post!! :)

I had ds at 29 and 15 years on I'm still getting over it - pregnancy triggered an chronic auto-immune disease which has had an impact on my life, and I found having a baby (who was born with a congenital heart defect) hard to cope with, and that is knowing what I was doing, planning to get pregnant, very married and financially able to cope.

I don't really think that a 14 year old will cope; and she is a teen, I have problems getting mine out of bed at the best of times, realistically it is going to be the OP who picks up the vast majority of the care.

Maybe the best for all would be to get some young girls with babies to talk to DSD and explain what a baby really means. They all seem to say the same-they love their DC but if they could have their time again they wouldn't have a DC so young. I have never seen a 14 yr old who says 'great-best thing I ever did!'. Even the ones who have full parental backing find it hard.
If I started a thread AIBU to leave my baby overnight with a 14 yr old, I think that I would have 100% agreement that I was being unreasonable and that a 14 yr old couldn't be held responsible, didn't have the experience, wouldn't cope in an emergency etc etc and yet people say that it is her 'right'to cope with a baby. If I was the baby I would rather not be born-or not unless OP is mothering both of us and that is hardly fair on Tess.
An impartial person need to talk to them all, and if she wants to keep it then alternatives need to be thought of so that Tess isn't getting a new baby that she didn't choose. (in reality the DSD is mother in name, but Tess is left with the responsibility).

sungirltan

"i asked her once if she wanted any more children. her reply was something like 'are you effing serious???? i KNOW EXACTLY how much attention/money/etc a baby needs!! i have given everything i have to dd. i don't have any left for another child. no way"

This is exactly how I feel when contemplating being in Tess' position.

I was not a teen Mum, I had my first at 30 and they (3) are now teens...I am not looking forward to being a Grandmother. I am done with newborns, toddlers and under 10's. I don't coo at other peoples babies, I do not relish the idea of ever being kissed by a snotty, chocolate faced toddler again or indeed have the hassle of teaching an infant schooler to read and write.

If DSD brought her baby back to the family home I would not cope, I have nothing left to give to any more small children. At best I would be a neglectful prime carer and at worse I would be a resentful one and that is somewhere I would never want to put myself, DSD or the baby.

Sometimes there are no big reasons for not being able to take on all our children throw at us, sometimes we just know ourselves well enough to say "I can't do it."

Tess

I hope you and DSD have found some RL support and perhaps some workable solutions/ideas that suit the whole family. x

OP - Don't know if you're still bothering to read the thread, but if so I just wanted to add my voice to those who don't think you're being at all unreasonable to want her to have an abortion.

Were I in your shoes I would be doing my best to persuade my daughter to have an abortion or failing that, give the baby up for adoption.

At 14 I might even consider an abortion against her wishes if I legally could and I thought it would actually be productive. Her blaming me for the decision would be better than her blaming her self, and certainly better than actually having the baby. But the truth is a 14 year old could just get pregnant again, so I doubt it would achieve anything good.

If she ended up having the baby and keeping it I really don't know what I'd do.

So many conflicting needs and desires to balance. I really feel for you. I hope your talk with her went well. I also hope you and your DH can find your way past the shock to seeing the way forward together.

I looked after my D niece last week, and she is a very unsettled baby. I only watched her for 2 hours, and even though I have my own 3DC (including 6 month old DS2) I found it very difficult because all she did was scream.

I wonder whether you could borrow a friends baby for an afternoon so she can see the reality. I would lend you mine but he's too easy! I think there are even special dolls.

She clearly doesn't understand the reality and you need to find someone who can explain that while all her friends are at school and having fun she'll be looking after a baby.

but showing a teen how hard a baby is, is what you do to make sure they think about contraception and NOT get pregnant. the horse has bolted.

Not all babies are 'very unsettled' though. I've got three children and they were all very settled as babies and all slept through the night from about 5 weeks. Perhaps I'm lucky? And perhaps that's why I have a view that this situation could work out ok? But the 'unsettled' type isn't the only type of baby. Obviously there is no way of knowing in advance!

I know the OP has not said anything about forcing her DSD to get an abortion so this is just a question:

Can you really do that? If you were to drag someone in kicking and screaming, would the doctor in question even do it? How is that legal?

Sorry, I really don't agree with pushing anyone into an abortion, regardless of their age.

In Ireland, there was the X-case - 14 year old girl raped by her father's friend who was prevented from travel to the UK to have an abortion, triggered a whole referendum. She subsequently miscarried. I was much the same age as her at the time and would have bleated on at my friends about how awful it was that she was being prevented from having the abortion she wanted etc

EXCEPT

years later, I learned that I knew her in RL. She never wanted the abortion. She used to go into mothercare and sob her eyes out. Despite the fact that she felt, as an adult, that it would have been very difficult for her to handle a baby, she felt the loss of the baby as much as anyone who has lost a wanted baby does. She found the loss of the pregnancy very, very difficult.

I know that wouldn't be true for every girl in this situation, but I would be so, so cautious about pushing a young girl into an abortion. The issue here is that she's pregnant. I don't know the answer, but I'm really not sure abortion is it (unless she chooses it herself). I feel for everyone in this situation: all of you.