DSD abortion thread part II

[GivesHeadlessHorseman]

carry on ladies....

'Im sitting here and all I see is a bunch of woman vilifying the OP's dh, he is a man, and a an always assumes that the woman will take responsibility of the parental role involving children, and in most circumstances that includes most of the child care, while the DH is at work.

He may be a man, but this is completely outdated! I am having problems with my brother at the moment because my mother is needing help and he thinks that his DW and I should be giving it-not him!(women's work!!)
I have 3 DSs and I certainly won't let them get away with assuming a woman's role!
The DH is coming out worst in this-going out and having too much to drink isn't helping!

DSD is a child and has a child like response. I see it rather like the child wanting a puppy or a hamster etc and they are all promises of 'I will look after it-you won't have to do a thing' and the parent knows that if they get one it will (after 2 weeks enthusiasm) be their job. DC won't be the one to walk the dog when it is pouring with rain! The parent then ends up doing it all because they are responsible and they can't let the animal suffer to prove a point.
Tess can lay down all the rules but she knows that she won't leave the baby crying in a dirty nappy and I suspect DSD knows this too. Really people shouldn't have DCs until they are the responsible person who will carry the can.
Her DH knows that if they go ahead Tess will take responsibility. This is why I think they need outside help because it all hinges on Tess and shouldn't. There must be a middle way rather than a choice of stay and take the responsibility or walk out of the marriage and I don't think a 14 yr old should put them all through it so that she can have 100% love.(when she is a responsible adult she will know that you don't put this burden on a DC). Unfortunately she has put them through it, and they need help to manage it.

Tess, as others have said, there are no easy answers, although would like to suggest that your actions back up your words. Presumably you are the one who took DSD to the GP and you are the one who is taking her for the scan? So your DH and DSD know that while you say you won't be providing help with this baby, your actions say something else.

Clearly, am not suggesting you abandon DSD, but she is going to need to get used to doing things on her own, and organizing help.

Maybe next time she has a medical appt, her dad goes with her...

I have read most of the previous thread and echo what has been said about how amazingly well you are handling this, Tess.

Tess - please read if you see this before the scan
Just an idea, but would you be able to make an agreement with your DSD that she does not yet look at the scan or have the volume turned on (ask the sonographer before you go in) - if it is difficult for her to consider a termination now it might be impossible once she has seen/heard the baby.

I think that what might be helpful is to literally 'act out' what might be required during 24 hours with the baby.

Get a doll, any doll.
Make her sit down and give it 'feeds' during the evening.
Rock it for 40 minutes to put it to 'sleep'.
Make her then put on a load of washing, fold some laundry, then get straight on with some homework. Suddenly be interrupted by 'baby crying'. Rock it for another 40 minutes. Finish off homework. Get in to bed.
Let her just get to sleep when the baby wakes up. More rocking. Wake her twice more in the night. Wake her at 6.00 so that she can feed and dress the 'baby'. Travel by bus with her to a nursery/childminder, then go on to school for 8.45 etc.... Introduce some wild cards such as pretending that a friend calls and asks her to go out - she has to decide whether or not she could go.

Tess what a struggle for you, and what a situation your dsd has landed your family in.

So, she has set out willingly to become pregnant because she wants 100% love. I agree with the posters who said that now she has chosen to become an adult, she should behave like one, and take on adult responsibilities.

You need to spell it out to her (and your dh) that you are not even ready to become a grandparent, with your work and your very young family, and she cannot even expect you to be a very hands on and available grandparent, you are too busy. Having a child is HER choise, and she will be raising it She will do the nights, get up with her child in the morning, take her child to childminder or nursery, pick it up after school, etc. THIS WILL and must be her reality, as nobody else will do it for her.

If she is upset that her mother abandoned her, she cannot go and create life and abandon this life into your care. This is not fair on you, and not on the child.

You are doing amazingly well. Good luck in all this.

The other thing is Tess, if she does go ahead and abort, you need to anticipate the following:- She may spend the rest of her life making it clear to her dad that she felt bullied and coerced. She may resents you for not stepping in and waving your magic wand to make all the awkward practicalities disappear for her. She may consider that you have 'ruined her life' (as others on here have described their mothers as doing by refusing to do what is asked of you.) That is going to drive a big wedge between you and DH.

There is a chance you may be fucked over either way, Tess. I'm so sorry.

For the sake of your marriage you need to broach that now. He needs to be made to see that whatever she decides, you are NOT to blame if it doesn't all go swimmingly for her. If she aborts as a result of your reluctance to do the child care, and spends the rest of her life telling everyone how much she regrets it, that would be very sad, but it would be no-ones fault, least of all yours. Sometimes there is no happy ending, and no perfect solution.

ilovemydogandMrObama

I agree...so far the only one running around like a headless chicken trying to sort this out is Tess!

Time for DH to take a few days off and talk to DD and time for DD to stop dancing in the bedroom!

It's reality time for all those pretending this is just fine and dandy....cos it bloody ain't!

These two threads and any others like them should be printed out and put in a book and shown to all teenagers!

Following branchingout's post-could you get one of those programmed dolls that acts like a real baby? The generally put girls off when they find out that babies choose their own moments to want attention and don't fit in with mother!

Tess, hope things are calmer at home today.

Phipps' last post struck home with me. Of course, you are all feeling very emotional and upset right now but before you say too starkly to DSD that you won't help her out with the baby, I think you need to consider what you would be giving up too, in terms of all the fun stuff that GPs do with their GCs.

I echo what BranchingOut said about the scan. If she is even wavering a tiny bit, then a heartbeat will be a deal breaker for her. God, I hope you that advice in time, Tess.

It should very much be treated as an exercise in confirming dates, not as a 'meet and greet' session.

Have you tried tackling her with the angle that having a child and looking after it is very hard, and maybe that's why her own birth mother didn't feel ready for that commitment? Maybe that would allow some of the scales to fall away.

Wildly extrapolating here, but:

I'm sensing through the way your husband is reacting that he also left the bulk of childcare in the early years to his daughter's mother at a time when she maybe wasn't able or ready for it (hence the highly nomadic life she's led since abandoning her DD). They both subconsciously identified you as a very good mother and have surrendered childcare to you -I don't think even a neglectful birth mother would deliberately abandon a child in the care of someone unsuitable, she must have felt that her child was safe with you. And your DH having surrendered his share of the practical (and possibly also emotional?) parenting to you over the last 12 years, simply assumes that he can continue to do the same with his child's child.

He is going to have to have a reality check and grow up pretty sharpish.

Are you serious ScrooiousPip?!!!!!
I don't think that Tess would mind doing fun things with a grandchild when her own and step ones are adults! It isn't the fun things she is objecting to! It is having her life turned upside down and having a child she didn't choose to have.
The baby has enough of a burden with a child mother who wants someone to love-without having a completely dotty grandmother thinking of fun stuff!

I agree GHH!

Just wanted to say good luck again for today Tess. I think turning the monitor away from DSD until you know how far along she is, is a very good idea for now. Obviously if it transpires she is much further along than she has been indicating (my guess), then it will be pointless and you can turn it back. I know others will disagree with this, but she needs a clear head to make her decision, not one filled with images she can't stop thinking about :(

If your (D)H came along too, that may make him face the reality of the situation. You haven't mentioned what sort of work either of you do, but I'm sure he could book an emergency doctors appointment and not have to expain why.

Personally I think any allusion to the birth mother being unable to cope with her will just strengthen her belief that she must have been an unlovable difficult child and that er mother was incapable of unconditional love. And in turn it will strengthen her desire to put past wrongs right by unconditionally loving a child of her own.

I was agreeing about the book GHH, but I now also agree about confirming dates, you are wise indeed :)

Well yes I am incredibly wise as it goes but sadly I can't take credit for that one - it was branchingout who thought of the scan issue first. I can't bask in her glory!

You know this already but you need to make it abundantly clear that tiny babies are not about unconditional love, but unconditional need and total dependency.
I had my dd as a married woman of 29, neither the pg or birth were ideal, but far worse was the horrendous colic that followed. Dd would not be comforted and used to fight me off if I tried to cuddle her. I spent the first 6 months of her life with pnd feeling that I was a useless mother and that dd hated me.
We have a great relationship now, but I've no desire to go through that again and I certainly wouldn't wish it on an emotionally fragile teenager.
You are being amazing Tess. Hope the scan today helps make things a bit clearer for you all one way or another.

Piscesmoon, I wasn't for a minute suggesting that Tess wouldn't want to be a GP.

If you read Phipps' post of 6.52.03, she makes the point that after she was kicked out of home, she wanted nothing further to do with her own mum, and has no desire for her mother to belatedly play at being a GP.

I think there is a risk for Tess that if DSD is forced to leave home to have the baby, she might find that the GP role is taken away from her. I'm not saying it's right - just that I can see a risk there, given the DSD's fears and feelings around rejection.

God I remember times when I thought I might throw my PFB out of the window I was so exhausted with the colic and the screaming and the endless endless BFing that went on for what felt like 18 out of every 24 hours, and within 20 minutes of laying him down he was screaming again. And I'm a person who deals well with interrupted sleep and early mornings generally.

Your husband is panicking. He is, figuratively speaking, screaming at you to "Fix it, fix it, fix it!"

Do not feel pressured by his panic. Someone's panic is their own problem.

You can support him in his choices about how much to help your Sd, but you should not feel obliged to change your life.

Make it clear that you will be no more available for a baby at night than if you were 30 miles away, that you will be available for vocal advice, not physical help, and only in the hours that are convenient to you, that your children will come before a step grandchild and you will not allow the baby to impact upon their lives, and that if he continues to pressure you, you will be moving out and he will be dealing with it on his own.

I was the one who suggested a contract, and I agree with everyone else, do this with the help of a counsellor. Lay on the line how much help you are prepared to give, and spell out what you will NOT do - think of extreme circumstances in all this - illness, exams, emotional trauma. Discuss what you will do if the baby is ill or has extra needs.
Is she going to breastfeed? Point out that if she does that will have an impact on her life, and if she doesn't it will have an impact on the baby's life - start making her realise she will have to start thinking about what is best for the baby at all time.
(not a comment on ff - most people think about it and make a decision, whatever that decision may be). You and her father are not going to make parenting decisions for her.

I really think it would be useful to ask her how she will feel if she is 28/9, has raised a beautiful, wonderful daughter who is doing well at school and is presented with the same situation. How would she feel, and what would she want to happen?

And if you feel like it, you could try making it clear to your Sd that babies don't love you. they want you, and they need you, but if a newborn baby could be inflated to 8 feet tall, they would happily kill their mother to get their needs met.

they are not cuddly budles of love. They are screaming balls of Need.

What a sad position to be in for all if you. I think Pipps advice is excellent. Young mothers do get excellent support nowadays thankfully, so hopefully things will turn out well for you all. Can't add much more than anyone else has said, but am thinking of you all today.

Oh dear Tess just read the thread - really wish your DH had been a lot more responsive. You do seem to be bearing the whole bloody responsibility for this on your shoulders. Christ.

SUCH good advice on this thread from loads of people, GivesHead (honestly how ludicrous is this thread really, all these wise words coming from people with insane names), Quattro, Expat, loads of others giving really excellent advice. I agree that if you could get some sort of family counselling, or couples counselling, I am sure that will help.

Just one thing which was raised on the other thread re scans for terminations - you will not necessarily see the screen, when I had a termination they turned the screen away so I couldn't see it.

Also, roseability, your posts struck a chord with me, I was in a very similar siuation as you (mother buggered off, raised by gran, desperate urge to have a baby to fill the void) and when I had my dd at 17 yes I had a massive crash, mentally, which frankly I am still dealing with now 15 years later. But at least I coould cope with that a bit, being 17. Christ alone knows the mental effect on a 14 year old kid.

Tess- I know we are only a bunch of internet halloween-named strangers, but don't feel alone.

I haven't previously posted on this thread because I didn't think I had any relevant experience. However, I can comment a little bit on your 'D'H's behaviour.
My EX had always been a fantastic man and a great person - he was just wonderful and not like any other man I'd met. We broke up because he didn't want to have any more children, it was very hard on both of us. After a while we started to see each occasionally and I fell pregnant. He behaved well till the final decision was made, which was that I wanted to keep the baby. From then on he behaved like a cunt of the first order. Wouldn't pick up my calls, got a solicitors to deal with me and was an overall bastard. He technically abandoned me in pregnancy. It's taking him 6 months to process it in his head and he is slowly coming back to his old self, i.e. he's starting to be logical and sensible(ish) again. It's like his brain went into overdrive and gave up.

What I'm trying to say that unfortunately even men with a spotless track record can turn into blubbering idiots. The question for you Tess, whether you are prepared to wait and see how he comes through, when the baby is here. Some men don't realise the magnitude of the baby till it comes (even men who have already kids - my ex has 3 grown up kids but by the way he talks about the arrangements you would think he has never seen a live baby before/ a mother post-partum ; seriously I could entertain you endlessly with examples). Anyway, will be waiting to hear from you and hopefully your marriage will stand the test because for now it's not the unborn baby, not your DSD but you 'D'H that is the problem. Maybe show him this thread (when he is in a more receptive mood) with the highlighted bits concerning his behaviour.