Partner a little upset about pregnancy timing

[LouLouPat]

I’ll start with some background, I’ve been with my partner for 3 years, his wife passed away 6 years ago. He has a 17 year old daughter, she’s an only child.
We have been talking about having a baby, we expected it would take a while so I came off the pill in September, I’m now 9 weeks pregnant, due in August. We will likely only had this one baby, I’m 38, he’s 46.
August is also when his daughter turns 18, although not until the very end, and it’s when she will get her A-Level results and prepare to move for uni. Obviously this isn’t ideal timing for a new baby but we weren’t expecting it to happen so fast!!
My partner is super nervous about telling his DD, he thinks she may react badly or feel replaced.
I wouldn’t say she’s a normal teenager by any means, in fact I think she’s quite incredible. I’ve lived here for a year and her room is always spotless, she works part time, her school work is exemplary, she doesn’t hang out with people likely to get her in trouble and is very independent (she’s in a long distance relationship, every holiday they meet up sometimes all the way down in London or Devon (we are in the north west).
I honestly don’t think she will have a bad reaction she’s very sweet and just a lovely girl.
However It is making me sad that my partner isn’t excited to tell anyone, it’s making me doubt if he even wants this baby. It’s really getting me down.

So AIBU to feel down? Is the timing really so awful? How can we approach this tactfully?

1k 😂

Only 250 posts of nonsense left to go 😂😂

Exactly!!!!!! People are tripping!

“woman wants her partner there when she gives birth and has a newborn”

MN: “EVIL STEPMOTHER”

*“woman wants her partner there when she gives birth and has a newborn”

MN: “EVIL STEPMOTHER”*

Did you expect anything less? 😂

I didn't. Been here long enough now to know the batshit and embarrassing script

How is she a step mother?🤔

but the OP has already said the same budget will be spent regardless of who goes as the friend/boyfriend would be given money to spend as well. So this second scenario makes no sense.

Oh now would you stop with your common sense and reading comprehension!! 😅

Also - in addition to the above - THE PARTNER WAS ON BOARD WITH TTC. I mean, he's a man in his 40s. I assume he understands that unprotected sex may result in conception of a child. And he did just that with OP at the time he did it. So what, now Dad is also trying to deliberately sabotage the very trip he spent thousands on for his beloved daughter's 18th?!

🥴

I need a lie down to deal with this thread. Or some strong meds.

This thread is headspinningly awful towards OP, her partner, new mothers, and even towards posters who were gracious enough to talk about their own birth experience. The ugly assumptions and accusations poured out on OP and the hostility to second partners, second families etc…just breathtaking. The DD’s supposed feelings of rage, spite, anger, disgust, and loss (“she just lost half her inheritance!” Was one choice line!) was just revolting.

I’m always fascinated by these threads because MN really does despise second wives and families. At least in the abstract. Ordinarily, for instance, if a poster is disgruntled about her treatment by her parents, or mentions her future inheritance, or asks to be prioritized, she will be lambasted for her greed and reminded that no one is due anything. Ditto, of course, complaints about the size or timing of gifts.

But when it comes to this DD, whether sincerely or just spitefully, the idea of the PFB ( “She is his PFB and the new baby is OP’s PFB”) gets turned on its head. OP is precious for wanting to have her partner around for post partum but her partner is right to privilege his PFB for this birthday. suddenly DD is entitled to everything, all the time, and even to anger that her father has a new partner and child, even to anger thst she has “lost half her inheritance!”

This is wildly unhealthy for the DD. And much of the language used towards the OP was just disgusting.

This thread is headspinningly awful towards OP, her partner, new mothers, and even towards posters who were gracious enough to talk about their own birth experience.

👆🏻 bang on.

@pikkumyy77

I completely agree with everything you've posted there. Awful thread in many ways.

OP was even accused of disliking her DSD despite having literally listed in her OP a number of positive statements about her! Then the suggestion that she had somehow tricked her partner into becoming pregnant by coming off the pill without his knowledge, despite her making it clear in the OP that this was a joint discussion and planning. Phrases such as "got knocked up by her boyfriend" - just awful (and no, I don't buy the regional variations in language use explanation about this, that poster aimed to be derogatory about OP's pregnancy no matter how they try to explain that away). And now we have: she deliberately timed the conception to purposely ruin the DSD's trip away so she could have that money for her own child, despite, again, an abundantly clear explanation that the money would be spent on DSD regardless of who went with her on the trip....

Posters will choose to ignore anything and everything to invent a narrative that supports their own warped views of second families and women who choose to have children with men who already have children.

Utterly transparent, sadly predictable, and just disgustingly embarrassing.

@ncforthisthreadonly24

Appreciate things can be received in different ways, your perception of it was not my intention.

The analogy of mother/childfree woman with married/unmarried mother is not really appropriate as the two things are not comparable. In the first instance there are no negative implications for either, in the second there are for the latter.

“Knocked up” is always an insult. Always. It implies the woman had no agency and the man “did it” to her. Standard uses are “He knocked her up” (active) and “she got knocked up” passive. It doesn’t s generally used as slang and conventional ly refers to the pregnancy and the pregnant woman insultingly.

Exactly. Nowhere is this phrase ever used in a way that is free of negative and disparaging connotations.

Imagine if my family and friends had responded to the news of my much planned and wanted pregnancy with my unmarried as partner of 5 years (now almost 9 years), with: "Oh congratulations on becoming knocked up!! That's wonderful news!"

I'd (rightly) be like, wtf? That's fucking rude.

And then (say) my mate went: "oh no, I just used that phrase about your unborn baby because you aren't married to its father! No offence meant I promise".

Yeah. Right. Doesn't quite wash, does it? 🤔

The comment that there are no negative connotations attached to being childfree is laughable. Perhaps the subject for another thread, buy laughable all the same.

If knocked up wasn't meant to be a negative description it wouldn't have been followed by "boyfriend" despite the OP repeatedly referring to her partner. It was designed to describe someone who is not in a committed, long term relationship getting pregnant in a careless fashion - rather than what this is, a planned pregnancy with a partner that happened sooner than anticipated.

Sorry for the stray bits in my post. I eliminated unnecessary bits but seem to have left even more stray words than I took out.

No one has said she tricked him! It seems starting a family was on the cards, but from the first post stating that they’d ‘talked about having children and how long it could take so OP stopped taking the pill’

isnt the same as we decided to start a family for I came off the pill.

him planning this lovely trip for him and his daughter then start trying for a baby 11 months before it makes no sense in any way, only that perhaps he didn’t know that she had come off the pill when she did, and saying two youngish middle aged people didn’t realise she could get pregnant straight away is just silly.

no one has done anything wrong though, but it’s massively cocked up the timing of this trip and OP doesn’t seem at all bothered that the timing is impacting her partner and his daughter, he seems distraught where she doesn’t really see the problem, it all points towards him not being aware, but NOT that she tricked him.

@sandyhappypeople

it all points towards him not being aware,

No, it really, really doesn't - to me and several other posters.

It reads perfectly clearly to me - that they discussed TTC and made a decision for her to come off the pill.

You and others are intent on reading things that aren't there to discredit OP and it's unpleasant at best.

The OP clearly says in the paragraph after they discuss having a baby, expected it to take a while and then stopped contraception that "Obviously this isn’t ideal timing for a new baby but we weren’t expecting it to happen so fast!!". This was clearly a joint decision, not the she didn't expect it so fast THEY didn't.

Of course you can get pregnant straight away, but it's nothing short of moronic to ignore the decreased fertility rates for a woman after 35 - and the OP is 38 here. It was entirely sensible to be prepared for it taking some time though of course they were both short sighted about the holiday.

They quite clearly expected this to take more time, which has been said repeatedly on this thread. There is no indication the OP came off the pill without telling him, in fact her later use of "we" would make no sense if that were the case

and saying two youngish middle aged people didn’t realise she could get pregnant straight away is just silly.

What? Why is it "silly" to acknowledge the very real biological reality that fertility for women declines considerably in their mid to late 30s, and therefore it might take some time to become pregnant (if at all)? That's sensible and logical to me. We had the exact same thought process as I've already said when we TTC when I was 35. Fortunately for us it happened very quickly but that was absolutely not a guarantee at my age, and we knew that and so planned TTC as soon as possible to avoid further declines in my fertility.

I agree @ncforthisthreadonly24 the tortured logic necessary to read the OP this way is absurd. I, too, got pregnant at 35 right away, but had been warned by everyone not to get my hopes up. Ditto at 38 when I had my second child.

Like most people deciding on a profoundly transformative goal like becoming parents we didn’t abstain from sex on some nights in order not to trespass on someone’s birthday, or other celebration, 9+ months later.

WE CAN DO THIS! #TeamOp

Jesus Christ. Quite the nasty little story you have imagined there. It’s clear from OP’s post that this was a joint enterprise. Perhaps DP didn’t entirely think it all through but that’s on him!

Losing it all ?’ Very dramatic

Well what the fuck else would you call losing the home in which you reside yet hold no ownership over, your partner and their higher income, and became a low earning single parent in your late 30s? A minor inconvenience?

You would not use this dramatic language if this was a 18 year old in a non blended family

Obviously not. What an odd thing to say. The context is the whole point. Were she the mother the 1st child, there would be less issue around OP wanting priority for her PFB, because it wouldn't be. If you can't see OP's incredibly precarious position being unmarried, no home, low earner, and now having a child with someone she's only know for 3 years, who is a widow, not wanting to announce the pregnancy, and gravitating towards his soon to be 18 daughter, then there's not much I can do about that.

You show your judgement of step parents with ‘ only been around for 3 years ‘. That’s just step parent bashing, very predictable for these threads though

Have you got a chip on your shoulder about step parents? Because if that's all you can interpret, despite what I've actually written...

She's been on the scene to a widowed father and about to turn adult only child, for 3 years. The mother only died 6yrs ago. And already, OP and baby comes first, adamantly to OP. That's got bugger all to do with being a step parent or not and all to do with her choices. And you can already see how it's sitting with her partner, even if he is trying to accommodate her, this time.

Do you honestly think she's in no different position to Mary, who met Bob 3yrs ago, have been married 6mths, bought their first home, and are now expecting their first? I mean if you do...

You don’t have to tell me, I was 34 when we started TTC, and it took me 5 years to conceive then just happened one day and I didn’t even realise! i don’t think its silly to think it won’t take a long time, I know better than anyone, but that’s not what I said and that’s not my point.

My point is it’s silly to assume it can’t/won’t happen immediately too, so partner booking a fantastic thousands of pounds special trip for him and his daughter, as a transition into adulthood, then start trying for a new baby 11 months before it makes absolutely no sense, it also doesn’t gel with why he is so unhappy about the timing too.

op didn’t mention the trip until later on, almost like she can’t understand why it would be such a problem for him, when really that seems to be the whole reason for his unhappiness in that he’s now got to miss it, she left it out of the op, and when mentioned and people think he could still go she won’t even consider any options that may potential make that happen, she just wants him to pick her over his daughter now, when really he could potentially do both, barring any extreme circumstances, by putting support in place.

So the OP is going to ‘lose it all ‘ because the 18 year old might not go away with her dad . Good lord what nonsense. The fact OP is not married is another issue.

I don’t have a Chip on my shoulder . I am highlighting it is unnecessarily derogatory to refer to OP as someone who has only been around for 3 years . Step parent are often viewed with suspicion.
Regarding the baby coming first , I believe it should in this case . There’s plenty of birthdays but only one birth . Far too much has been put on this 18 year olds birthday. The OP even said the girl will likely take it ok .

This ^

I know it's not the main thrust of your post WillYouPutYourCoatOn, but where are you getting that OP is a low earner? I can only see that she earns less than him.

My partner earns 30% less than me, but he's by no stretch a low earner