Sleeping on the sofa at 12 weeks pregnant 😞

[TiredButTryin5x]

just needed to vent a bit sorry xx

i’m 12 weeks pregnant now n still sleeping on the sofa every night. got 4 boys in a tiny flat n no room left at all. oldest has box room, two middle ones share, little one still in with me (or meant to be). but he kicks all night n i just end up on sofa again. my back’s gone n i’m not even that far along yet 😩

i asked the council for help but they said i’m “adequately housed” cos we got a roof over our heads. but it don’t feel like that. i’m exhausted all the time. boyfriend don’t stay over n hasn’t offered to help with housing stuff. just feel like no one sees how hard this is.

i’m doing my best but it’s not enough. just want somewhere we all got a bed 😢

Not everyone is being taxed taxed taxed on top of every other price increase.

i have one child. I wanted more but we cannot afford it. It breaks my heart and then these people have 5. 5!! I hate how angry I feel all the time about having to pay for everyone else’s stupid life choices and multiple children with multiple feckless men

If it looks like a car crash and sounds like a car crash...?

You have a 3 bed and were adequately housed. Despite having four children with no father on the scene you've made a series of choice resulting in a 5th....(contraception is free) who apparently you and the father have no visible means to support said child.
Honestly - Who does this? Its unfair on your existing children and this poor baby.

You have made a series of poor life choices that have led to this and your inability to take ownership of any of it is just wild... I cant imagine living as you chose to

I feel sorry for your children tbh...especially your son who has just finished his gcses. He doesnt exactly sound like hes been set up for success.

Sorry OP you feel like you are getting a bashing. Getting pregnant again was silly, and sorry but yes I think you should have thought about the kids you already have, instead or bringing another child into your situation. Most of us here who own our homes or privately rent have to think long and hard before even having a 2nd child, let alone 3rd, 4th and 5th; and with men who don’t stick around or even pay for their children.

It’s not right to bring more children into this. People might mot say it to your face, but if you ask on here they will. It is bonkers to bring another child into an already overcrowded home. Why should the council hand over to you a bigger house. Also 12wks pregnant is hardly late stage etc, no difference to sleeping on a sofa than when you’re not pregnant. Sounds like you’ll be spending more time on the sofa given you have no room for this 5th child. I’d have put my living children first and terminated.

If the OP is cleaning part-time in a school, she almost certainly is not a tax payer. She also appears to think the state (i.e. the rest of us) should provide her with a larger property each time she chooses to have another child she knows she can’t support.

@metellaestinatrio
Great username btw

Indeed.
Her salary is unlikely to cover rent on a 3 bed, let alone her living costs or bills or the cost of raising and educating four soon to be 5 children.

So while OP may say shes "not expecting handouts" she is certainly receiving handouts (funded by tax payers)

I think it hard to believe anyone would geniunely think a part time cleaner with 4/5 children is a net contributor....

I can kind of imagine it’s an easy cycle to get into when ‘being a mum’ and not being able to support yourself in the endeavour is all you strive for in life. The ‘not planned’ children seem to keep coming. What do you want for yourself and your life beyond being mum? What do you want your kids to see you as?
If this is real, do YOU not see how hard it is? Because it’s you that’s made it hard, and continues to make it harder for yourself?
Your life is your responsibility. So what are you going to do?

There's truly nothing at all to be jealous about.

OP, kindly, I'm one of 6 to parents who couldn't provide for us, and trust me, childhood was no fun at all.

After this baby arrives, please arrange some permanent contraception, and then focus on your family.

I know you are probably tired but sort out your eldest first, before he goes off the rails. Your kids need your help now, and he is the priority, not you..

I wonder also if the OP wants a girl and will keep “accidentally” getting pregnant until she gets one. I know someone like this - six kids, four different dads, kept going until she had a girl. Poor boys if that is the case.

You were already in this situation before you got pregnant. If you’d have shown some responsibility for your other children you wouldn’t be in this predicament now. You need to place the blame where it is belongs & stop passing the buck

@TiredButTryin5x it might be helpful for posters to link your two most recent threads from this week, for context:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/teenagers/5368125-15yo-just-stays-in-bed-all-day-since-gcses-is-this-normal?reply=145483772

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5370155-college-help-pls-nothing-sorted-for-my-son-yet?reply=145558298

I am the last person in the world to question anyone else’s life choices - but you must surely see, right now that as they grow up your four existing children are going to need a huge amount more than just ‘love’.

Your 15 year old (already somewhat disadvantaged by being so young in his year) needed you to be on top of his progress through school and on to the next stage. You weren’t able to be - and now he’s facing a situation where he’s close to crashing out of any meaningful future at all - because you have not been able to offer him the time, and knowledge, and guidance that it’s your duty as a parent to provide. I’m afraid it does seem like neglect. (No matter how much you claim to ‘love’ him.)

You don’t say what sort of situation pertains with your younger children. Have they been able to attend nursery school? Do you read to each of them every day and hear them read to you? Are you and their other parent(s) able to take them out regularly to museums and galleries, music and theatre performances, sporting events? Do they all participate in regular extra curricular activities according to their ages and interests? You’ve already said you don’t have friends or relatives who play a significant positive role in your life - so that’s again something your existing children are missing out on: no one to broaden their horizons, offer knowledge and support, take them out into the world. Think how different things would be for your 15 year old, just post GCSEs, if you’d been in a position to give him more of yourself. And what’s happened to him is already happening to the younger children. They already have a poorer (in every sense) life because your resources are stretched so thin. It is deeply unfair on them to bring another child into their lives.

Love isn’t enough, @TiredButTryin5x- and it doesn’t look like love when you’re making your children’s lives so impossible.

Jesus Christ, some of you are vultures on here picking on a pregnant, hormonal woman. Shame on you.

Maybe the OP was financially secure when she had the other 4. Would love to see some of you fall off your high horses if your circumstances suddenly change.

Yes, OPs situation isn’t ideal but it is what is. As for now she needs to think practically how she can utilise the space she has.

You can’t have found out that late because 12 weeks isn’t super late either, but if you don’t want to terminate then you don’t want to.

However, your first step is probably to get some counselling and stop thinking it “just happened”. After one, maybe two pregnancies, things don’t “just happen”, you have enough experience. There has to be some level of accountability and taking charge of your life.

Check on marketplace and rearrange the bedroom situations, you’ll have to make do with what you have.

Get all the deadbeat fathers to pay their part and (this ties in with counselling) stop letting these losers 💦 on you.

Have you not heard of birth control? You are having a 5th child and your living arrangements are poor,What type of upbringing are you giving the children you already have? Maybe you should have thought about that before opening your legs..

!00%.

oh my god people are being vile on this thread. This is an actual child going to be born - it hasn't chosen its parents or financial position. The biggest issue that affects a child's outcomes is poverty. Even if you think she's made some bad decisions, at the end of the day, these are children who didn't make any decisions.

And I'm assuming (for all of you who think she's doing this for benefits) that the 2 child limit will affect her so she won't actually financially gain from this situation. Assuming also (because this is the most likely result, based on statistics) that she's not getting any financial help from the father(s). (and yes, they should step up, but the fact is, they won't be and it's the children that will suffer from this, not her).

She also seems fairly vulnerable and is certainly struggling and I'm not sure accusing her of having children she can't afford is actually going to help here. She needs support not vilification.

OP, I would suggest putting 3 boys in the biggest room, the next 2 boys in the second room and you have the smallest room to yourself. You can get triple bunks fairly cheaply. This will deal with your immediate problem of getting some sleep.

But she knew her situation and didn't /doesn't have to go a head with a 5th pregnancy and a dead beat father.

Funnily enough not everyone wants to terminate their pregnancy. It’s all a woman’s choice until it doesn’t suit people’s narrative and moral compass.

You were so stressed you forgot to take the pill, how are you going to cope with another child? You really need to prioritise the children you have. A 5th child is going to make the lives of your 4 boys so much worse. More over crowded, less money, less attention, less time etc.

Opening paragragh jealousy or envy at OP's situation?
My god is that REALLY something women want, too many kids in a cramp flat and a dead beat 'father'?
I think if you believe this is true you are seriously deluded or, a friend of OP or, in the same situation trying to get a leg up the housing ladder.
Like many tax payers, I resent my hard earned cash being spent on other peoples endless off spring that they can't afford in the first place.
If that makes me heartless then I am totally sang froid about it.

Well………..the sofa was good enough to conceive on 🤔

Having a baby isn't 'just what happens' if you're severely overcrowded and can't house your children. It's your own responsibility not the council's.
I had a termination when I found out I was pregnant on contraception and couldn't provide for another child. Whatever choice I made though, it wasn't anyone else's responsibility, it was mine.

I don't care if a women has 12 kids, as long as she the father are paying for them, by working, getting UC top up if it's needed and other help that is available and reasonable.
Can't afford them at the start of a potential pregnancy make doubly sure you can't get pregnant in the first place. It's not that difficult.

It is her choice and of course that is absolutely fine but it is a choice to willingly make life harder for not only herself but her children who are already here.

OP isn't going to get sympathy from everyone willingly making her children's lives harder. OP needs to stop acting like these things 'just happen' when she needs to be accountable for her choices.