Hi,
First post here and i'm after some advice.
Bit of background is that i'm 29 and have an 8 year old son who doesnt live with me since his father won custody back in 2013. I have a great relationship with my son now and dad is happy with my parenting.
He won custody during a private law battle in which i decided towards the end not to fight for residency as i believed him to be better off with his dad. I was drinking and taking cocaine at the weekends and also suffering with Borderline Personality disorder and suffering from serious trauma (my mum killed herself when I was 18). Social services were never involved and I was never neglectful of him, as i said it was just partying at the weekend when he wasn't in my care.
Fast forward to now. I am now 8 weeks pregnant with my second child and have done nothing but worry about my past behaviors coming back to haunt me. I decided as I have a mental health condition and as my son doesnt live with me , i would call social services as I feel a referral might of been made by the midwife anyway and would sooner it came from me.
Since my son lives over 300 miles away from me and its so expensive to see he him, i have been working as an escort for the last 5 years but have decided to cease that now i'm pregnant. My partner has moved in to support me financial and i have gone out of my to job hunt and today my efforts were rewarded and I start at a nursing home in a couple of weeks as a care assistant.
On my doctors notes i said in March that i was going through a despressive period and felt that it was connected to being an escort. Now as part of the social assessment they are writing to my GP for my health records so I feel the escorting will come up, so i wanted to make sure I am able to say to them, yes I was in sex work but look I have a new job now. I'm hoping that will satisfy them on that front.
Now as for the mental health its self, I have been stable for the last 7 months but I have had previous suicide attempts, last one being in 2017. I have no intention of doing anything like that again and when the depression comes I have been into my GP aas i'm able to recognise when to access help. I'm hoping social will also see that.
Now for another issue I'm ashamed to discuss - my alcohol and drug use. My suicide attempt was largely due to this and since then I have been attending AA meetings. I had periods of abstinence but I did start to relapse quite heavily in the months before I found out I was pregnant. I didnt use for 4 weeks when I found out. However due to my intense worry about social services me and my partner decided to terminate the pregnancy. I had the abortion booked for this morning and called the social worker who was coming to do the referal my intentions confirming the appointment place and times with her. I was absolutely sure I was going through with it.
So that night after the appointment I did have abit of alcohol and cocaine. The following day still thinking I was going to terminate the baby, I called my local drugs service and made a self referral and yesterday I had my welcome appointment. I knew I couldn't have the termination in vain without really making a commitment to sorting myself out. I still feel very strongly about this now.
Fast forward to this morning and me and my partner was outside the abortion clinic sobbing our socks off and couldn't go through it. My sole reason to do it was fear of social services removing the baby from my care and we decided that isn't good enough to terminate.
So i've been trying to call the social worker all day to come and have the assessment. I'm absolutely terrified that because of my son not living with me, her finding out my past employment status, my mental health and me being in drug and alcohol services that theyll throw the book at me and deem me unfit. Does anyone have any advise or can relate in anyway?
I must stress that I fully intend on being honest with her about everything. I would like to think that me contacting them, me referring myself to a drugs service and me breaking my back to get a job and turn my life around within such a short space of time has got to count for something. I am so determined and I will do anything thats asked of me including regular drugs screens.
I'm terrified of telling her I had a slip when I thought I was terminating and feel so guilty about it. But that's it, I'm taking all the help I can get. I went for a reassurance scan this afternoon and saw babys heartbeat and all looks well.
My partner is drink and drugs free, has a stable job and we have a lovely home. He's moved in to support me throughout all this.
Given what I've said does anyone know how they'll view me and what steps theyll take? Any tips on how I should proceed? For my point of view, I think they only way is to be 100% honest, after all I'd welcome all the help and support I can get to make sure I'm fit and healthy for my children.
Thanks for reading x