Possible Teenage Pregnancy

[alilhoyle33]

Hi

I have 5 kids which range from 2 to 14, my 14 year old is from a previous relationship and up until earlier this year she was living with my ex. He is an alcoholic but he had supposedly got better but recently he had gone backwards so he was spending all his money in the pub and was never at home. So my daughter was at home on her own. I didn't know this until I got a phone call from my social worker saying a colleague of hers had a family one her caseload and she though the daughter was related to me. I went to meet her one day at our church as I thought it would be a good meeting point as it was relatively neutral.

I've met her quite a few times over the last few months and over the last month she's been spending the weekends with us, she's met my 4 other children and my husband. The thing is since she's started coming to see us over the weekends she's been very sleepy, she's complained offeeling sick and that she constantly needs the bathroom. I suspect that she's sexually active and possibly become pregnant but I'm not sure how to approach it especially as i've only just met up again.

Alison

Tricky one hey?! I suppose at this stage you should probably not ask too many personal questions if you don't know her that well. She might know she is pregnant and is just dealing with it herself for now, so if I was you I would just let her know she can talk to you about important things if she feels comfortable. Otherwise I would keep it to yourself, especially as you can't be sure at this stage. Im sure she will talk to you (or someone) if she feels she needs to.

Give the relationship some time to develop as you don't want to upset her if you dont know each other that well. If she feels she is old enough to have unprotected sex and deal with the consequences, she may feel like she can do this alone, so I think just give her time.

On the other hand, she may be diabetic/low blood sugar or just sick? Or just a moody teenager trying to get some attention (which by the sounds of her history could certainly be the case!!!).

If you are still worried, try talking to someone else in her family or just persuade her to go to the docs if she's 'not feeling well'?!

Hope you can be there for her if she needs you

Hi Alison,

Sorry to bombard you with questions, but before dispensing with any advice/comment (!), do you mind if I ask how much contact you've had with your daughter over the last few years? I'm guessing it's somewhat limited owing to what you've already said, but I wasn't sure!

Lexie

Just a thought -- you might want to cross-post this on the relationships thread to get a bit more traffic, as it sounds like you need more complex advice than is usual on the pregnancy threads.

I would be inclined to bring it up with her sooner rather than later, purely because if she decided to terminate the pregnancy (and if she has had a rough ride lately, then she is probably not in a good position to become a mum, even by teen standards), it would be a lot less traumatic on all levels for that to happen sooner.

I think it depends on who else she has to turn to though, if her current carers are better placed to support her then perhaps she should be going to them.

Personally, I would have a quiet chat, suggest going to the doctor if she was ill, bring up the possibility of pregnancy, and let her know in a non-judgemental, non-directive manner who she could talk to if that was the case. It might help to come up with several ideas as to what could be wrong (anaemia, diabetes, drugs...) and suggest next steps for all of them, so you are not confronting her with "you're pregnant aren't you?". I know that is awkward and difficult for you though, I teach sex-ed and I still think I would be a bit wobbly if it was my own child.

Lexie, I hardly saw her before my social worker got in touch.

Beanlet that sounds like a good idea but how do i do it.

Porcelain her current carer is her father who's not exactly in a good place to give her advice regardless of what's wrong.

Alison

Why did your ex have custody when he was an alcoholic? And why have you not had contact with your daughter? Very sad all round

I'm really confused about all this tbh Alison. Clearly you do need to have a chat with your daughter, but do you consider you are on good enough terms to handle that? Or is there someone who might have an idea of what the problem is who you could talk to before stepping in?

I hope you don't think I'm being nosy, but how come your ex had custody and why weren't you more in touch? Seems like a difficult situation, hard to advise you without more information .

Hopefully your daughter will enjoy spending time with her siblings though .

I had Sarah when I was 20, a year later I had enough of Stephen. So I filed for divorce unfortunately Stephen decided that I wasn't going without a fight and I wasn't keeping Sarah. He did make things very difficult and also in the process he gave up drinking so therefore neither the Judge or his divorce lawyer ever saw the true side of him. They painted me as the evil one in our relationship which wasn't true by any means so Stephen got custody and I was granted 4 hours contact a week which I took with the intention of increasing once we knew it worked. The only thing was that a year later stephen did one of his disappearing acts and disappeared with Sarah I didn't see her again until recently. If it hadn't been for Diane and her team I won't even know she was back in the local area. I ran into Stephen in a pub totally drunk at 3 o'clock in the afternoon so I got back in contact with Diane and asked to meet Sarah. My intention is to go back to court and get custody granted but I don't know if i will or not.

Alison

Ah, okay, totally with you now! Poor you! That sounds like a really awful thing to go through, such a shame you were put through it, and that your daughter was so badly treated by her father!

In those circumstances, I think you need to be pretty quick in discussing things with you daughter. Her wellbeing is at stake here after all. Be gentle, perhaps try to make it part of a bigger conversation?

In your shoes, I would probably go back to court too. You've had a shit experience with the legal channels before, but your daughter will have a say in things now, she's old enough to put her opinion across.

I realy wish you all the best with this. Neither you nor your daughter should ever have had to lose each other and it's great that you're back together now. I hope everything else gets sorted out too .

Meh.
You remind me too much of the troll a few weeks back with her teenage daughters thongs.
Do desist from real names.

Sarah and I are going out tonight I left a message with my social worker to ask to meet at the church and we would go from there. I hope she will come I think she will it must be better than staying at home whilst her crap father goes out drinking.

I spoke to a friend of mine who works for a law firm in the next town she's put me in touch with there family lawyer. My husband went loopy when he found out what was happening he said we need to move house anyway but if she's pregnant, we could 7 children in the house. He's got a point.

Alison

real names of family an your socalworkermake this vry very identifiable. you may want to get it deleted and start again more anonymously.

My daughter and I went out this evening it was nice to be able to talk to her about anything. I started to try and unpack some possible problems with out making it to obvious.

When I dropped her home her dad was there being a total prat she was so unhappy that she packed some of her stuff and is going to share the back bedroom with my son, I hope she enjoys our trip to the beach tomorrow.