1st time on Mumsnet - just found out am pregnant, torn whether to abort..please help

[neeliek]

Hi,

I''ve never posted on Mumsnet before so a bit scared that I'll get very negative responses... but really hoping for some practical advice/kindness.

I am 33 (34 in Nov), have been in an on-off relship with someone for past 3+ yrs. We are extremely different (e.g. I'm Asian, he's black, I'm an investment banker with 3 degrees, he can just about read/write (is a self-made man with a small business, and I respect that he is street-smart and built himself up from nothing)). He also has a 9yr old son from a previous marriage. It's the first time I've ever been with someone outside my culture..let alone who already has a family.

The relationship has been very volatile ( not helped by fact that his ex-wife is possessive and has sent me death threats)...I've ended things with him a few times but somehow we end up being back together. I guess because a) at heart he is a kind and caring man, although uneducated and inarticulate, b) I'm lonely without him and c) he's very loyal eg has stuck by me through long-term mental illness etc.

I've fallen pregnant twice in this relationship (having being convinced I was infertile) and both times chose to abort as I didn't want to bring a child into the world without being married, and not having a settled environment, and I didn't feel he can support another family financially (he still owes me a large sum of money that went towards a failed business venture). Recently he's been talking about getting married - secretly I have always felt unsure.

I just found out last night that am pregnant again (5wks) despite precautions. I am so lost....!! Haven't been able to think straight since. my initial thought was, I have to get another abortion. But, the last 2 times were so painful (physically but most of all emotionally). And, also I'm getting to that danger point now where if I don't have a child, I might never be able to. I really dont want to miss out on motherhood. Part of me feels really excited about it. But also it would be the end of my career (I was going for MD promotion this year, by keeping the baby I am essentially throwing away my chances).

How do I decide what the right thing to do is? What are the key things I should consider? Do I just 'settle' even though I feel he isn't 'the one' (there could be worse men out there)? Am I being horribly snobbish about his lack of education/financial security? Should I just keep the baby this time (and have to buy a bigger place on my own - partner can't afford it)? Or do I bite the bullet, have an abortion and end things once and for all with him? Am I failing to appreciate a really good thing?? How do you know whether a relationship is right or not?

Sorry for the long story - just feeling very lost. If there's anyone there that's ever experienced something similar (2 abortions, still no child/family at 34, wondering whether to just settle for something that doesn't feel totally right rather than risk missing out on children/family altogether) or can offer thoughts/experience, I would love to hear from you.

Thanks so much.

You are being a snob
You have a fair few years left to start a family
You do not like this man and nothing about your post says you are a couple or want to share his life.
Only you can make the choice but from your post it seems your choices are abortion and move on from this 'relationship' or have the baby as a single mother. Does he know about the other times? Does he know about this time? Does he have an opinion?

Sorry first line maybe overly harsh but its clear you have no respect and little affection for this guy, why on earth are you with him?

Agree with Stealth

if he is not "the one" then please, please, please don't marry him. it won't work.
of course there are worse men out there, but there are better ones too.
you don't want to live your life full of resentment because you feel trapped in a marriage for the sake of a child you weren't sure about with a man you don't love.... it's a recipe for disaster.

i kind of think you need to separate the issues as much as you can.

decide whether you want to be with this man for the rest of your life. if not then end it. if you decide to keep the baby he can still be a part of its life.

then think about the baby. it's not an easy decision for you, i can see that. Do you want a child right now? could you support yourself as a single parent family if it came down to that? is your job something you could go back to in a couple of years time if you had the baby?

see I clearly got something different to Stealth there. I think if you were a snob you wouldn't have been with him for so long anyway...

but i was concerned about "The relationship has been very volatile ..I've ended things with him a few times "

what does volatile mean? and why did you end it before?

I had my first child at 36 and my second at 37.

I had an abortion at 25 which I still regret.

I don't feel an opinion is valid in this circumstance. So I will leave it with the facts.

What I will say is, given my time over... i would choose the child and not the man. He is father to all 3.

Sorry, must be very stressful for you at the moment.

Just wanted to say that there is no such thing as the right decision when you csn see pros and cons to both options.

All there is is pragmatism.

Have a few days, go away on your own if you can, and think. Make lists of + and - of each option and imagine alternate futures. If no one choice stands out as the right thing then go for what instinctively feels right and dont look back.

You'll be ok either way, you really will. The hard part is now, the agonising over what to do.

Only you can decide, but i know for me, having been in a similar situation and feeling unable to decide whether to continue the pg or not, it made sense to choose the option that (should it turn out to be a regret) i could easier live with. For me that was termination, i knew that if iregretted it then id just have to suck it up whereas regretting a child would be heartbreakng (you always get people saying a child is never regretted, but thats utter bollocks. Ask the multitudes of adults who were fucked up by parnts who regretted having them).

You're clearly not infertile so whatever you choose to do with this pregnancy ffs use some contraception in future.

I agree with the others that you have to separate out the issues - you don't have to marry him to have this baby.

Meant to say, my post is only about the pregnancy. The relationship is something you can deal with later.

Also, based on the nature of the relationship and your feelings, you should probably be thinking in tems of being a lone parent. (not because you defnitely would be but, you know...)

chubfuddler that's a really stupid post!

she WAS using contraception, it says so in the post.

and people can have babies and then suffer from secondary infertility. plus I am sure you know that fertility decreases with age. so it is not a given that the OP could have another child in the future.

Precautions could mean anything - withdrawal fir example -as she said she assumed herself infertile I took it to mean they had not used contraception in the past when she conceived on two previous occasions.

The rest of my post is in no way "really stupid" ( not that the first part was).

choose the child over the man...I have had to and I don't regret it one bit. I have always regretted an abortion that I had 3 years ago- I chose the man (my fiancee at the time) over a child. Never again. Hope you make a decision that is right for you. I completely agree with the above post and counsellors who advised me recently said the same thing- you must separate the two- relationship and baby situation. Good luck.

You clearly have no respect for this man and I'm not sure why you're with him, given you also feel he's "not the one"? I agree wholeheartedly with the other posters who say you need to separate out the issues and consider the baby separately from the relationship.

Hi there,

Okay - it sounds like a very difficult situation. You do sound as though you feel it is totally your decision, your responsibility, and almost like you're not really in a relationship with anyone - it sounds like you haven't discussed it with him or sought/got hold of his views on it.
Which to me doesn't sound like a relationship that would function.

I don't think you can expect to marry him, and for it to make either of you happy, so write that off for a start - however tempting an offer it sounds in terms of your getting older, and having someone around. You cannot do marriage 'top down'. Really, dont even try it.

Financially is there any way you could support it, say you didn't marry him, or he couldn't afford to pay for things - could you maybe go part time after mat leave, and still support you and the baby, and possibly him too? I'm not sure that ought to be solely his job iyswim, plenty of couples have inequitous earning in this way.

But it doesn't sound like the love is in place, it really doesn't.
I hope you can figure this out but please try to remember that it isn't a race, and that one day you could meet someone you really feel comfortable with and want to be with and have a baby with - and you might really regret this.

Don't panic, do accept that this baby will change your life if you keep it, and work on that basis when you make your decision.

I agree. Decide if you want to be a mother and then decide on everything else but if you do not love this man do not dupe him in to entering a formal relationship such as marriage.
Women get pregnant when they don't mean to all the time. It happens. It's not ideal but it happens and you just have to deal with it. Part of that is trying your utmost to make sure it doesn't happen again. I think if you've had three unplanned pregnancies it would be a good idea to talk through your options with a family planning clinic because three pregnancies in a relatively short time is a higher than acceptable failure rate for the contraception you're using. People vary a lot. Some people use condoms successfully for years. I am not one of those people I used the mini pill for nearly a decade without problems, for others it's no good at all.

Good luck whatever you decide to do.

Thanks so much for the responses. It's hard but I appreciate the honesty. Maybe in my anger (at myself/the situation) I didn't say enough about our relationship/him. I do love him. Otherwise I would not still be with him after 3.5 years. He's affectionate and caring and I've never felt so comfortable with anyone.

The big hurdles for me are 1) this relationship causes a huge internal conflict because my family don't approve of him (due to his race/background). As someone from an Asian background, family is really important for me, and so this hurts me a great deal..(he has been to Asia to meet my family and unfortunately it did not go well - he is very sensitive to any perceived racial slight even though imagined...since then he's been an 'unspoken subject') , 2) his lack of formal education - sometimes it's frustrating when he doesn't know basic things like multiplication tables and grammar - how will he teach our kids (if we have any)? But maybe at the end of the day these things are superficial. What I do know is that he's always there when I need him, he's reliable, trustworthy, he's also a great dad to his son. And as I mentioned earlier, I respect how he has built himself up into a successful business owner, even if he earns less than me - considering that he started out living on the streets as a teenager. He has a resilience and toughness of character which I admire, 3) his uncontrollable anger - this is what I meant by volatile. He has tried to change his ways and is much better now but earlier on in the relationship (and the reason why I ended things with him twice) he was often verbally abusive. He puts this down to trauma from his first marriage, but I don't know - I just don't think it is ever right for a man to shout abuse and insults at his partner on a regular basis.

How do you know whether someone is 'the one' or not? Do you just know? Or is a degree of uncertainty normal?

Yes, he knows about the previous two times, of course. The first time he agreed that we were not ready. The second time he was against another abortion, but he could offer no credible suggestions other than 'don't worry it will all work out' and that wasn't enough for me. He accompanied me to the abortion clinic the 2nd time. This time he really wants to keep the baby.

Both the second and third times we used contraception. I don't think I am particularly fertile (Due to a 20-year ED I was told by drs highly unlikely to conceive, I had a previous long-term partner of 7 yrs and we never used contraception - he's now got 2 kids with someone else so def wasn't him with fertility issues). More likely he has bionic sperm.

Thanks for helping me to think through the issues. I come from a traditional upbringing i.e. get married first, then have kids. Not the other way round. And certainly not have a kid without being married. So being a single mum isn't an option for me from a cultural/religious background (although I know it's very normal here in UK). In order to keep this baby/start a family we would need to get engaged (and to be fair we have been talking about it for a while - it's just that the timing sooner than what we had been thinking).

PS: Until my recent experience, I have always been firmly in the anti-abortion camp. When I think about what I've done I do still feel very sad and guilty. I never thought I would be in this situation again.

Will go draw up the +'s and -'s..
Thanks again.

well uncontrollable anger would be a dealbreaker for me, personally.

i think you're being very unreasonable about his lack of education though. when it comes to teaching your kids then you can do the maths bit, and he can teach them whatever he knows, which I am sure is plenty even if it's not academic stuff...

again, the family thing... i guess you would be choosing him or your family? have a think about how it would be living without either him or them?

you could also do the very unscientific method of flipping a coin. heads you marry and keep the baby. tails you don;t

if you are disappointed/relieved at the outcome you know what to choose...

Don't apply value judgements to your feelings. If you are not comfortable with someone who has, for instance, bad grammar, as your husband, then that's that. There is no point in saying that the feeling is invalid because it is snobby. Yes it would be invalid as a reason not to be someone's friend, but not their wife.

The temper thing is worrying. Whatever he is like so far he will be far worse with a little colicy baby, no one has had any sleep, and things could get very nasty.

I think you want the baby but you don't want him. If you can't have the baby without him, then I think you will grieve. But you will survive. Don't marry someone because you don't want to be a single mother.

I think you need to look at what keeps you in a relationship for 3.5 years with someone who is not suitable for you. You finished it, but you went back. Why? Do you need to talk this through with someone? I think you want children and you need a certain sort of person to be your husband for you to be comfortable starting a family. You can't find this person while you are in a relationship with someone else. You have time, but not all the time in the world. I think you need to strengthen yourself, with help if necessary, professional help if necessary: you are clearly a very capable person and in many ways a catch, but somehow you don't believe it. You need to build yourself up so that you are able to make the right decision about this pregnancy (whatever it is), about your relationship, and prepare yourself for the wonderful future you will have if you can be true to yourself.

OK complete honesty considering every word you have written here in all your posts.

I would end it with him; have an abortion and move to the next stage in my life.

and I really wish you luck, you sound lovely.

If I read your original post correctly, I think that you do not feel that this man is your future. Having a child with him would create a bond with him for evermore. So if you do not wish to be tied to be him as it were for evermore, then a termination is pretty much the only solution available to you- either that or disappearing with the child and failing to mention it- a lot harder to pull off. If you go for a termination now you will have medical management- hard but less intrusive than a surgical one.

Are you scared of having a child now for the reasons you state, or don't want to have a child with him? If you are on a decent enough salary you could employ a full-time nanny and be back at your desk within a month or even sooner if you're physically well enough. So the baby need not be the end of your career (although I totally understand there are some working environments where you will almost automatically be on the "mummy track" the moment your pregnancy starts to show, no matter what the legislation states).

The question I would ask you is do you love him and are you good for each other? The rest is immaterial. If there is love and genuine respect between you then your relationship is going to be in a stronger position than if deep down you feel that he is not good enough for you (I'm sorry, but that's the impression I'm getting- it may not be true) There are plenty more of the proverbial fish out there, so why this one if you feel he's not right for you? If you really feel he's not right, you ought to be honest with him and yourself and set him free.

Also I'm not sure you can mix up business with personal relationships. You lent him the money, the venture failed, not sure you're going to get your cash back there or whether it's healthy for you to expect it back (you could end up expending a lot of energy and more money and still not getting anything back).

It's a difficult situation all right. I hope you manage to find your way to a solution.

I would hazard a guess that his uncontrollable anger had much to do with the break up of his previous marriage. He may have painted a very unflattering picture of his first wife, but that wouldn't be unusual.

You are obviously a very intelligent woman, but I think you possibly have low self esteem. This often goes hand in hand with EDs. You are worth much more, a man who is not verbally abusive for starters, and one who makes you feel amazing, loved, and is 'the one'. He is out there, don't settle for anything else.

The pregnancy is a separate issue. Having a child is life changing and stressful and will not improve an already weak relationship. You do not need to be with the father to have the baby though.

You do sound lonely. why else would you stay with someone you have doubts about? Normally people in love have no doubts about it, they can work through anything. (mostly )

I think (regardless of what you decide about the child) you could widen your horizons, maybe internet dating, maybe evening classes?

this man is not the only one in the world for you.

Hi, I understand where you are coming from, I choose the man that would eventually become my childs father with great care. I have previously in my life fallen for "bad" guys but realised that starting a family with them was just not an option. Volatile is NOT acceptable in my book, and thats a hard limit.. I have also gone throgh a few abortions earlier, ALL of them i used birthcontrol pills but for some reason those failed, and when i finally found my soulmate and the man who I wanted desparately to have a child with I was indeed infertile, at 35 years of age, and after 6 failed IVF attempts eventually we succeeded in creating a little baby, so according to my experience your ability to conceive can change both rapidly and greatly. To me it doesent sound like this is a good scenario, neither for the relationship nor to start a family..I cannot advice you what to do, I dont feel that you are a snob necessarily, I just think that you need to take a long hard look at the situation and what you want out of life and we are all different here, noone can judge you for your aspirations and your dreams. Perhaps, this is a bit of a wakeup call, and you need to take some proper action either way...either become comitted properly with this man, support him through some anger management therapy and build a life together, or break up once and for all and be free to start a life with another man that perhaps will suit you and your ideals better. I work alot with asian people and I know how hard it is to go against the families wishes, so you really need to take all the things that are important to you into accunt.
Good Luck sweetie..

Just thought I'd put in my two penn'orth, coming a bit late to the thread.

I've experienced a similar situation. I got pregnant 4 years ago (I was 35 at the time) by a man who, although I was absolutely head-over-heels in love with, I knew with absolute certainty was totally unsuitable for me. Whilst earning a great deal of money and able financially to do the fatherhood thing, he was volatile (although never violent), unfaithful, often unpleasant and completely unreliable.
I had a termination at 6 weeks and I do not regret it one little bit. The thought of being tied to him for the rest of my life was more than I could bear.
Fast forward 4 years and I'm pregnant again (first baby at 39 whilst on the pill so fertility not an issue here, admittedly), with a lovely guy and although it was a bit of a shock, we're looking forward to this baby. However I'd never say that he was 'the one'. I don't believe that there is such a thing. Maybe that's me though.

The point here is that, although I'm pregnant now it wasn't planned. The pregnancy 4 years ago could quite easily have been the only time I conceived and I would have still been happy that I terminated, because of my situation at the time.

Do you feel, if you never have children, that you will regret a termination this time? Because that's the key issue I think.