Unplanned pregnancy

[Annonnn24]

Just found out today that I’m pregnant. Super early days, like 4+1

We have a 10 month old together and my DH has 3 teen/adult children from a previous marriage. Our 10 month old DC was planned. Took several years to conceive.

We weren’t careful. Sleep deprivation and poor planning basically. My cycle has been all over the place due to breastfeeding too. DH is adamant I should have an abortion as he doesn’t want any more children and thinks we can’t financially afford to. I also had a high risk pregnancy and bled out at home. He still understandably has trauma from witnessing the haemorrhage, thinking he was watching me bleed to death.

He’s also worried about pissing off one of his other children, who takes offence to a lot of things. We’ve had to not do things like holidays or paint our house a certain colour because she won’t like it. She’s just started talking to him again after we moved house because she wanted us to stay in the old one as she liked it more. His first concern was that another new baby would cause her to stop speaking to him again.

I fell pregnant before our DC after we both decided we wanted a baby, then DH decided he didn’t want it and pushed me to terminate. It nearly broke us and I was set to leave (we weren’t married/engaged at that point) He eventually changed his mind and then it ended in a MC. So he does have priors at jumping straight to terminating. I found out recently he had a termination with his ex wife too 16yrs ago.

I’m not sure what I want to do, but I’m being rushed to decide immediately with emphasis on the correct decision being a termination. I keep swinging back and forth. I feel like I could cope with a termination, but then I feel overwhelming sense of guilt and I’m not 100%. Either way, it’s me who has to physically go through it, but I understand and appreciate his feelings and reasoning with this.

I’m just not sure what to do. I’m so emotional and overwhelmed. If I terminate, I might not be doing it for reasons that are right for me. I’d probably end up resenting him and it destroying our marriage. If I keep the baby, he’ll resent me and I’m forcing him to have a child he doesn’t want.

Has anyone been through something similar? Not sure if I’m looking for advice or just a sounding board

Your husband should have had a vasectomy if he didn't want to risk having anymore children.

This is solely your decision. Take as much time as you need to.

He’s also worried about pissing off one of his other children, who takes offence to a lot of things. We’ve had to not do things like holidays or paint our house a certain colour because she won’t like it. She’s just started talking to him again after we moved house because she wanted us to stay in the old one as she liked it more. His first concern was that another new baby would cause her to stop speaking to him again.

This is just about one of the most fucking ridiculous things I've ever read. What this little princess thinks about anything is completely irrelevant.

He’s thinking of his children that are already here, so prioritising them in a sense. I don’t agree with it, as she’s a brat and uses manipulation to get her own way. DH wants to avoid the stress and fall out. Her strops aren’t factoring into my decision making process. It’s frustrating that it’s factoring into his

I agree with the pp saying DH should be looking at a vasectomy now rather than using termination in place of birth control.

From your post, this isn't what you want and you're being rail roaded into something you could live to regret forever. I know time is not of the essence as naturally you will want to do it sooner rather than later if that's the decision you make but please don't make any rash decisions immediately.
This is a huge thing for all of you and you may all need some time to process it.

Good luck

You don’t want an abortion and he does. That’s the crux of it.

What are the co sequences of having the baby? A useless uninvolved dad? A divorce? Either way you probably need to plan for raising this child largely unsupported and with a disinterested husband.

He’s such a hands-on involved Dad, so him jumping straight to a termination (again!) is so frustrating. I’m not sure if it’s reactionary like the first time and he needs to process.

For me, I’m really torn as I was due to return to the workforce (I’ve been SAHM) and getting my life back. I had a c-section too due to placenta Previa so I’m aware my risk of accreta is increased too. I’d be risking my life when my DC needs me. But then I feel guilty 😫

You can’t count on him being the same dad to a child he doesn’t want. There are so many threads on here from women complaining about their DH spending as much time out the house as possible, not wanting to spend any family time together, not helping with the kids, being tight with money etc. Then it turns out to be an unplanned pregnancy or DW pushing to TTC…and DW thought DH would come around.

You need to think carefully about how this baby would affect the family dynamic. Have you asked DH how strongly he feels and whether he would willingly and enthusiastically stick by you?

Do you have anywhere you can go with your youngest and spend some time away from him. You need to make the decision based on what you want and without pressure. It's your body and your choice.

It's easy for him to say terminate. He isn't going to experience the physical, emotional and phycological impact of that. It doesn't impact him.

I guess you need to decide if having another baby is worth potentially ending your marriage. That bring said i probably have no respect for H anyway after this. He should be supporting you not pressuring you.

Also, fuck letting a teenager dictate your life because your H is spineless and doesn't want conflict. Paint the walls how you please.

If he doesn't want more babies he should have a vasectomy.

I think it's very wrong that you are being pressurised into having an abortion you really don't want. So I'd say don't. It's up to him how he reacts.,

Can't believe your DH wants you to terminate a pregnancy in case he pisses off his child. OMG.

If you took several years to conceive you'd be mad to abort this baby, unless you definitely want an only child.

Regarding the birth issues I imagine you'd have a consultant managed birth and aftercare and have to stay in hospital longer than usual.

Meant to say and I expect you'd be fine -- you'd just get consultant care and medicines to stop bleeding would be on hand etc. Don't listen to your idiot DH and abort the baby unless you really want to.

Just thought I’d update this post and say thank you to all of you for your thoughts, it’s very much appreciated.

We’re still at an impasse. He definitely wants me to terminate and says I’ll be ruining his life if I have this baby. He said if he had know when we met I was going to change the goal posts and want two kids, he’d have ended it there and then. He’s also said if he thought for a moment I’d get pregnant, he’d have not come anywhere near me. I don’t feel like I’ve deliberately changed goal posts. I didn’t expect to get pregnant or plan for a 2nd. But it’s happened.

I’ll admit, those comments have really hurt, though I know he’s lashing out.

I’ve booked a private scan as I’m still unsure what it is I want. I don’t even know if it’s viable anyway, as I have a past history of missed miscarriages. I’m going to have to live with the regret and guilt if I make the wrong decision, but on the other hand I’d feel guilt forcing him to have a child he doesn’t want.

He said he hasn’t had a life because he had children so long and felt forced into having multiple children in his past relationship. And he doesn’t want to do this again. He can’t do it mentally or emotionally. He doesn’t want to impact the relationship with his older children further.

His points are very valid and he’s entitled to feel the way he feels. I just feel so much guilt for either option. I can’t believe we got ourselves into this situation!

He said he hasn’t had a life because he had children so long and felt forced into having multiple children in his past relationship.

Aw bless, poor little sausage - made to have children he didnt want

If he didnt want to have another baby, he should have used condoms

I'm going to put some hypotheticals out there to mull over.

1. You go to private scan and worst fears are realised and it's a nonviable pregnancy. How would you partner react? What would his plans after be regarding contraception
2. You decide termination is right for you? Would you get the emotional support you need to process it from your partner?
3. You have the baby all goes without problems, how involved would he be?
4. You have the baby but due to x, y, z you need support. Will he step up?

How does he feel about the child you have? Having a child 18 months after a previous doesn't add much time to your parenting length of time. I think it's important to not dismiss the impact the tricky teen has too. Maybe he hoped that the older kids would need less parenting now and is wondering if he will ever be making decisions of his own ever again. Maybe he's thinking this is normal behaviour and it's what he has to come from any subsequent children and that is compounding his fears. I think he has some baggage around having children and would benefit from talking to someone. I also think he needs sort himself out and what he wants regarding children prior to partners getting a positive pregnancy test!

These are some really brilliant points to think about, thank you.

He was supportive with the miscarriage to an extent, but I could tell he was also relieved. He has a tendency to be extremely avoidant when things get hard. He becomes emotionally unavailable, shuts down or physically removes himself. We hadn’t talked about the pregnancy for a couple of weeks and he said he’d hoped I’d just dealt with it.

I’m not 100% sure how he’d be during a termination. I had a missed miscarriage so I had to take misoprostol, so it was the same process as an abortion. He made sure he was out of the house for work on that day. He didn’t see the physical pain I was in, just the emotional aftermath, which he struggled to deal with.

I think this has also brought up feelings for me from that period I thought I’d dealt with.

He adores our DC and is a very hands on father. If I’m struggling, he’ll immediately take over and regularly spends time one on one. He’s the same with his older children too. But has been a bit of a Disney Dad at times, which definitely hasn’t helped with how entitled they can be at times. There’s a lot of hostility between himself and his ex wife too, which alienation happening with the two teens. He has all of that to deal with on top of this, so I know he’s having a pretty rotten time at the moment.

He needs to get a vasectomy. I told him this after the birth of our DC, as I’m not going to go back onto the contraceptive pill again. I was on it for two decades, my body has had enough. He doesn’t want a vasectomy as he said it will hurt, but doesn’t want to use condoms either 🙃

He doesn’t want a vasectomy as he said it will hurt, but doesn’t want to use condoms either 🙃

Guess then its no sex moving forward then - to be honest if my partner acted like this my fanny would desicate so fucking quickly!

Your DH is being completely unfair. No responsibility taken and guilt tripping you. I guess you need to figure out what you want and what is right for you and your health and your 10 month old and ignore what he wants otherwise you will resent him. I’d resent him already for saying those hurtful things to me then saying he doesn’t want a vasectomy. It would be hard to get over long-term. Not impossible but hard. Do you want another child, ever? I would take some time to properly process how you feel not how he feels.

He doesn’t want a vasectomy as he said it will hurt, but doesn’t want to use condoms either 🙃

However, it's okay for you to go through the physical and emotional pain of a termination without support. He wants you to get rid with out any impact to him at all and screw the impact to you.

Irrespective, of all the challenges in his life he is meant to be your husband/ partner/ supporter and it doesn't seem like his particularly successful at that. When the going gets tough this guy gets going. What sort f wanker makes sure he's out while his wife miscarriages?

Do what's right for you @Annonnn24 . You might lose the relationship but honestly is it really worth having ? I reckon your relationship is dead anyway TBH. The lack of care that he has for your wellbeing and his lack of support will eventually cause irreparable damage.

@Annonnn24 you deserve better, you really do. Leaving you to your MMC alone and unsupported was cruel.

A termination should be if you don't want to be pregnant, but it sounds like everything is about what he wants. What a selfish, selfish man, refusing a routine vasectomy but pressuring more than one woman into terminations.

You're being very (too) considerate of his POV and feelings, is he showing you any of the same empathy?

Even if you do terminate, he isn't willing to do anything to avoid this happening again.

I would recommend you get some good, independent counselling.

@Annonnn24
Oh does he now, ok.... But quite happy for you to go through physical and emotional pain of miscarriage/termination/child birth?

I do imagine it is far from a pleasant procedure but it's a short term pain to prevent long term pain for someone he supposedly cares for.

I would be calling him out on is avoidance. He's a grown man he can't expect the difficult and painful parts of life to just disappear if he closes his eyes. Is this how he is coping with the teen too?

I think you need to pin him down somewhere neutral where he can't find something super important to do instead. Discuss your options ahead of the scan and get him booked in for a consultation about the vasectomy - not booking it just someone to discuss the process so that you're making decisions together on facts and not fears.

He said it will be different this time and he knows he let me down last time. It took me a very long time and a lot of therapy for me to forgive him. It’s been five years since then. To be fair to him, he has worked on himself a lot over the years. He used to be quite a selfish person. When it got very hard during my pregnancy with DC, he was incredible, throughout postpartum and up until recently.

I think he has been triggered by past issues and that lack of control, but he needs to take accountability. He’s middle aged, a father and not the naive 19yr old who got his girlfriend pregnant. Different relationship and decades later. When his backs against the wall, he turns into an asshole. I really thought he’d grown.

I don’t want to make the wrong decision and feel like I’ve been talked into it. He keeps using ‘we’ statements when talking about how he feels.

Never in a million years did I think I’d fall pregnant again. If I thought there was the possibility, I’d have used condoms. My egg reserve is literally in the bin! The fact we conceived naturally at all with DC was a total fluke.

Well that brings up another aspect @Annonnn24 - this is probably your last chance to EVER have another child. How will you feel about that 5 years from now? Will you resent him?

He sounds very manipulative e.g. He keeps using ‘we’ statements when talking about how he feels.

Putting aside his concerns and his wants, what do you want, deep down?

Can you afford to be a single mom with two kids?

Either way it seems like your marriage is over. Sounds like he's shown you who he is for years.

I’m currently a SAHM as I lost my job during pregnancy. I’m educated though and had a successful career that I would be able to go back into. The hours were insane, but I could support myself. Thinking through my options, I know my mum would jump in her car right now and come get us and we’d live with her. She’s aggressively pro-life, so I haven’t told her yet, but if I do decide to keep the baby, I can always go home. The majority of my support network is back in my home town too, so I’d have a good network.

How far away is your hometown?

I'd be jumping in the car back to your mum's house in that case. Your husband sounds so selfish and manipulative.

If he doesn't want any more kids, then he needs to have a vasectomy. That's his decision, and he's not made it, what did he expect to happen if he refused to wear a condom?

He has absolutely no right to pressure you into a termination if that's not what you want. Having an abortion is 100% your decision, having a vasectomy is his.