I’m utterly terrified & torn about finding myself pregnant with baby number four! Please help 😓

[ScaredMomma]

Hello,

I am a 33 disabled mother of three beautiful boys. 15 - 12 and 4 are their ages.

I have just found out I am pregnant with my fourth. Totally unplanned.

Our situation at the moment is not the best at all. Our four year old has a spinal tumour so we are on home leave until Monday then back in to stay until his operation, he’s been a very poorly boy and then he will have to recover.
Our older boys have been living with my sister for a little while as we’ve sold our house and bought another but awaiting the move. I miss them every second although we do still spend time together it’s not enough.

With my third baby boy, my four year old, it was extremely hard from the get go, he’s been referred to mental health services and I think I have ptsd from raising him, I have never in my life done something so hard. He’s about to start school in September so I will finally have a bit of a life. I have bipolar so although I am medicated I do struggle from time to time.

I had so many plans lined up, now that my baby boy is starting school, I’d finally be able to cook for my family and do gardening and take good care of our new home and my family but now I have found out I’m pregnant again and I have hyperemesis gravidarum with every pregnancy so I’m very poorly.

I don’t know what to do. I’m really, really scared. I don’t know if I can do it all over again 😭 please can anybody offer advice?

Yes that would be the best thing to do. Thank you 💜

You already have three children which deserve all your love and attention. Focus on them and make the hard, but responsible decision to not have a fourth. Replace the guilt for terminating with the guilt for adding to an already complex family situation if you did not.

I’m bipolar. Raising mentally stable children is incredibly hard. I think you need to prioritise the children that you already have. Especially as one has complex heath issues. Your existing children are more important than your desire to be a mother again. I know that’s hard but I do totally understand where you are coming from, and I’ve never had a child with extreme health needs.

Thank you and you’re absolutely right, we simply wouldn’t cope and I know that and stupidly I’ve let guilt take hold but thanks to all you honest mum’s I feel like I am going to make the right decision 💜

Thank you for your honest advice. You’re right 💜

Thank you for your honest advice. I appreciate it.
It was unplanned and I don’t have a desire to be a mother again, I just have guilt about terminating, I just needed some good, honest advice. Deep down I knew everything that all you wonderful mums are saying, I just needed to hear it from others on the outside. I know what I need to do now. Thank you for advice 💜

I think the best possible decision for all of you is a termination. What a difficult situation for you.

Thank you so much for your advice. I really appreciate it. I know my three children come first, it was just the guilt of terminating that was getting me. But I’ve known deep down since I found out that I just can’t do this, not to me or my beautiful family. I just needed to hear it from the outside. Thank you so much 💜

Don’t feel guilty doing the best by your other children xxx

Please be as kind to yourself as you can be. It’s not easy to be kind to yourself when you have bipolar (I have it too) but it’s so important to your wellbeing. My psychiatrist told me to check what the purpose of my thoughts were. So, if I need to think about it to make a decision then do but once the decision is made, just stop thinking about it as rumination is so destructive. Take care.

Parenting with bipolar is hard. My daughter has health needs too and it took us a long time to decide to have a second because of this.
I had counselling to help make the decision. We had an awful first 2 years and then another really tough 6 months between 3 and 3.5. we had a paediatrician appointment and she was worried about the tole it was taking on me and my health.
I'm pregnant again, planned but there is dread there about my mental health causing issues again. I'm going to have a lot for support to help me try to manage at home this time around, I needed a 10 week stay in a mother and baby unit last time. If my health and my daughters health hadn't been in a stable place we wouldn't have been able to feel confident with having a second.

What support do you have in place, professional and family? I'd look into counselling about the pregnancy too. The decision to keep or terminate a baby is rarely easy and even when terminating for the best of reasons it can throw you in a spin afterwards so ensuring you have the right support whilst making this decision and afterwards, regardless of whether you decide to keep the baby or not, is paramount

Best of luck

Sounds like her sister is doing more than enough?!

OP you should have this moved to pregnancy choices board.