Do I have a good enough reason to abort?

[WushyWoo]

Hi all,

This is my first post and I wish it was under better circumstances. Really hoping for some impartial advice. On Tuesday, just 3 days ago, I found out I was pregnant. I've been using the app Natural Cycles and I could see my period was late so I did two tests and voila. But here's the background:

Me and my boyfriend have been together 2 and a half years and moved in together 4 months ago. We have a good stable relationship and love each other very much. Not long into our relationship he told me that he had fertility tests when he was 18 (we're both 31 now) and they found he had a 95% abnormal sperm count. I did a lot of research at the time and read that even though he wasn't infertile, it could take a while for us to get pregnant. Before we moved in together I told him I wanted to come off the pill (cue Natural Cycles) to get my body in a normal routine. You can imagine my shock and surprise when I saw a positive test result just 4 months after using this app. I can count on one hand the amount of times we've had sex in this house because he has been scared to come near me since I was only on the app (which I convinced him was sufficient contraception. Sigh).

He has not taken the news well and is keen to terminate. He believes (which is probably fair) that it is a 60:40 decision of mine and he said he will support me in whatever is decided but that he doesn't feel good about it. He said the timing is all wrong and I totally agree with him on that.

I really didn't anticipate my life going this way, I wanted to be married first and we are looking to buy a house. We're due to go to Cuba on New Years Day (cue ZIKA!) and we have lots of trips planned and paid for in 2019.

He said to me we will make great parents but it's not the right time for us. EXCEPT everyone around me is pregnant. He has a nephew that's nearly 1 and another on the way. A good friend of mine lost her baby at 6 months pregnant this year. Another three of my best friends will all have given birth and while I totally agree with everything he says and see it as an easy way out I can't help but think I will not deal well with being around all these babies knowing I could have had one. I am after all 31 and know my fertility is at risk and can't help feeling a bit blessed that we've got pregnant now. We will never know if it was luck or just that easy for us.

I am so conflicted and would really appreciate some advice. I do have a consultation with a clinic booked but it's not till 2nd January.

In your situation, I would choose the holiday over the pregnancy. Wait and have a baby when you are ready.

I am pro-choice, but for myself I do think there are some moral implications to aborting purely due to inconvenience (your OP sounds like you do too). There are also some practical issues.

If you're worried that you will feel guilty later, you probably will.

If you're planning to be with this man long-term,
it's a risky strategy not to have the baby given the infertility risk.

However, I fully agree with the PPs who have said that you need to take some time to fully think things through and become confident in what's the right thing for you.

OP, this has taken you by surprise, you were planning on NOT being pregnant, and “I currently do not want to be pregnant “ is a good enough reason not to be.

Would you have a huge sigh of relief if you had an early miscarriage? Or sad?

The timing is tricky but maybe you need to live with it for a few days.

When I had a termination I was sad that the situation wasn’t right but felt very sure if my decision and haven’t regretted it for a moment and never dwelt on any ‘what ifs’.

When I was oh and wanted to be it was a wholly different feeling.

Think about yourself and your relationship to this pregnancy, not about the views of people who resist abortion per se, unless you are one of them.

Also, you may need some heart to hearts with your DP, he must have been quite anti pg to avoid sex. Did he talk about that?

Issues like this do pick at the fault lines of a relationship. It is 100% your choice but you can’t control
His reaction to your choice.

Real dilemma. Time, counselling.

Well it's your body and your decision but I wouldn't terminate in your position. If you stay with your dp you might never conceive again, terminations can't affect your fertility aswell as his. Plus you don't really sound like you are on board with a termination so you should definitely not make a decision like that based on someone else's feelings. It doesn't physically affect your dp.

X-post @AnotherEmma I was referring to your previous post, I'm not bigging myself up there!

Ha ha yes I got that. We are basically cross posting and agreeing with each other 💪

unless you are actually tracking your hormones by having them tested nothing can predict when you are fertile. Basically you were both havig unprotected sex. Its not really a surprise you are pregnant.

So the reason for the TOP would be?
-my BF doesn't want it
-got a lot of childfree and carefree stuff bought and paid for this year

Your reasons for NOT terminating are
-My friends are expecting I'll feel left out
-worried you'll become infertile in the next year(?)

You haven't said "I want to be a mum" "I want to take care of a baby all day every day" or "I WANT this baby" and this pregnancy is still so early you are not talking about anything like a baby yet.

Why not go ahead with it and enjoy this last year of freedom while the 2 of you are thinking/planning parenthood?

He is getting some stick on here, but what he's said is optimistic either way, 60-40 is NOT "I don't want it" as much as "I'm not as on board as you are but I don't hate the idea" sounds like "I'm not ANTI-parenthood but I'm just not enthused right now"

You should still be fertile next Xmas ....and the One after and so on.
I had my 3rd at 35 and miscarriage/stillbirth(due to outside influence not age) at 38 if that reassures you.

It's not as bleak as you seem to believe it is, a TOP is not going to destroy you, waiting a year won't either.

You don't need to be ready to be a mum. You'll have 9 months to get ready.
It's funny (in my experience) I haven't felt ready to be a mum, or felt pregnant intially, but very gradually as the baby gets bigger I've felt more and more ready to be a mum.
I'm 2.5 months pregnant at the moment and don't feel ready for another one yet.

• Natural Cycles is 93% effective under typical use, which means that 7 women out of 100 women get pregnant during 1 year of use.

It is also vanishingly rare for terminations to affect future fertility. Not impossible, but the potential complications of termination are tiny compared to the potential complications of pregnancy and the effects on a woman's body.

The odds for natural cycles are terrible

Not sure if this will help op but please do not underestimate the psychological effect an abortion you're not 100% sure about can have on you.
I had one because me and my DP weren't sure we were ready at the time, we knew we wanted kids at some point down the line but we didn't feel like the timing was right and an extra few factors played into it. me and DP weren't even living together.

I regretted it as soon as it happened. I still cry about it now sometimes especially now that I've got DCs and when I feel really down I can't help wondering why I let them come into this world and not the first one.
I remember sobbing to DP on holiday a while later as I thought how the baby would have been 6mo by then.

All I'm saying is you need to be 110% sure on what you want.

It’s true I’m not 100% oh terminating but I do think of sheer relief whenever I think about it. It’s just the after effects holding me back. Guilt, age etc.

Honestly? Sounds to me like you wanted to get pregnant, he didn't and you found a way to do so without the true consent of your partner, probably expecting he'd just go along with it once you conceived.

That said he's a grown arse adult perfectly capable of taking full responsibility for his own fertility. Have you proof of his fertility issues outside of his saying so? Not only dishonesty but he may have misunderstood something he was told, or even have the info 3rd hand. I know a guy who was told by his mother he was infertile as a result of mumps - but he wasn't she had assumed he would be but no tests had been done but the way she'd put it across to him he thought there had been!

Now you're stuck cos he sees abortion as a perfectly reasonable response to what he believes is an unplanned pregnancy.

I don't think you want an abortion and are actually hoping one of the responses will give you a way to persuade him to accept and go along with the pregnancy.

All in all irresponsible, immature behaviour from both of you.

Only you know if you want this child or not. Only you know if your partner is likely to accept the pregnancy, stay with you and be a fully involved father or decide nope this was an unplanned pregnancy I'm not ready to be a dad and leave.

"just to clarify Natural Cycles is contraception. It tells you when you are and aren't fertile." It's really not and I question your intellect if at 31 you really think such methods are reliable contraception. You need to educate yourself PROPERLY on how conception, contraception and female cycles work. An app can't test blood or urine or take temperatures it is entirely dependent on the user entering accurate data to assess the risk.

Ultimately in the vast majority of cases unplanned and planned pregnancies the mother is the one who's life changes the most and has the most responsibility for the child. So that's the viewpoint you need to come at this from. Are you ready to be a mother with or without a father involved?

"I’ve heard of a lot of people getting pregnant with these apps, they’re not v reliable." It's not the apps it's the "contraceptive" method - which isn't! People's cycles vary too much, both from person to person and month to month in same person, then there's the fact that fertilisation can occur up to 5 days after having sex! I'd think these methods/apps far more applicable to people ttc.

You believed salesmen and ads rather than medical professionals.

"being sold as" key phrase. They don't care about the people using them their focus is on sales and advertising revenue.

"FFS mummy there are no ‘innocent lives’ involved, there is a cluster of cells which is not a sentient being" I'm pro choice generally, anti abortion personally (as in I wouldn't have one) but it's wrong to dismiss other people's opinions.

But I also agree every child should be wanted I'm the result of an unplanned pregnancy and I've never had a good relationship with my mother and honestly believe she blames me for "trapping" her with my dad - at least initially.

You have to be daft to believe them apps.
I agree with the above poster, it sounded like you wanted to get pregnant

I do think that many people who regret abortion are also expressing a dissatisfaction about the way their lives may have turned out, especially if they were pregnant as teens. It's often very seductive to look back on decisions we made when we were young and rue our youthful foolishness when we're unhappy with the way our lives currently are.

If terminations were carried out in the teens because of big dreams for life that never went on to be fulfilled, to look back 20 years later and think, 'I may as well have had that child, I should have had that child' because from a retrospective and disappointed perspective it would have made no difference and saved opprobrium from others. It's not true though. It's just the way our brains work particularly in a culture of censure and disapproval.

It was the right decision at the right time, and even if it didn't lead to the ultimately desired destination, a retrospective regret is generally more a longing for what could have been rather than a genuine desire to have lived that reality.

Haven’t RTFT but I absolutely wouldn’t, because you clearly don’t want to.

Also, even women who are TTC can freak out about “timing” and even wonder about terminating when they first found out they are pregnant. It’s a knee jerk reaction to a shock so you both need to think more closely about it.

Given your slimmer than normal chance of conceiving, for me personally that would be the extra push to keep the baby.

Another point of view to bear in mind - I got pregnant very quickly and it was a shock as my partner had been diagnosed as being practically infertile. After ds was born we tried for another child for 5 years without success! How would you feel if this happened and you didn't manage to conceive again?

Personally natural cycles is a mine field, 24 out of 100 fall pregnant using bbt as contraception (that’s what it is with an app attached) per year. Just cause it doesn’t happen on their app means they don’t have to record that data or even if they simply arent notified by the user.

All it takes is one little bugger surviving a week and with alcohol, change of medication/hormones and a million other things that can effect your bbt.

If you choose to go through with a termination honestly look into independent sources. A termination is completely up to you. The pregnancy itself might not stick either. There’s no right or wrong answer only your own choice, but it’s been days take time to breathe and think it through together or on your own it’s one of those things you can’t take back afterwards.

I've just been through a similar thing and terminated a few days ago. Haven't read all the replies on yours but the thread I posted got a lot of negative comments on how awful my partner must be to want me to terminate.

Although I didn't feel ready to be a mum and always thought I had zero maternal instinct, I became very attached to my baby. My partner 100% did not think we were in the right place in life to be starting a family (he's 5yrs younger and less stable in his job, we don't live together, he wants to travel first etc). I decided I didn't want to have a child that was basically unwanted by one parent and let him convince me to terminate.

The actual process was truly awful to go through but my partner was there with me throughout. Don't underestimate how horrible a medical termination will be - and don't leave it late like I did (almost 12wks). I would advise surgical termination (I was too far along to be offered it).

I'm 34 so that would possibly have been my only chance to have a child and my partner isn't keen on having any at all - but if you're not ready then that's your choice, it's not for anyone else to tell you that your baby is more important than your existing life plans. Both me and my partner are planners and it really threw him when he thought his life plan was going to be changed.

"I do think of sheer relief whenever I think about it. It’s just the after effects holding me back. Guilt, age etc"

Age? You're 31! You're not old! A quick Google tells me that the average age of a first-time mother in the UK is 30. There is a gradual decline in fertility but it's really not as significant as some of the headlines would have you believe.

If the thought of termination makes you feel "sheer relief" then it would seem the right choice for you. However, take your time over the decision and get specialist counselling. You do need to be sure.

Personally I don't think abortion is morally wrong and I would very much hope that there would be no guilt attached to it; however there is so much bullshit in the discourse around abortion (even on this thread) that it's no surprise some women feel guilty about it.

Personally I think it's morally wrong to force or pressure a woman into continuing a pregnancy that she doesn't want, but there you go.

"you clearly don’t want to"

Nonsense.

The OP is clearly conflicted. That's why she started the thread.

Regarding fertility apps and 'natural family planning', I went to a Catholic school, 30 years ago PSHE was just coming in so we were obliged to have a talk about contraception, cue a NFP proponent coming to speak to a bunch of 14-year-old girls about the consistency of vaginal mucus and the temperature of our vaginas in relation to our ovulation cycles. At 14 years old I called her out on the hypocrisy of our Catholic education telling us sex was sinful and then teaching us the LEAST reliable contraception method ever (ovulation tracking, whilst if done properly, can be fairly reliable, is best done by couples who, for whatever reason, cannot or will not use other forms of contraception and by and large, are not adverse to an unwanted pregnancy).

To teach a class of adolescent girls this (particularly in the 80s when AIDS was a massive fear), as the only method of contraception we learned at school, was madness.

We were also shown films by the organisation LIFE (them of the tiny emotive feet) I walked out and got a huge amount of censure for it. Called a slag, baby killer etc by my fellow brain-washed pupils. I was a virgin. I didn't have sex until about three years after this 'education', but it's always coloured the way I view women's choices and my knowledge about how they're judged.

As a nice addendum, I met the NFP woman at a party about 15 years later (she was actually a family friend), and she said she'd always remembered my one-woman/girl protest and had been impressed to the extent she'd actually changed her future talks.

@AnotherEmma thank you for your allying and support otherwise I think I would have a mentral breakdown with some of the criticism I’m receiving here.