Hi, really hoping to get some impartial advice on terminating a pregnancy.
To give some background, I'm 33 and me and my partner have been together for 5 years and are very happy. I first fell pregnant in May 2017, within the same week that my partner's brother was killed in a tragic accident. The pregnancy wasn't planned but we were overjoyed, but unfortunately I had a missed miscarriage at 11 weeks. We were devastated, and dealing with the grief of the loss of brother and baby, my partner found this time quite difficult and began to suffer from depression and anxiety.
Skip forward to September 2019, and I unexpectedly found out I was pregnant again. For the 2 years leading up to this, my partner has continued to suffer quite badly with his mental health (including long periods off work due to crippling anxiety) but again we were both ecstatic at the news, and this led to my partner taking actions to improve his health and well being (we moved closer to his family, my partner joined the family business, started going to the gym and has started seeing a therapist). Devastatingly I miscarried at 10 weeks in November 2019, but having been through the first loss we agreed to be strong for each other and knew we would get through it.
We had some good talks about whether we should begin properly trying for a baby, and whilst I would be happy to have another baby asap my partner advised that he currently didn't feel he was in the right frame of mind for it, especially not at the prospect of dealing with another potential loss, and wanted to take some time for himself to get into a good headspace and for us to be in a better position financially. We agreed that we should wait another year before beginning to try properly. As a result, he's been very focused on work, continuing to see his therapist and we've made some good changes to our lifestyle (i.e. diet/exercise).
This brings me to today. I found out I was pregnant yesterday afternoon; obviously my initial reaction was pure joy but also coupled with anxiety at the prospect of another miscarriage, and also concern for my partner's well being (as although he's slowly getting better, he's still not great, and some days can struggle to cope with everyday tasks). I revealed the news to my partner yesterday and he was very upset; he's advised he's still not ready for another pregnancy and is not in the right mental state of mind to continue with the pregnancy and still wants us to wait the rest of this year. He's assured me he does want us to have children but wants to wait until after Christmas for us to begin making a proper go of it. The timing is also very difficult as I have just accepted an amazing new job offer with a new company, which would put us in a much better financial position for the future, however the current timing would mean that I leave this new job for maternity before I would have passed the probationary period, and could be potentially left without a career to go back to.
My partner and I have discussed this morning that maybe the best option is for us to terminate the pregnancy and try again next year. I completely understand the entire rationale and that the timing is not right, but I'm obviously still finding the situation a bit distressing as it's obviously not an easy call to make.
Has anybody been through anything similar that they could share some thoughts or advice on? My head is telling me it's the right thing to terminate but my heart remembers the pain of the previous losses.
I'm planning on contacting my doctor today to discuss.
Thanks