Not to go ahead with 3rd?

[Changernamerjoker]

We have a 9 year old, soon to be 10 and a 4 year old soon to be 4.

our kids are our world, but they didn’t sleep (3.5 years first and 4 years second) so it’s been a long decade and it HAS taken a toll on our marriage. It feels like the fog is just lifting.

my husband earns around 350-550k a year depending on bonus and is on 200k salary. He is likely moving to a new firm in the near ish future which will come with substantial financial gains. We have about 240k cash in the bank, trying to decide what to do with that, We live in a 1.3m house with 5 bedrooms, I work through choice but don’t need to (we do have a fairly big mortgage about 63%ltv) I’m explaining all this to let you know our circumstances not to gloat, (I grew up with very little) I know we have considerably more than most.

I found out I’m pregnant and my husband wants me to abort.

I became pregnant about 18 months after we had our youngest circa 2019, and I was sent to an abortion clinic to find in relief I was miscarrying. I really hate the idea of abortion for me, although to am pro choice. I would far rather miscarry than abort, feels like nature is taking the choice out of my hands.

My husband promised to get a vasectomy after the last pregnancy but never has despite our private medical insurance.

I clearly didn’t handle the miscarried well, and it was largely never spoken about after it happened. About 6 weeks later I went out and got a puppy… I can’t help but feel there is something in that. (the dog is very well looked after and loved)

I am very very hesitant about a 3rd, if we went through the sleep issues again I’m not sure we’d survive it. I suffer terrible post partum anxiety and our last baby was 7 weeks premature, thankfully all has been fine but this is a serious concern. We’d have an under 5 for 15 years due to age gaps and I can appreciate my husband feeling this is too much, he is ready to move on (we are still mid thirties)

Despite how difficult I think 3 would be, this time round we can afford help, we can afford night nanny’s and day time help and support we’ve not had before. He doesn’t really think this is an option.

i feel that abortion is a huge decision for people to make, and I’m my position I have to question whether it’s moral? A part of me would love this baby and being pregnant with all the hormones makes this an incredibly difficult choice.

my husband will resent me if I go ahead, I’ll resent him if we don’t. How do we get through this?

I would have the baby

Call it what you like 🤷🏻‍♀️ And no, there’s nothing wrong with doing it.

I’ve always thought that’s the best type of bankruptcy. No angry creditors.

You want the baby that's end of to me x

I would have the baby, knowing the marriage would probably end because of it.

Let your husband be a weekend Disney dad. Have your baby and use some of your income to fund a nanny.

Don't let this man bully you into a decision it doesn't sound like you want. Your life sounds miserable with him.

I guess it's better that you don't bring children into the world with that kind of mentality

Could be worse, could be a forced birther.

Thanks though, I am indeed aiming to avoid that. Was kinda the point.

Have the baby, do sleep training.

No, a descriptor. I mean, if we’re having the choose between them then I’d go for ‘morally bankrupt’ every time, but each to their own.

Yes, she could have done. Not a particularly hot take, that one. I’d have been none the wiser and wouldn’t have been capable of giving a shit either way. As it happens she didn’t because she planned and wanted a kid, so chose to continue the pregnancy. Personally I’m glad I’m here because my mother wanted me, not because she didn’t and was forced to have me anyway.

I think if you abort a wanted pregnancy, you will regret it and resent him. That will kill the relationship anyway. So if you want to have the baby, you should. You may want to terminate the relationship.

It seems like OP wants the child too, and is in a strong position to continue the pregnancy. OP has also said that, she cannot take contraceptives and her husband was meant to get a vasectomy. If you engage in certain activities, then you should face the consequences in my opinion. If you don't want a child then don't have sex, that's the fool proof method. Why should a baby not be given the right to life because its not convenient?

@Aretheyhavingalaugh

The 'well your mum could have aborted you' is a strange argument.

I'm adopted myself and if my birth mother had wanted an abortion rather than putting herself through pregnancy, childbirth and putting a newborn baby up for adoption (rather than having been pushed into it by culture / religion etc in her case) I wish she had had the option to do that.

Not for any self loathing reason or guilt, but because I believe every woman should feel free to make pregnancy choices free of guilt, shame or pressure and that doesn't change just because I was the baby in question.

I think it's horrific she had to go through that process and didn't have a free choice to other options.

Which is why the 'you could have been aborted' line is always really strange to me. Because people who are pro choice like me think... well yes, as it should be!

What are you terrified of? He is only parenting at weekends anyway, if you split he could still do that. You can afford to divorce and both end up with nice houses by the sounds of it, you can afford help, you don't want to have an abortion and it looks like you can do this on your own with hired help, and that might be easier without him around tbh.

Someone advised counselling, i would get that asap so you can figure out what you actually want.

I think in your situation, you should understand the fundamental argument of not aborting. You were able to be born and in turn probably brought a lot of joy to your adoptive parents. When a baby is conceived, it is through no choice of thier own, they deserve the same basic right as a human that has been born. In fact, the amount of attrocoties in today's society and we can't go around killing people even when there's a good reason to, but it's OK to do this to an innocent, defenseless baby all because 1) contraception wasn't used 2) sexual pleasure is far more important. I'm sorry but I just don't get it. If I didn't want a baby, then I would take the necessary precautions and if they failed, then that's too bad because I put myself in that situation. I am 36 years old and I have never been in this position.

I think in your situation, you should understand the fundamental argument of not aborting.

I'll respond to your post properly tomorrow as its a serious subject that deserves attention and I'm very tired but, with respect, telling someone who has been in a situation how the "should" think or feel is quite a presumptuous, patronising, inappropriate and non empathetic way of approaching things in general.

And someone can "understand" an argument without agreeing with it. It's not a comprehension issue.

I'm sorry if offended you as that was not my intention. I would have thought that someone in your situation would have more empathy

OP has her own decision to make clearly based on a number of factors. She should be able to make it free of manipulation in any direction.

Abortion is ‘facing the consequences’. Not to your liking of course, but is has been one way of dealing with unintended pregnancy for as long as giving birth has, whether it is legal or not. Take a look at illegal abortion rates, you can bang on about right to life as much as you like, making abortion illegal doesn’t ‘save babies’, but it absolutely does maim and kill women. Realistically, very few people with a libido are going to abstain, and I doubt that you having a problem with that is going to give anyone pause. Nor is you having a problem with abortion (having been there myself, can genuinely say the pro life opinion wasn’t suddenly one I was giving any weight to).

The right to life is not inherently paramount over all other rights when interests come into conflict. A woman’s uterus is still hers if she’s pregnant, and it’s up to her whether she wants to remain so. You’re in fact advocating for a fetus to have more rights than a corpse, because you can’t use one of them if permission is denied, even if it would save life/lives.

@Aretheyhavingalaugh

I'm sorry if offended you as that was not my intention. I would have thought that someone in your situation would have more empathy.

Your second sentence rather cancels out your first in this comment. How disingenuous.

I don't engage with people who approach discussions like that so I'll leave it there.

If you want the baby and it’s his fault he didn’t have the snip then I’d just have the baby and pay for the help like you describe. I’d ignore his objections and say gosh the snip looks cheap now compared to 24 hour help but that’s the choice you made… we will need double the help if there’s an accidental 4th by the way.
but, I would have in your shoes thought through what being single looks like as while I can’t tell if you should be, it certainly seems a possibility. Also, high earners with alcohol issues are also quite good at falling off the rails so that astronomical salary he earns may not keep coming in forever. You should have far more invested than you do for that kind of income.

What about the existing DC and their happiness? If it’s quite likely that having a 3rd baby could be the catalyst for the marriage ending, that leaves the DC coping with another sibling (which they may be delighted about, but equally they may not) on top of their parents splitting up. I think that’s something to consider as part of the decision making process. Good luck OP.

Having a third child is hard work. It changes the dynamic of the family entirely. It is even harder without a partner available to help with bedtimes etc as you have to be the person putting baby to bed, and this means that you are therefore not there as much to chat with the other kids (which they need as they get older). Even with help, I would think very carefully about whether YOU want the responsibility and reality of another child.

To the pp who said they don’t know anyone who regrets having a child and plenty who regret having an abortion - well, it’s not very socially acceptable to say you regret having a child, is it? Can’t imagine many people broadcasting that. And I know plenty of people who don’t regret having had an abortion. You have no way of knowing how the OP will feel.

I have 3. We had help, decent income, etc. if I had my time again I would stop at 2 because of the far more complicated dynamics created. Wouldn’t wish away my 3rd now though, obviously, although their siblings might!

With that all said, OP your husband doesn’t sound great. I wouldn’t be making the decision for his sake, only for yours. I hope you make the right decision for you.

Sounds to me like the marriage is pretty much doomed anyway. That doesn't mean it has to end, but it does mean it's not a good relationship that's worth putting a lot of effort into keeping going. The man appears to resent and dislike you already, so foisting upon him the results of the pregnancy he foisted upon you - by refusing to take his part in contraception, knowing your options are limited - is fair enough, frankly. So the question is, how important is it to YOU that this pregnancy gets a chance to proceed to term? Do you feel it's a loved baby already, in which case there's no way you should be forced to abort; or is it currently just a thing that's happening to your body (and your sleep, eventually) that would be a relief not to have to cope with? That you WOULD love a baby if/when it was born is not really an issue. You WOULD have loved the last one had it not miscarried, but nature didn't even give you that choice; and at that stage it wouldn't even have had any feelings to mourn over, as its brain and nerve system were almost certainly non-existent. (Comments from the "every pregnancy is sacred" brigade, thankfully represented by only one poster, are neither helpful nor biologically accurate in this case.)

I generally stay out of abortion threads because I have a conflict of feelings around the issue, but I do often think when reading them that you have to consider, not only your own needs (because without your health and mental wellbeing the outcome is guaranteed to be bad all round), your existing children's needs (will a sibling be a positive for them or just take from the resources you can give them?), but also whether it will be a good thing for the potential baby to be born in this situation. You will have to make every decision for your offspring for at least 18 years, the first being whether to bring it into the world in the first place. You're panicking at the moment, you've got a time-limited choice with sad repercussions whatever you decide, but I think once you've made your mind up either way you'll feel a lot easier. The rest is just logistics.

Bottom line (of course this can only be my opinion): abortion is not, of itself, bad. Aborting a pregnancy you don't feel able to cope with is sensible. Aborting a baby you want and love at the behest of someone who doesn't have your best interests at heart, on the other hand, makes no sense. I wish you the very best of luck whatever you decide.

Oh, and - LTB 😉

Keep the baby, hire a nanny, ditch the husband.

I think it would be disastrous.
Your two children are already coping with an alcoholic parent. You have an enormous elephant in the room, OP. I just can’t imagine bringing a baby into this scene.
I’m not sure what’s in the marriage for you.
And weekends when he’s home sound worse than when he’s away.
I’m going by what you’ve written in your previous threads.

Fair enough but I wasn't being disingenuous. Offence is taken rather than given.