Teenage daughter pregnant. Disappointed, upset, angry WWYD?

[Downnotout]

My 18yo DD has told us she is pregnant. She has just started a 2 year course which would have set her up for life.

Her BF of all of 4 months is in the forces and will be going to Afghanistan next year, although he says he will stand by her. She was on the contraceptive injection but was ill a few weeks ago, had lots of anti biotics and ended up having an operation. Somehow in amongst all that she managed to get pregnant.

I feel so disappointed. For her, for him, for us as a family. It isn't good news. She is living away at college, we have signed a lease on the house. She will have to leave college and the house and we will have to continue paying til next September for it. As well as next terms fees of £4000. We have been killing ourselves to pay for all this as it was her lifelong dream to do this course/ job and now it's all for nothing.

I think she has rose tinted glasses on about life with a pretty house and a cute baby gurgling away in the background. Join me here in shaking your heads and thinking about the reality of being alone with a baby, not having slept for weeks, your partner away at war and having to spend your last ten quid on a packet of pampers.

There is no way we can have her back living with us at home. Call me selfish, but I have brought three children up. My youngest is still only 9. Somewhere along the line me and DH were starting to think about having a bit more time to ourselves.

Yes she's 18, an adult. Old enough to make her own decisions. But I am filled with dread about it all. I am only too aware of the pitfalls, what might go wrong, if they split up etc. and I know she will need me to be there for her, to support her. But I just don't want it. I don't want the responsibility of it. I don't want to be tied to another baby and I wish so much that she wasn't throwing her life away and maybe ruining his. A baby is forever and at her age she has no concept of what that means.

Overuse of 'actually' but meh.

I actually think it was a pretty vile post, EFA.
If this is the conclusion you've come to after reading nearly 600 posts, you've been reading a different thread to the rest of us.

None of you have understood what I mean. OP may very well have spent hours listening to her dd but this is absolutely not the same as whether her dd feels listened to. This is what I am trying to get at.

I haven't "blamed" OP or "put the boot in"!!! Just tried to say that if you look at things in a different way you may find different solutions. I don't pretend to have the solutions to what is a complex situation and can't be fully explained in a thread on mn.

I do feel very sorry for the dd - why wouldn't anyone? She's not some kind of evil monster after all. This thread just seems unbalanced, that's all.

Jacksmania I can see from earlier that you have distanced yourself from your sister and I would suggest that this is having some bearing on your ability to be objective in reading my posts. I do not intend to cause offence, just to put forward a different viewpoint, which happens seemingly to be challenging to yours.

EFA - According to HQ MN is meant to be a helpful, supportive place for parents.

Please explain how your nasty, vile post was helpful or supportive to the OP.

i feel for you OP, i really do.

i got pregnant at 17 and had a little girl. i was madly in love with her dad but in the end it didnt work out. he was a bit of a bad boy. my mum was only 39 when i made her a granny. she was not at all happy. no one was, but me (rose tinted specs).

my daughter is now 15 and she is the most wonderful addition to the whole family. she is everyones big cousin and just a really special girl. she got a lot of extra love because of the special circumstances in which she was brought up - she lived with me, my mum, my brother and sister (her gran, uncle and aunt - hope youre following this ok?)

however, when me and my mum talk about the past now, and how she coped with driving my daughter to nursery every day and back before/after her work while i went to uni for 4 years to do a teaching degree, i can see now how hard that was for my mum and i feel overwhelming indebted to her now and always will. and my dad as he paid for everything (nursery fees and uni stuff).
i was very lucky they did this, i dont think most parents would do that much but mines did. i still cant quite believe it.

it was a very hard, dysfunctional time for a while and im sure we were the talk of the town for a while but we all got through it and we did what we had to do. i know it was hardest on my mum. she got her life back again when we me and my daughter moved out when she was 7 and i married my husband and have had a further 2 children with him.

there is no short cut to the happy ending. its a long tough struggle but we managed to make the most of it along the way because were just like that, we always try to see the positive (but of course there were dramas and fall outs and tears at times)

i can totally understand you wanting little to do with the whole situation. maybe you could try and support her a bit but say that its her responsibility and mess to sort out but youll do what you can without having to give up too much of youre own life.

good luck. keep us updated if you want.

ps for the record, if my daughter gets pregnant in 2 or 3 years time i too will be devastated for her, i will be gutted. but i think i would support her as best i can ( after absolutely killing her!!)

There is no baby, mrsm, Op's daughter was lying.

whit????

i shouldve read the whole thread.

o well, thats a good thing though isnt it? that shes not pregnant?

ok the lie is a whole other issue but at least that baby dilema is over, yeah?

changingnicknameforxmas I have explained my post and there is nothing nasty or vile in it. MNHQ haven't deleted it.

I have been suprised how my actually mild posts and trying to be helpful posts have raised such ire in other posters but suspect that it is because I have put forward an alternative hypothesis that rocks the world views of certain other posters who endorse the actions of the OP because this endorses their own life choices. I have challenged the world view of you and thus angered you on your own behalf not on behalf of the OP.

I would like the OP and her dd to have a better relationship but it seems to me that much of the advice given by other posters here isn't particularly conducive to that.

It's good she's not pregnant, not so good that she's married the soldier boyfriend and dropped out of her course. :(

EFA - I am not angry. You have not challenged my world view. You seem to have an overblown idea of your own importance.

And for the record, I remember the other thread where the daughter had buggered off with the druggie boyfriend, dropped out of school and stolen money to fund her life with the then boyfriend.

The OP has dealt with a very difficult situation very very well and with remarkable restraint IMHO

shit.

i think she has to be left to get on with it and make her own mistakes, she seems determined to do her own thing even if it is all the wrong things.
the poor op. she should just concentrate on her other kids who arent giving her as much grief.
when the daughter is done being self destructive she'll come back to her mum. i was a royal pain in the arse too but ive come good now :o

I have distanced myself from my sister?? Ha. :o The shoes's on the other foot, mate, but however that may be - it actually has no bearing on my objectivity. What an idea. It's honestly funny :o

What changingnicknameforxmas said.
EFA, you are not that important - however, your post is HIGHLY likely to upset the OP, as it has irritated and shocked those of us not closely involved in the OP's situation - your over-inflated sense of worth of your contribution just demonstrates your lack of understanding of how poorly you come across. You may not consider that you put the boot in, but just because you don't think you did, doesn't change what it looks like to the rest of us. And it looks like you put the boot in and blamed the OP.

I feel sorry for the OP AND the daughter. I know my Mum would have been devastated if I had become pg at 18.
I totally understand where OP is coming from.
Her daughter has been dating this guy for 4 months? If I had become pregnant by the guy I was seeing at 18, even if it did last 5 yrs which it did, I would be tied to that guy for the rest of my life. My family would be tied to him also.
I cannot imagine even speaking to that guy ever again.
To be brutally honest I would be broaching the subject of abortion. I truly would.

A previous poster mentioned that 'your grandchild is coming whether you like it or not'. You cannot compare the offspring from a 4 month old relationship between two 18 yr olds (or similar in age) as to that of a a child genuinely wanted and by a guy who you genuinely knew, liked and felt was a part of your family. You just can't. Has the OP even met his parents?

The OP is deserving of some time with her DH and should carry on planning those things.
What an awful situation to be in. I wish the OP the very best and hope it all works out for her family.

Whoops! Just read some other posts. Thank heavens she isn't pg. sigh of relief

Angel :o

I have read first few pages and last ten pages.

As a teenager, I was awful to my mum, self harmed, treated house like hotel, messed up my studies, earning but spent all money on my self. Our relationship was terrible.

Then I met a man, my mum didn't like, he was older etc I ended up in same situation as your dd. My Db came to wedding but noone else. My friends didn't like him etc.

However it was the making of me. 7 years later we have 3 dcs, and are happy, I put more effort in to my studies and am more serious about them before. I have a purpose to my life and a direction, and stability and a life partner. Mental health is better. I have more self inflicted boundaries. I am no longer self destructing.

My mum would have never predicted this. She thought I was wasting my life and I should have a good career and a man with an established career etc. But to me that is not what brings me happiness and contentment.

Now my relationship with my mum is better then it ever has been.

I don't know why the assumption is that this is a mistake, she will hate being an army wife, etc.

She may have a history like I did.
Why would she invite you to a wedding when she knows you will disapprove?

I know op is not here, maybe someone else can explain.

I agree with efa, as someone who has been in the position of the dd, I felt I had no belonging, direction, noone listened to me, I went searching for this elsewhere, my esteem and respect were rock bottom, I did similar things to ops daughter, and the reasons were as I didn't feel loved and accepted at home. Once I found that love and acceptance in my Dh and he committed to that, my life and lifestyle and Outlook and priorities totally flipped. I found what I was searching for.

nailak - I'm very glad your story worked out - but if you look further into Downnotout's DD's history, as has been recently alluded to, this is the second man in a year that she has "run off with" - admittedly, this one sounds 100x better than the druggie she went off with the first time and I'm sure we all DO hope that it works out well for her.

Perhaps her self esteem is at rock bottom - but you cannot say that her parents haven't tried on her behalf - they have funded her into an expensive private course, that she was so desperate to do and has now decided, one term in, that it's not what she fancies after all, leaving her parents with pointless fees to pay.

So in fairness to the OP, it is unreasonable to suggest that she hasn't been listened to - she bloody well has, to the OP's cost. There comes a time when you have to stop pandering to the whims of a capricious child, even when that child has reached adult age (perhaps ESPECIALLY when that child has reached adult age) because it isn't helping. The OP has reached that point.

like i said my story is similar, a few months before i met my dh i took an overdose because of a break up with previous boyfriend who i wasnt exactly faithful to, and i ended up in a psychiatric ward, i also stole and went to raves with all that entailed, left home, started uni multiple times and never completed it, etc.

the point is this may be how her dd percieves it, i am in no way saying that the op hasnt tried or listened, just that the perception of dd might be different from op, as it was with me, my mum would have said she tried everything, but now at this time she sees maybe she made mistakes as well.

off course i made a lot of mistakes and bad choices and decisions too, the start of the spiral started a lot younger then 18, while i was still a child of 12 or so, a lot of unresolved issues, like my mum ignoring mh problems, etc while i was a child, which obviously escalated when i was an adult and manifested in destructive behaviour.

nailak, great to hear you found a supportive partner and now have a better relationship with your mother. Things you have said so well in your posts were what I was trying to put over myself but you have done it far better.

A mother can try her best to listen and this does not equate to a child who feels listened to. She can love a child without the child feeling loved. It's not about blaming anyone, just about furthering understanding of what has happened.

A mother can try her best to listen and this does not equate to a child who feels listened to. She can love a child without the child feeling loved.

EFA this is absolutely true. She has even said she does not feel part of the family because we are all tall and she is not.

There are many reasons for her feeling like that although tbh they are mostly from events outside my control. She has low self esteem because she is asthmatic, dyslexic, a middle child, was bullied at school, her dad has another daughter from a previous relationship etc etc.

I have stopped trying to analyse it all. I don't know how to help her anymore. There are always two sides to the story of course. She text me at Christmas to say she was having a proper Christmas with a proper family who loved her and that I was to ring her when I wanted to act like a proper mum to speak to her then.

Now if I was to listen to that and believe it, it would destroy me, and she knows it. But the next day she texts to say she misses me and loves me so much.
Then she asks for money. I said no.

Then my husbands car is smashed in with bricks. Parked behind locked gates in our drive. It's a classic sports car- his pride and joy.