Apologies for the long thread but wanted to get this our there in the hope it might help somone who is now in the position that i was.
Ok let’s start from the beginning. I am very fortunate to have two beautiful daughters who I treasure and hold deeply in my heart now and always. Emily my eldest of 19 year has always been head strong but the two of us have always had a very close bond. Emily was a difficult baby, never slept or ate and when she did eat she usually projectile vomited most of it back. Fast forward 16 years, Emily left school still not knowing what she wanted to do with her life, she has always been a keen horse rider and owned her own horse (very expensive hobby, if your child asks for horse riding lessons say ‘NO’). Em, therefore, decided to go to equine college. 1 year after she left college she left home to pursue a career in horse racing(I was devastated but didn’t want to dampen her spirits or excitement at the prospect of her new life, living away from home). Emily soon settled into her new life training race horses and soon found herself a boyfriend! He seemed nice, probably not what I would pick for her, but then it’s not my choice and if truthfully honest I never thought it would last. Early this year Em decided on a change of career (probably due to the fact that she spent a lot of time being injured by young race horses), what? She still didn’t know but toyed with the idea of nursing. One morning end of April, hubby sets off to do the shopping and younger daughter is happily watching childrens T.V. Myself doing general bits of house work, dusting etc, Emily, typically, still in her bed. Anyway as I start dusting the T.V. cabinet I notice the phone has a voicemail on it so dial the retrieve voicemail number completely unawares of how my life is about to change, FOREVER! The message was from the early pregnancy unit asking Emily to attend that morning for a blood test. I was completely frozen to the spot in total shock at what I had just heard. I had to play the message again just to make sure I wasn’t imagining what I had just heard and hoping and praying I had imagined the message and that the real message was someone from the national lottery telling me my numbers had come up! How wrong I was, the message was exactly the same. Panic struck me, ‘oh my gosh, what am I going to do, what will I say to her dad, who was still out doing the shopping. I shouted Emily from her room and handed her the phone, she looked at me a little confused, so I suggested she listen to the message. I asked her the question “Are you pregnant”?, no answer! “Em” I said again, to which she replied “I think you know the answer”. Well that was it a thousand questions tumbled all at once out of my mouth “How”, as if I didn’t really know the answer to that question, “When”?, “What”, “Why”. The reality of what had just been presented to me was too much, I broke down, heart broken, how could she do this too me, we had discussed this many times, me telling her to enjoy her life, see the world, there was lots of time for this. Em interjecting all the time that this hadn’t meant to happen and she was sorry. I walked round the house in a blind panic not knowing what to do, all I knew was I couldn’t look at her. The pain, hurt, disappointment and shame was too much. I told Em she had to leave, I didn’t want to see her, never mind talk to her about this. Em went to her friends. Em’s dad returns home from shopping to find me sobbing, an uncontrollable wreck. He thought someone had died and to be honest this is kind of how I felt. On instruction to take our youngest daughter round to my mums I explained I would talk to him on his return. Well this was going to be fun (NOT). I thought he would hit the roof, more than once, but he didn’t, he gave me the biggest hug he could and asked me where she was? I rang her mobile and asked if she would come home so we could talk. When she came home we all sat down calmly (not so much me to be honest) and asked her what her and boyfriends intentions were given that neither of them had an income and how on earth did they realistically think they could bring a child into the world with no income and both still living at home with parents. I did try pushing her into a corner stating she was ruining her life and she had years for children in the future (this I am not proud of might I add). My lovely husband, what would I ever do without him, talked some sense into me and calmly said that if I tried pushing her to make a decision she didn’t want to make could be the end of our relationship (mine and Em’s) forever and not only that she could blame me for that for the rest of her life. He reminded me that at 19 years old she was an adult and perfectly entitled to make her own decisions. I asked her to leave for a few days to enable me to get my head around this and made it very clear that whatever decision she made she needn’t think that I would be bringing this child up for her. The next few days were a complete blur of no sleep, constant crying and panicking every few minutes. I couldn’t even function properly in work which didn’t go unnoticed. I had no one to talk to about this, I started googling threads on how to deal with this but there were no real answers. After 4 days of Em being away the worry of not knowing how she was or what she was thinking, eating or anything else was too much and I asked her to come home so we could talk. Little sister at this point is still completely oblivious to anything. She came home, with boyfriend, who explained that yes they were both young, Em 19 yrs old and him 23 yrs old, yes they were too bloody young in my eyes, however intended to have this baby and make the very best of the situation they were both in. How, they had no money, no jobs, no home, nothing. I was baffled. Her boyfriend went home to his parents and Em stayed with us. The next couple of months were still a blur, how would I tell people, the shame was too much. Em had terrible morning (I say morning it was more like all day) sickness, this gave me lots of satisfaction and never did I show her any sympathy and never did she ask for any. Her boyfriend re trained (he had only ever trained race horses and these jobs always meant re locating miles from where we live) as a Chef and managed to secure himself a job in a Gastro pub, this meant he had to move into our spare room as he lived too far away and doesn’t drive (I say spare room as even though they were pregnant sharing a room in our house was not acceptable in the eyes of either her Dad or me, we also had her little sister to consider in all this). It wasn’t easy, to say the least, it took all my effort to be civil to either of them, every time I looked at my daughter now was through the eyes of hurt and disappointment. Can I say at this point I hadn’t once considered the feelings of my daughter but never did she throw this in my face, she took everything I threw at her bad and even worse! Em took up a little cleaning job to help with their finances and started looking for second hand baby items, never did either of them ask us for a penny. We didn’t ask them for any money for board or food, both me and her dad have very good jobs and are fortunate that we have a very good household income and no debt as this is something I feel very strongly about and have always bought my children up to be grateful for everything they have, to work hard in life to secure a good future and NEVER EVER get into debt. Em and boyfriend were desperately trying to save for baby items and deposit etc for a house. Boyfriend worked very hard and long hours but they both found saving a slow process. To my surprise over a few months my feelings started to change, Em had been for her 20 week scan and learned that she was due on Xmas day and that she was to have a girl. I remember early on, in the very dark days, my very best friend of over 30 years asking me on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being a fatality, where did this actually sit, she is 19 yrs old, she is not 14 and has been with boyfriend for 12 months. At this time of asking this I answered it was 9 and a half. She strongly disagreed. My feeling towards Em and boyfriend softened as I could see how much effort they were both trying to make and working hard. Em kept herself very healthy went to aqua natal every week and ensured she ate well and kept herself and her baby healthy. Em’s dad and I decided it was time to embrace this situation and help them as much as we could, my parents and hubbys parents always helped us when we were starting off. We started looking for houses for them as now that boyfriend was working he earned enough money to pay rent and bills and Em’s money from her cleaning job paid for extras. They found a house, round the corner, approximately one and a half miles away. Hubby and I paid their bond and first months rent and my parents bought them their first massive shop (the one that’s always the most expensive). My very best friend was re-locating to France with her work and had decided to rent her UK home out and therefore gave every bit of beautiful furniture to Em and boyfriend. They have been in their own home for two months now and are managing to pay their bills on time, they have every bit of baby items any baby could possibly need plus some. The nursery has been beautifully decorated. Em is due on Xmas day, 6 weeks left and we are all now very exited about the beautiful grand child we are to be blessed with. Some lessons I have learnt through all of this are:-
• I am not proud of my behaviour, not one little bit, I was far too consumed with my own feelings to ever consider how my daughter might be feeling, her life had just changed massively forever.
• The shame that I talk about, now I think I don’t care, I don’t have any control over what individuals may think and therefore I cannot change that so why worry about something that is out of my control.
• I never once gave my daughter or boyfriend the benefit of acting like adults and they have massively proved me wrong.
• Life brings us surprises when we least expect them and I have learnt to embrace these surprises and to stop thinking of them as a punishment.
• When you think your world has just fallen apart, take a step back, take some time out and be realistic (I was being completely unrealistic and unreasonable).
• Life has a funny way of sorting itself out when you pull together as a family, don’t get me wrong I know there are people out there that are in a much worse situation than we ever were, it didn’t feel like that at the time though, but I am now much wiser and sooo grateful that I have a loving, healthy daughter that is about to be given the greatest gift ever and that is a daughter of her own.
• Never will I underestimate my daughter again or ever treat her the way I did, as I have said I am not proud of this and just hope that she forgives me and my behaviour one day.
• I have always considered myself the strong one in my marriage but now realise it is a great partnership that I have, when I needed him he was there for me and he became the strong one and I will love him until my dying day for talking sense into me and not allowing me to force my daughter to make a decision that could have ruined her life forever.
• I now look at life very differently, if this has taught me anything it has taught me to appreciate my family more and to not think that I know best, because you know what I didn’t, my daughter did, she was selfless, humbling and no matter what she was going through never, at no point did she point out that I was being unreasonable. I just hope I can make up for all those months that I basically mentally tortured her for.
• Remember your family is the best gift that you could ever have and always hold onto that forever, there are people out there that have lost daughters, sons etc that would have given their right arm to have been in my position and I apologise for the selfish behaviour I displayed.
I cannot tell you how much I am now looking forward to the birth of my first grand child and I am so privileged that despite my awful behaviour Em and boyfriend have asked me to be present when she enters the world, how lucky am I. I never stopped loving Em I just lost myself for a while and I will never ever do this again. The promise I make my daughter from this day forward is that never will I turn my back on her again, I will help her nurture my beautiful grandchild and be the best grandmother I can be. I hope to be present through all her lifes mile stones.
To every mother out there that may find themselves in this situation, don’t make the mistakes I made, love, support and be there for your child, believe me she will need it, they rarely disappoint us on purpose regardless of what we think and remember it is possible that our children are able to teach us a few lessons in life. Remember it’s not what you wanted but look at it as a gift and never forget that this baby is your grand child another gift just as precious as your own children.
I have written this for Em in the hope that she understands that I was lost for a while but now that I have come to my senses I couldn’t be more proud of her and love her for the beautiful women that she is and the beautiful, wonderful mother that I know she is going to be.
I love you Em and thank you for the beautiful gift you are soon to present me with, I hope I can be as good a grandmother as you will be a mum xx