18 Year Old DD1 Pregnant

[VerbenaGirl]

She told me yesterday and I was quite calm (I had a feeling it was coming, as she was struggling with food in exactly the same way i did in early pregnancy). She has some health issues that will impact on her life and we were just getting on top of those. Today we did some practical things - which I think helped both of us feel more in control of the situation. Got scan appointment through for next week - which will provide clarity on dates. This evening I'm feeling quite overwhelmed. Realistically she and the baby will be living here, at least initially, and money will be tight. I need to get my head round how DH and I cope with this along with the other challenges life is throwing at us currently, how we best support DD1 and her boyfriend and how we make sure DD2 isn't adversely affected as she takes her A levels and beyond. Head is spinning and I'm starting to panic. Talk to me, please.

Maybe it looks likely because she’s having an unplanned baby that she’s already unable to provide for?

Completely agree.

I am really glad people have had positive experiences having a child so young, however, you are the outliers, you are not the norm. The stats paint a bleak picture for most young mothers and their DC.

Correlation is not causation. And a supportive family, or lack of, will be a big factor

I also agree. There will always be exceptions to the rule, but statistically, outcomes for the children of teenage parents tend to be poor.

I think it has more to do with social class, teenage/young mums are way more likely to be from a lower socioeconomic background with lower prospects/qualifications anyway.

If you looked solely at the smaller rarer group of teens from middle-class backgrounds I doubt it would match up to the stats.

I don’t feel like an ‘outlier’ for doing my OU degree, getting married, buying a house etc despite having a baby at 19. I think the fact I was from a stable more ‘middle class’ background, had aspirations and education already made it likely.

Undoubtedly true.

In my large urban circle I don't know a single person, even friends of friends where a young woman has had a baby.

Contraceptive implants and terminations are possibly the reason.

Either way it would be met with horror, disappointment for the young women, viewed as an unmitigated disaster, not to mind disbelief at the thought of anyone actually going through with it.

Despite the success stories, I am raising my girls for career success, travel, life experiences of all sorts, not to have these all curtailed by a child.

I'm finally out of a decade of menopause, raising a grandchild while my daughter would undoubtedly continue her education, would be a disaster for us as parents, now approaching retirement.

These threads make me realise that however much I was anti abortion as a young woman for myself, I am hugely pro choice and I would hate for my daughters in their utter naivety to thing that having a child at 18 is anything other than a hard road.

Oh, and if that sounds very selfish, and self absorbed,.......happy to own it.

Just to add a positive spin on things. I am 32 now with a 12 year old daughter. She amazing, we are very close and I feel so lucky that I had her young.
It was hard and my parents were very disappointed and upset but she is the apple of their eye from the day she was born.
I am not with the dad. I will admit I was a total idiot as a teen. I have been with my current partner for 11 years and we own our home, cars and both work. We have recently added to our family too.
It was a long zig zaggy road but honestly it won't be a total disaster.
All those saying they are raising their girls to be perfect and educated, travel the world and live life through their perfect teenagers are just hopeful their perfect daughters don't make any mistakes due to their perfect parenting.
Shit happens, life happens and their daughters are no better than yours.
She will work it out, it will be time to grow up but she will.

@MondaySunday Social class of course makes a huge difference in outcomes, particularly for teenage mothers.

This is a good report www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8767081/

It highlights geographical differences - a north / south divide on teenage pregnancy as a key identifier as well

We don't know what social class OP or her DD are in (probably less of an issue if they are minted and live in a huge house). I am not getting that vibe though, so I am afraid I would look at the stats.

I am glad you have carved out the life you have, you sound like you have done really well. The fact you were more of a 'middle class' teenage mum does put you as an outlier in statistical terms.

All I would say is that I know maybe 1 or 2 other women who are you like you, had DC very young and achieved as much as you have. On the other hand I know tens if not hundreds of women who have gone onto further education, got high paying jobs / careers, bought houses and had DC after they felt more established.
The women I know who had DC young are mainly in caring roles - nursery workers and child minder which unfortunately are low paying.

Your daughter will be just fine and you sound like a lovely supportive mum OP.

I got pregnant with dd1 when I was 18, second year of sixth form. She is now nearly 18 herself and will be heading off to uni next September.
I hope to reassure you when I say I never struggled with being a young mum. Yes money was a bit tight when they were small, but we worked hard, brought our own house and have given them a good life. I went back to education in my 30s and I am now a healthcare professional. I hate the negativity surrounding young mums. Dsis is only 6 years older than dd1 and born to my parents when they were in their 40s. She would have happily swapped places with my dds and says that had a much better childhood than she did.

just be there for her like you are. Encourage her to work hard and have aspirations for hers and her child’s future and it will all work out just fine. Good luck to you all.

Again this is a viewpoint I really don't understand. It doesn't sound like the DD planned to get pregnant but even if she did, she's not being selfish to expect her own family to support her - supporting each other is normal for families as far as I'm concerned. I am really surprised by how uncompromising and cold a lot of these replies are.

Well done you for making a success of what you admit was a difficult situation.

I have the greatest of admiration for single young mothers who do their best for themselves and for their children.

However, I finished my education, worked abroad for many years in a well paid professional career, travelled extensively through work and for pleasure all over the eorld, and generally had an absolute blast in my 20's and early 30's.

I want my daughters to have the same freedoms, opportunities and education, to make their choices.

Not to be completely curtailed while they are very young with the responsibility of parenthood.

Not perfect parenting at all, nor perfect teenagers😁, just parents really wanting my children to live the best life they can when young, just like their father and I did, before and after we met.

Those years of young adulthood in your 20's are beyond precious.

For most women they may be the only years they truly get the chance to think only of themselves and do exactly as they please in their lives and careers, before they make the inevitable compromises that come with long term relationships and parenthood.

Your 20's are often the only years we truly get to be a bit selfish and put ourselves truly first.

I was that for them.

I won't add to the long list of positive stories but I find it funny how many of us know people who went on to have happy fulfilled lives after a teenage pregnancy while other posters claim they're all outliers.

One concern I do have op is how your DD will cope with pregnancy. If she's too ill to work, can her body cope with a pregnancy and the ensuing sleep depravation after the baby arrives? Is she under the care of a specialist she could talk to about the impact it might have on her illness? I know you haven't said what her illness is but as an example, my aunt has lupus. She used to have a bad flare up every 2 or 3 years but mostly she could work around it. It hit her like a ton of bricks 5 or 6 months into her pregnancy. She was in hospital for weeks then had an early c section because she had pre-eclampsia. It took her a long time to recover and start feeling human again.

There are different levels of support though @TheDailyCarbunkle. This DD has no job and will have to rely on her parents to finance her and her baby, when the OP has said finances are tight. What happens if the OP has to reduce her working hours to help her DD (as some posters on here have done for their teenage pregnant daughters). Is that something that is fair to ask a parent to do, if that wasn't their plan for some years to come.

The posters on here who have done well after having a teenage pregnancy have probably only managed to do because of support from their families but possibly causing huge stress and financial worries to their parents (whilst hiding this from their daughter)

I suppose not many people will come on here and say having a teenage pregnancy fucked up their life, in just the same way people very rarely say they regret having a child (or another child) whereas in reality they do regret it @glassfully

Yes of course it might cause stress- financial and otherwise. So what? Do parents only give support when it's easy?

I don't know how any mother could suggest aborting their grandchild when that's not what their daughter wants. I don't know how a relationship could recover from being so horrifically let down.

Just needed to say. I moved out at 4 months pregnant and have never had any financial support from my parents. My mum looked after dd1 one day a week for about a year and a half and MIL did it for longer, but that was her choice, she was happy to and sad when they were old enough to stay home alone.

i don’t think I had or needed any more support than an older mother.

I said it earlier and I'll say it again as I think it bears repeating: I would much much rather my daughter had a wanted baby at 18 than struggled with fertility in later life. The timing is not ideal but I would always be delighted to welcome a grandchild and to help care for it. My daughter means the world to me and if she wanted to be a mum at 18 I would make that work for her, whatever it took.

@TheDailyCarbunkle

if she were to have an abortion now what’s to say that she would struggle with infertility in later life?

she could have a baby on five years when she has a job etc

There's one thing I'm not understanding here.
Everyone who is saying how difficult this will be, how selfish the DD is being, how irresponsible she has been, how it will all be a giant disaster....
What are your solutions to this 'problem'?
A) Force her to move out of her home, 18, pregnant and in poor health
B) Coerce her into having a termination she doesn't want
Well?
It's all very well harping on about how it shouldn't have happened and how terrible it will all be but what, as parents, are you suggesting can be done?
Which of the two would you choose for your child and potential grandchild?

That's a false choice though. How do you know she would struggle with fertility though? She could wait a decade and still be in her prime reproductive years at 28. No one is saying she should leave it until 40...

Infant mortality is higher for teen mums though. Why are you concerned with risk of infertility but not the risk of poor outcome for the baby? They are both age specific

C) give her a real talk about what life with a baby is like and set clear expectations about your level of involvement with the baby in terms or finances, housing and childcare. Let her choose, but make sure the choice is fully informed. Make it known that you won't enable her poor planning by effectively raising her baby for her. Harsh but realistic and fair.

Bats I would be having lengthy conversations with her about the practicalities of having a baby, with no income and not much in the way of job prospects, and how she thinks she will manage. And about alternative life paths that she might enjoy, but wouldn’t be available with a baby. And about the potential consequences for her health.

And I would be desperately hoping that she’d come round to termination by herself.

I appreciate it would need to be done very carefully to avoid alienating her. But I wouldn’t be able to simply support her decision, without talking about it, when I thought it was a massive mistake. Especially as DD may not have fully thought through or appreciated the consequences - she’s only 18, and she obviously hasn’t had the experience of having a baby.

You can call this coercion if you like, I don’t. I call it making sure she’s making the right decision for the right reasons.

Oh and watch a few graphic childbirth videos with her. I would start with that actually.

Exactly. I think people are glossing over the huge upheaval this is going to cause the OP, her husband and her other daughter, as well as the boyfriend's family. Emotionally, practically, financially, possibly careerwise. What will this do the parents' retirement plans, their health, their savings? Their well-earned leisure time? Their household? And how will it extend the daughter's significant dependence?

Instead of blossoming out and finding her place in the world via education and work, the daughter is going to remain an adult dependent on her parents AND produce another dependent.

All because the teenagers couldn't be bothered to double-up on contraception, or, god forbid, be abstinent until they (if abortion is off the table in the daughter's mind) were actually able to support the results of any accidental pregnancy. They wanted the privileges of adulthood without being able to equally live up to the responsibilities of adulthood.

Instead it will be on the couples' parents and the taxpayers. I do think it's supremely selfish to not terminate. It's all well and good to say "her body, her choice," but all of the choices she has made with regard to her body are now someone else's problem.