How it feels [long]

srmmm09 · September 2012

Hey all! I wanted to write a post about how it feels to have a "crisis" pregnancy. I want this to be for the purposes of creating empathy and understanding between people who've had very different experiences with pregnancy and childrearing.

First off, I kind of hate that whole "crisis" thing because it's so dramatic, and women facing unplanned and un-prepared-for pregnancies have enough drama in their lives. I knew I was in a crisis of sorts when I found out I was pregnant two weeks after breaking up with my boyfriend (which was directly after deciding to follow Jesus), but I feel like "crisis" is a word used for other people. When things happen, you deal with them. Labeling it a crisis only makes an unavoidable situation that much more daunting.

Anyway, so I was helping this X (our split was amicable, we loved each other but just could not make it work) move out of our apartment and I found a pg test. Deciding to take it for fun, I was more than a little shocked to see it was +. [I shouldn't have been shocked; I was probably two weeks late already] I tell X I'm pg and call my mom. She was awesome. I mean, she's a professional counselor, so she's good under stress, but still. My dad was less great. He didn't yell at me or anything, but wondered if he'd have to step down from being a deacon at his church and all this stuff. He was thinking about himself and being pretty... well not being a grown-up about it. I understand now of course, and I would have then if I hadn't been undergoing the most life-altering event in my 20 years on this earth.

He found me sobbing one night after I moved home, and I let him have it - how he was feeling so sorry for himself and not noticing that his daughter needed him. He woke up and was amazing after that. Parents are awesome. Anyway, X asked me what we should do and said he was ok with whatever I wanted. I just knew I couldn't "terminate the pregnancy." Look, I just couldn't kill this baby.

Anyway, it took me several months after that of trying to figure out if I could raise this child - financially, emotionally, even just physically - could I give him half the life I'd want for him? It was no, no I couldn't. I just wasn't ready and I wasn't even close to nearly almost kind of ready.

It took me another few weeks to make the decision (once I found out he was a he, most of the hope in my heart died about parenting. X's father died when he was a toddler, and so I freshly remembered what a life without a dad could do to a sensitive man). Still, I cried probably almost every day - like maybe 4 days out of 5.

Being in a conservative part of the US, I definitely got looks for being pg at 20 (and I looked younger than that). I told a friend in confidence, and she told her mother, and her mother told people. So I lost a friendship over it because how could I really ever trust her again? I don't harbor her ill will anymore, but I will never confide in her.

I'll skip over the finding-the-APs part just to save a little time. In the hospital, I got a call a couple of hours after M was born from X's mother begging me to let her raise M; X had literally told her that day AREYOUKIDDINGME. My mom took the phone (seriously thank God my mom is a trained counselor) and helped her start the grieving process; X had signed TPR several months before, and I never would have let her raise M. I was treated badly by the lactation consultant for trying to give M colostrum. I think in retrospect she was afraid that I would change my mind after breastfeeding him, but instead she just took another thing away from me that I could have done to help him. Colostrum is awesome stuff and I would have loved for him to have it.

My doctor and the nurses were amazing, but the doctor I got the day we discharged was incredibly insensitive - just amazingly so, rambling on and on about how many times he's seen moms change their minds in the hospital - seriously, as he's getting us discharged, for M to go with APs and for me to go home with an empty tummy. My body didn't bounce back, and I definitely had stretch marks and extra skin on my wedding day.

A part of me died that day that I'll never get back. I grieve like my baby died in the hospital - I'm glad for it because I'd hate to feel like M was my child that someone else was raising. I just wanted you to know my experience as you're going through this process. WOWSOLONG sorry.

irismorning · September 2012

Thank you for sharing. It definitely adds a new perspective.

jillianmb · September 2012

Thanks for sharing! When did you meet your DH? How old are you now?

MagickalNarwhal · September 2012

Thank you!

srmmm09 · September 2012

jillianmb:
Thanks for sharing! When did you meet your DH? How old are you now?

I met DH well technically in high school. When I moved back home after finding out I was pg, he invited me to his church bc I didn't feel right going to my parents'. I went and loved it, so I talked to the pastor (who is also DH's father!) about my being pregnant and when and how to tell the small group I wanted to join. He was awesome about it.

So I was in DH's small group the whole time I was pg. I liked him like CRAZY, but he didn't talk to girls back then (poor guy), so he didn't start liking me until we were trapped in the car together on a road trip that no one else showed up for when I was 8 months pg.

He brought me flowers in the hospital and a book of Mutts cartoons. Whattaguy.

I placed M at 20 and am now 27. I had DS at 25.

orange1414 · September 2012

Thank you so much for sharing your experience. As an adult adoptee, who's now hoping to adopt, the birth mother's experience is the one I have least knowledge of in the adoption circle. This is a really important perspective to have on this board. (Thanks to the other e-moms and birth mothers who contribute, too.)

Ginger71 · September 2012

Thanks for being so candid with us. We all have things we need to deal with that make a huge impact on our lives and it's all about how we handle it. It sounds like you handled things very maturely and with grace. Thank you for sharing.

Julie721 · September 2012

Ginger71:
Thanks for being so candid with us. We all have things we need to deal with that make a huge impact on our lives and it's all about how we handle it. It sounds like you handled things very maturely and with grace. Thank you for sharing.

This. Thank you!

IRR · September 2012

srmmm09 - sometime you ROCK! thanks for sharing your story. I know it is different for everyone but what a blessing you are for M and his AP's.

srmmm09 · September 2012

Thanks all!

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