**** I'm pregnant

ceridwen

blabberwort wrote: »

On a different note I do think their should be a law (I dont think there already is but I may be wrong) where fathers can sign away all rights to a child they do not want but the mother does. This should include the mother waiving all financial responsibility for the father too. As much as a mother shouldnt be forced to have an abortion I feel a father should not be made to have the responsibility of being a father to a child they do not want. It should work both ways.

That sounds eminently sensible to me:T

A thing that remains of concern here is a childs right to have a father. I just cant think of any way to ensure that no woman goes ahead and has a baby unless she is sure the man is going to stay with her (living in the same house!!!!!!) and act like a willing father to the child. Children DO need the input of two parents - a mother and a father. How do we enforce the childs rights in this respect? (which seems to boil down to getting the message through to women "Don't have a child without the mans consent/and him already living with you and going to stay doing so"). If a woman is determined to ignore the prospective childs rights to a live-in father and just focus on what SHE wants...what CAN one do?
(This really IS a puzzle to me - my generation seems to have been brought up more to take into account other peoples rights as well as our own. I admit to being stumped by a generation where many people seem to just go "ME ME ME ME ME - what do I want? I only care what I want...." so blatantly).

ceridwen

tabskitten wrote: »

My point was less toward the initail ''oh !!!!'' reaction that most people would have, but more to the fact that the OP has had a while to get used to it and she still posts this as the header....

My OH and i do not want children- so i am not saying that this would not be my reaction. It would. But I would not have the child.

But if it was I would not be having the child- i do not want this to turn into an abortion thread- but I would be doing that (Cowers awaiting the blows!) because I think it is worse to bring an unwanted child into the world than to terminate a foetus- but that is just me and i know many people will hate me for saying that!

Well - I certainly dont hate you for one:D

I admit to being very surprised at hearing that 1 in 3 British women has had an abortion at some point. Even at my (fairly advanced) age nobody/absolutely nobody has EVER mentioned having one to me - but those statistics would seem to indicate that I must know a lot of women who have. I guess what happens is that the statistics are accurate - but a lot of women in that position simply DONT mention it to anyone ever - as they tried telling 1 or 2 people they thought would sympathise and promptly found they'd mentioned to a pro-LIFE member and were shocked to find that they were being "screamed at" - and so didnt mention it to anyone else after that. Well - I have heard that pro-LIFE members can be a bit nasty to say the least about women doing that and try to prevent them doing so..........
(and one wonders how many of the women on threads like these are pro-LIFERS but arent admitting to it).

SugarSpun

My reaction was also, Oh ****, when I found out I was pregnant, and I not only very much wanted to have a child but we were taking absolutely no precautions against making one.

The result is now just over nine months old, has just grown out of the dress that xmaslolly's lusting over (has already been packed away in the wrapped case in the cellar for the next one, lovely, else I'd send it your way ) and is very much adored. My then-fiance, now husband, was also very much looking forward to being a parent and he too was a bit taken aback.

OP, it sounds like you might have a bumpy few months (pun absolutely intended) ahead of you. I hope it goes well. Remember that the pregnancy thread and the parents' club exist for you to ask questions and be excited in.

Person_one

jdturk wrote: »

The stat that got me was apparently there were over 200000 abortions in 2008.....to me that is a staggering number!

Well, 195,296 actually. 91% were carried out before 13 weeks and 73% under 10 weeks.

Personally, I think that's better than 195,296 unwanted children coming into the world.

Person_one

ceridwen wrote: »

That sounds eminently sensible to me:T

A thing that remains of concern here is a childs right to have a father. I just cant think of any way to ensure that no woman goes ahead and has a baby unless she is sure the man is going to stay with her (living in the same house!!!!!!) and act like a willing father to the child. Children DO need the input of two parents - a mother and a father. How do we enforce the childs rights in this respect? (which seems to boil down to getting the message through to women "Don't have a child without the mans consent/and him already living with you and going to stay doing so"). If a woman is determined to ignore the prospective childs rights to a live-in father and just focus on what SHE wants...what CAN one do?
(This really IS a puzzle to me - my generation seems to have been brought up more to take into account other peoples rights as well as our own. I admit to being stumped by a generation where many people seem to just go "ME ME ME ME ME - what do I want? I only care what I want...." so blatantly).

Your comments are pretty judgemental and unrealistic. Please explain to me how a woman can be 100% sure that the father of her children will stick around and behave properly? A marriage certificate won't do it. Living under the same roof is no guarantee, nor are their promises. Just look at all the women who come on this board after being left high and dry!

The traditional, two opposite gender parent family model is not the only one that produces well adjusted happy children. I think your post is quite insulting to gay parents, step parents and single parents.

property.advert

You know, I didn't really need to read through the three pages of this thread. Bandwagon, jump and on are the three words I'd have used and lo and behold, that is exactly what happened.

The religious mob have an idea that life begins with the egg being impregnated. Well, that isn't true in a viable sense but they live so in fear of hell and damnation that they go along with whatever their version of the pervert in a dress tells them to do.

The feminazi are even more predictable. Hopefully their hatred of men will lead to their demise as a species. I await that day with hope.

Some real life experiences as well. You cannot beat those. Preaching is one thing but actually having to go through the decision making process is where you come to grips with the implications. Or you don't, if you refuse to discuss all the available choices. That includes termination and to not have termination as an available choice is not fair.

Some groups don't think the man has a voice in this, yet unless I have missed something since I did biology at school, a man's input is always required. To deny him a place at the decision making table is unjust and with a state hounding all fathers irrespective of whether he had a choice in the decision to have a baby makes denying him that voice even more unjust.

I will confess that the best means of avoiding the problem of an unwanted pregnancy for those families who already have enough children is for the man to have a vasectomy. It is the easiest and least intrusive means of sterilisation and yet I believe that both partners should talk this through beforehand.

As I mentioned previously, I am the father of child conceived by a mother who deliberately chose to become pregnant. Despite our long standing agreement to use the oral contraceptive as our preferred means of contraception, she decided to stop taking the pill. She was not a child who had to be observed taking her medicine and as we had in place a near 100% effective method of preventing an unwanted pregnancy, there should have been no need for a plan B or plan C in terms of contraception.

I was shocked when I found out. I assumed it was an accident until much later when I found the pills she had not taken. To our credit, we did discuss it rationally but then she put forward her ultimatum; she would have the baby whether I stayed or left. Some years later she admitted that she would probably not have gone through with the pregnancy had I left but at the time, she left me in no doubt that she would not seek a termination. We calmly talked through the repercussions, both on our work and business and also on financial matters. This extended to the need to move from my high in the sky flat to a house and the need to purchase a vehicle. As we were abroad, school fees came into play and I pointed out that it was a near 25 year financial commitment which would shape and indeed hinder our financial planning.

I would not swap our child for anything but it was the wrong decision, at the wrong time and for all the wrong reasons and I was effectively excluded from the decision making process. Sorry, not effectively excluded, I was not given a choice.

Had that been in the UK then my partner could have claimed from my income despite the pregnancy being her unilateral decision and without her allowing me any part in the decision as to whether a child was born or not.

I stand by my feelings that the benefits culture makes the decision too easy to make. It is not a popular point of view but perhaps without the outstretched hand of free state aid, more women would think things through and come to the right decision, a decision which does need to take into consideration the finances of the prospective parents. It is all too easy to want to keep an unplanned baby, safe in the knowledge that the state will pick up the tab and then go after the father for a slice of his earnings, especially when he may have been tricked into the pregnancy. No moral police or feminist argument will assuage me on that point.

In the OP's case, and based purely on the one side of the facts which we have, as we do not have the prospective father's point of view, it appears that it was an accident. Obviously there is some lack of understanding on the OP's part about how the pill works and how its effectiveness can be diminished if the female is sick. We also do not know whether the father knew she was sick nor whether he knew the risks of failure in those circumstances. I think that if it were my body, I would know about such things but that lack of common sense, knowledge or understanding does not in itself mean that this pregnancy is anything other than an accident.

The OP's partner's response was poor. It was undoubtedly at a time when experiencing shock and perhaps disbelief but his reaction was not as it should have been.

Reading on we get perhaps the truth from the OP. She says "..I am doing the right thing for me and my baby". She does not mention what is right for him or for them as a couple and neither does she refer to the unborn child as their baby but merely as her baby. She has already excluded him and whereas earlier she stated that she did not want to simply do what he wanted, the truth of the matter is that in her eyes, he must now comply with her decision. She has issued an ultimatum and that is typical in many of these debates, the mother pretending to want to involve the prospective father but only as far as she chooses and only if he gives in to her demands. This is not supposition, the OP has stated the very same herself, though not so directly.

As my partner and I came to some sort of agreement which was moulded over time, I hope the OP and her partner can work through this. She must know though that he will not trust her again, not completely, not in the same way. Some part of him will always think he has been trapped. I read also about the financial problems this couple are having and she is foolish not to consider those in greater depth. They are young and have years ahead for children to be born in far better circumstances.

Unlike many of the women on here I do not automatically side with one party or another. However unlike all the women on here and perhaps all the men as well, I am qualified to give an opinion based upon living through an unwanted pregnancy and having to deal with the long term consequences.

I do not back the ultimatum handed down by the OP to her partner. She has left him nowhere to go in negotiations and that can least to a reactionary decision. She is thinking only of the here and now and what she wants, though I note she does hold the door open to the possibility that he will come around to her way of thinking. Well, here is some news just in, he wont. He might tell you he has but there will be underlying resentment and he will have to deal with that at some point and then they will both have to deal with it together.

From my peer group there are a number of men who have opted out of fatherhood altogether and had the snip when very young. They may regret it later but the greater regret would be to trapped, forced to either accept or walk away and know that either way, their financial stability and long term plans could be destroyed by a vindictive woman who had her own agenda.

Parenthood should be a joint decision and that applies equally to accidental pregnancies.

property.advert

Person_one wrote: »

Your comments are pretty judgemental and unrealistic. Please explain to me how a woman can be 100% sure that the father of her children will stick around and behave properly? A marriage certificate won't do it. Living under the same roof is no guarantee, nor are their promises. Just look at all the women who come on this board after being left high and dry!

The traditional, two opposite gender parent family model is not the only one that produces well adjusted happy children. I think your post is quite insulting to gay parents, step parents and single parents.

Please explain to me how the high percentage of fathers feel when they find out that their partner did not behave properly and in fact became pregnant by another man and yet failed to inform the surrogate ?

http://menshealth.about.com/od/lifestyle/a/paternity.htm

ceridwen

jdturk wrote: »

The stat that got me was apparently there were over 200000 abortions in 2008.....to me that is a staggering number!

I think that the statistics are being "bumped up" in a sense by the fact that there seem to be some women who use abortion as a form of birth control - ie they have one, then another, then another.....and you are left thinking "Don't you use birth control then?:cool:". I always regarded abortion as something that I was highly unlikely to need ever - but, if I did it, then it would be a "once in a lifetime" thing because of having come up on that 0.01% chance of failure with the Pill.

So - it was the fall-back option - the Plan B in case of need. I never did need it though.

ceridwen

property.advert

One thing that I have always thought is that men who have been tricked into fatherhood will - at some level - never quite trust their partner again. I know some men now who I believe are in that position - the marriage has lasted some years, but I dont believe it will last all the way through...the men are "chafing at the bit" for when the children have grown up.

Those men know they have been tricked and resent it - even if they are staying put and helping bring the child/ren up for the time being.

I do wonder what reaction I would see if I watched them with the child/ren concerned. It IS pleasing when one sees men who obviously wanted to be fathers looking after their children and beaming with pleasure and pride - the father cradling his daughter in his arms while he feeds her, the father sitting there with his son in his pushchair feeding him a little snack and then tucking him up for a nap with a kiss on his cheek. Those are the sorts of ways one should see a child being brought up. One should see little kids looking up at their father with a "My dad, my hero" look on their faces - whilst Dad beams at them.

That is the sort of upbringing children need and deserve.

(I certainly think its useful to have the input on the boards of someone like yourself - ie a man - who is obviously intelligent/thoughtful/makes up his own mind and responsible and articulate enough to make his point clearly.)

tiamai_d

ceridwen wrote: »

property.advert

One thing that I have always thought is that men who have been tricked into fatherhood will - at some level - never quite trust their partner again. I know some men now who I believe are in that position - the marriage has lasted some years, but I dont believe it will last all the way through...the men are "chafing at the bit" for when the children have grown up.

Those men know they have been tricked and resent it - even if they are staying put and helping bring the child/ren up for the time being.

I do wonder what reaction I would see if I watched them with the child/ren concerned. It IS pleasing when one sees men who obviously wanted to be fathers looking after their children and beaming with pleasure and pride - the father cradling his daughter in his arms while he feeds her, the father sitting there with his son in his pushchair feeding him a little snack and then tucking him up for a nap with a kiss on his cheek. Those are the sorts of ways one should see a child being brought up. One should see little kids looking up at their father with a "My dad, my hero" look on their faces - whilst Dad beams at them.

That is the sort of upbringing children need and deserve.

(I certainly think its useful to have the input on the boards of someone like yourself - ie a man - who is obviously intelligent/thoughtful/makes up his own mind and responsible and articulate enough to make his point clearly.)

But how do you know they didn't once say 'get rid of it' or 'oh !!!!' or 'I'm not ready to be a Dad'?

It's a big thing to assume that people can't change their minds from 'oh !!!!' to 'this baby is the love of my life'. Do you actually go over and ask these men how they felt when their partners announced they were pregnant?