Monday 27 November 2017

Unplanned and Not Entirely Wanted Second Pregnancy


Me: 35 y/o male, currently unemployed and looking for work. Her: 35 y/o female, currently working full time as a school administrator.My wife and I have a 22-month-old daughter who is the absolute joy of our lives. We made the decision to only have one child early in our marriage, and she has been everything we could ever wish for. She is sweet, healthy, and smart.My wife has always had issues with birth control, and recently she convinced me that the rhythm method would be safe, given that she was tracking her cycle closely. Sure enough, she was wrong, and according to the test she took yesterday, she is pregnant again at 35.We are freaking out. We only ever wanted one child. I'm unemployed. We love our daughter and never expected to have to share our love or time with another child. We have never considered ourselves wealthy, though before I lost my last position our combined gross income was >100K, and we didn't want to have to split our resources and provide less opportunity to our daughter in order to accommodate a new sibling's needs. Neither of us have very positive relationships with our siblings, and we don't want our daughter or her future sibling to go through that.We are on my wife's insurance right now, and it sucks compared to my old benefits. We gave away so much of our daughter's stuff and can't afford to but it all again. My wife also hated being pregnant and had no interest in going through it or delivery again.She is completely uninterested in terminating the pregnancy, and neither of us would ever consider giving a child away, so our only choice to to roll with this and have another kid.We are anxious about being good parents to more than one child, having enough energy for another baby who will be born while we are both 36, having enough money since I've been out of work for over five months now, and all the rest.I'm not really sure what I'm looking for here. We only found out yesterday with an at-home test, and we haven't even confirmed everything with her doctor yet. My brain tells me it will be OK and that the love we have will just grow, but I don't think we have enough time, energy, or money for one child as it is. I can't imagine handling two. I'm just lost, nervous, a little angry at ourselves, more angry at her for getting us into this mess despite my concerns at the time and her refusal to get us out of it, and already depressed due to the unemployment and associated feelings of worthlessness as a dad. via /r/Parenting http://ift.tt/2jpnDlt

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