I just recently discovered that I was 8, now 9 weeks pregnant with a guy that I have only been dating for about 2 months or so.Initially, I knew I wanted an abortion when I took a pregnancy test, and it came out positive. My partner is also leaning towards an abortion, but tells me that he will support me in whatever choice that I make to the best of his ability. Then when I went to get an ultrasound, I saw the little fetus growing inside me and heard the heartbeat. My thoughts about the abortion went from 100% to 90% and I felt just a slight bit of attachment to the baby. I asked my partner how he felt about it and he said that if the situation was different, he would be so happy and we would have a chance to raise the child together.So things are a bit complicated. When I initially started dating the baby daddy, I only expected a summer fling considering he is not from the US (where I live if that wasn’t really clear) and is only here for 4 months on a business trip. Not to mention I am only 20 years old and am still in the process of healing from my father’s death earlier this year and it took about 4 months after my father’s passing to get back out there and start dating just for fun. I admit I wasn’t the most responsible and should have been more careful. It only takes one night to make a baby and we found out from the ultrasound that the approximate moment of conception was actually the first night my partner and I got together.Right now I am still leaning towards an abortion but I am getting attached to the baby very quickly and I imagine what my life would be like as a mom. I think about how difficult it would be not just me but also my family. I have about 2 years left, maybe 3 at most, to finish school. My mom is 65 and on the brink of retiring. I wouldn’t want to be a burden on her and give her more reason to keep working for me because I already feel indebted to her despite how independent I try to be in my family. I starting working at the age of 15 and took responsibility for myself in whatever way I could (car, paying for my own clothes, food whenever I go out to eat, phone). In whatever way I could rely on my mom a bit less, I did just that. I am currently not working and holding off on that for a bit while I take this time with my gap year from school to heal, work on my anxiety, rediscover myself and what I want to do in the future, instead of living up to my family’s expectations.I tried talking to the baby daddy, who is 23 and working btw, on what our future would look like if I kept the baby. Since he is from another country, I don’t want him to move his whole life over here, leave his family and friends and be tied down to a baby that he didn’t expect on having at all. He told me that at most, what he can guarantee right now is that when he goes back home, he can send some money, and possibly visit about 2-3 times a year. Maybe somewhere down the line when he finishes school, he could take the big leap to move to the US, but that wouldn’t be until about another 4-5 years down the line. When we were talking about this, both him and I felt very overwhelmed having to talk about 4-5 years into the future when we had only been dating for 2 months and aren’t even 100% sure if it’s worth being in a long distance relationship yet. To be honest, if I decide to keep the baby, I fully intend on being a single mother since he isn’t bound by any US laws for child support and I would want him to keep going on with his life, finishing school, work on advancing his career, and if he wants to be involved in some way, he can. But if it gets too hard with the distance, I’m not going to force him to be involved in the child’s life. Although not without hardships and struggle, there are plenty of single moms out there who were able to raise amazing, beautiful children who turn out just fine for the most part.Adoption has also been brought up as a possible choice, but I don’t think I can bear with going through an entire pregnancy and giving away someone that is supposed to be mine. My older brother has also mentioned open adoption, where the child will know who I am and know that I am the birth mom. This way, I would give this child a chance at life and still be able to be involved in some way. It just still feels unsettling to me because I want to be able to have a full on relationship with my child. I want to teach her or him about their background, have her/him learn Vietnamese and about my culture. I want to be the person that will be a shoulder for them to cry on, offer guidance, travel together, meet my extended family, maybe even learn more about his birth father and meet him if he’s still in the picture. I know that I can still do some of these things with an open adoption, but it won’t be the same. My involvement would be very limited and I can imagine butting heads with the adoptive parents because of the amount of involvement I want. But what can I do if I’m not able to parent just right now, but will be able to in a few years?The last thing I want to do is make a decision I regret. Deep down, I want to keep this baby, but I will have to sacrifice so much to even attempt at giving this child a financially stable upbringing during the early stages of childhood. I don’t want to abort then feel an immense amount of guilt and become more depressed since it wasn’t too long ago that I lost my father, and now I would be losing a child that could have changed me and maybe even the world for the better.At the same time, I don’t know how my mom would handle it. She is very Catholic and traditional. She has no idea that I was sexually active, and I am incredibly scared of her disappointment in me. I felt as if I had done almost everything right up until this point. I figured if I was finally going to be sexually active and don’t want her to know, it would be safe and protected to prevent any of this from happening but I had a pregnancy scare before and I turned out okay. It was foolish of me to not learn my lesson but what’s done is done and now I have to figure out what the next step is. She would have to put a pause on her retirement, and I’m sure that we would have to move to get help from one of my aunts while I’m in school/working. There’s no way that I can raise a child with 4 people living in a 2 bedroom apartment, which is our current living situation right now.Deep inside my heart, I want to keep this baby and am determined to make it as a single mom. I know that my child will motivate me in school while I’m pregnant. I know that even if the baby daddy isn’t in the picture, I am willing to love the child enough for the both of us. But I am scared to rely on so many people to help me out because let’s face it, I can’t do this COMPLETELY on my own. I am scared of confronting my mom, especially since she hasn’t had the best year either considering I wasn’t the only person who lost someone. She lost her own husband too.What are your guys’ thoughts on the situation? In my eyes, the semi-selfish choice is to keep the baby because I know that it’ll be hard for my loved ones to help me. With the other option to abort, it’ll be mostly me that suffers the consequences with healing physically and emotionally. Ironically, I would choose the abortion for my mom, and without her knowing. For her sake, I would give up this opportunity to have THIS child that is growing right now so that she doesn’t have to keep working for me and face the toxic gossip from the family about how she raised me and how I ruined her life like this. via /r/Parenting https://ift.tt/2ZDTRwo
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