[yorkieK9trainer]

I typed this just a moment ago. What are your thoughts? I'm still undecided, but I figured typing my feelings on this matter as of right now would help keep my mind clear. Every time I talk to the father, I waver and I'm tired of it. I don't want to develop an ulcer over this. I'm 25. I know this is a personal decision, but the experience of others, always gives good insight and helps w/ a proper decision in my opinion! Thank you for taking a moment to read this!

Regarding me keeping this baby-

Prior to getting pregnant I was of the mind to do what I could-within my realm of comfort-to not get pregnant. I thought that if the pill failed I would simply abort the baby since I obviously didn’t want to get pregnant.

Now that I am pregnant, why has that thought changed? Not because of “hormones” or that my heart is telling me that abortion is not the thing to do. Rather, because I re-assessed my beliefs in pro-choice and decided that I no longer fit the criteria. So here I am, pregnant and not having an abortion.

I’m now looking at carrying the child to term and the necessity to decide to either keep it or adopt it out. Again, I was of the mind to adopt out this baby. The father wants to have nothing to do w/ what he helped create, can’t fault him. I didn’t want conception to happen either. Since it did, there’s no real reason to have to “deal” w/ that beyond giving birth, right?

Wrong.

While I cannot at this moment say that I’ll be able to provide the life for this little one that an adoptive family could, I also can’t say which one would be better for the child. It’s not as black and white as the father makes it out to sound. He once asked me if I thought I “could be w/ one person for the rest of my life”-worded a little funny, but still the same question, implying him…you’d have to understand what we were “doing” at the time. And I told him that I honestly believe I could. And when I asked the same question of him, he concurred that he felt the same about me. And later we discussed that if I had gotten pregnant by him, that we would worry about it then. I think we both thought conception wouldn’t happen and really couldn’t happen. The odds were in our favor of not conceiving.

I’m not being ruled my emotion; rather I’m being ruled by careful thought and much deliberation.

The one and ONLY reservation that I have about this delightful “accident” is that I will need financial assistance in the upbringing of this child for perhaps the next few years, not necessarily indefinitely. The only ones responsible for that aspect of raising the child would be the father (if not deceased, and he’s currently not) and myself, since we created it, despite any precautions taken.
I am more inclined to go to him for assistance-even if he doesn’t want to assume responsibility-than to go on a state funded program of any sort. Why bring state tax payers into something they had no part either directly or indirectly in creating? That’s their responsibility only second to ours.

So if I make the choice to ask the father for financial assistance, I feel that I won’t be forcing him to be a daddy, rather asking him to not wash his hands completely of something he helped create. “The moment of conception was fun, but I must rely on you going against human nature and not changing your mind.” The one thing I can say is that I’ve made choices to NOT repeat certain behaviors ever again. And I KNOW that I will not repeat those undesired behaviors because I’ve been tempted since making that decision and never acted on it. In this case of being pregnant and keeping the baby, I said I wouldn’t, but I had never been in this position before to really know what I was talking about. Now I am in “the thick of it” and the reality is that me keeping this baby can be done and might be the right thing to do. I don’t think it’s wise or reasonable to ask any woman to give a concrete answer and believe that she knows what she’s saying when giving an answer about something of this caliber that she’s never experienced or has been close to someone that’s experienced this situation-in regards to how she would handle it. (i.e. abortion;adopt out;keep it)

If I ever were to have children, it would only be because I wanted them to have grandparents and preferably great grandparents. I’ve never really minded the thought of having a child of my own, just not an infant. Not sure why that is, but it’s true.
Since life offers no guarantees, I think it might be wise of me to give more thought in the way of keeping this child since I do have grandparents to offer the child, grandparents and great grandparents that have a deep sense of family and pride and would love to assist as much as they could. It’s a responsibility that they are more than happy to assume and have gone great lengths to reassure me that that’s truly how they feel. They will help take off wherever the father could not or chose not to pick up w/o being legally obligated to. This is a thought that has crossed their minds as a possibility ever since they knew they were having a baby girl back in 1981.

If I have this kind of support in my life and I couldn’t guarantee that I would be able to do this again in the future when I actually planned it, why not take advantage of this and just become that mom, not just a mother? It’s not the ideal time, but I’m quite capable of doing this. I would feel worse I believe parting w/ this little one in the long run than I would if I faced my fears and chose to keep it. It’s no fun to be alone on this decision, but life doesn’t always give you what you want. And I won’t be suffering by taking on this responsibility. At 25 I’ve done and seen more things than people twice my age will ever get the chance to in their lifetime. To say the least, I won’t be “missing out”.

The message to remember in the end is that despite my reservations on ONE reason to adopt this baby out is:
“If everyone waited until they were financially ready to have a child-in any capacity-then no one would have kids.”

I cannot let the lack of proper finances at this point be the deciding factor on whether or not to raise this baby. I didn’t go out looking to get pregnant, it just happened. And therefore I hate the idea of being held soley responsible just because I had the eggs, and not the sperm.

Financially not being able to provide for this child on my own is the perhaps the only real reason holding me back at this moment. Beyond that I’m not scared and I actually look forward to the future.

We’ll see what the next chapter in my life reveals-