I am new here but looking for anyone I can reach out to and talk to. Abortion is a very difficult choice and is extremely difficult to openly discuss, especially with friends and family. I am currently 17 weeks pregnant. I found myself unexpectedly pregnant after dating someone for about a month, we are both 29. We had experienced a lot together in those few short weeks and felt a deep connection that had us planning on spending our lives together. Well when the news came that I was pregnant he got scared and ultimately chose to abandon me and stop communicating with me. It has been extremely difficult and lonely dealing with the pregnancy alone. I am new to the area and live far away from my family and friends. I have very little support. I was never certain whether or not I ever wanted to have children. When I found out I was pregnant part of me was extremely excited but the other part of me was extremely sad. I grew up in a very hostile broken home. There were always arguments and name calling coming from both my parents to each other and my sister and I were stuck in the middle. Growing up like that has caused me a lot of pain in my life and made it very difficult for me to have healthy relationships. I often choose the wrong guys who go on to treat me horribly or have such a hard time trusting people that I push them away. I would never wish a life that on my child ever. I carry a great deal of saddness in my heart and I would hate for my child to feel the same way one day. The father has said, through conversations I've had with his parents, that he would like to parent the child but wants absolutely nothing to do with me. I cannot see how you can raise a healthy child in a negative environment like that. I have no ill will towards him and would never speak of him poorly to our child but he will not handle things the same way. Also I have doubts he can properly care for the child when he has had no involvement thus far and this is the easier time before the child actually arrives. My fear is that he will try to take the baby and that the child will go through so much pain in that process that it will ultimately have emotional scars for life. I have been seriously considering abortion. I have been experiencing pregnancy related complications which are due to a heart condition I was born with. It has caused the baby some stress and I have been to the hospital multiple times because my health was at risk. The complications and my fear of him has left me considering the most difficult decision of my life. I fear if I go through with the abortion I will have complications or never be able to have another child again if someday I choose to. Then there is coping with the emotions of it all after. I have a million thoughts running through my head. Can I handle the emotional stress after the abortion? If I continue to carry the child and I lose the baby due to complications, can I handle that loss? Can I forgive myself if he is forced to be in the picture and the baby ends up scarred?

Hey honey, I can tell you with no hesitation that dealing with the loss of your baby due to complications and natural death would be so much easier to bear and deal with than knowing that you took his/her life by choice. Now knowing this does not make your situation easier and I really feel for you, I think you just need to take some deep breaths and do something nice for yourself. You are 17 weeks along, you are able to find out the sex of your baby at this stage, here is a link to a website that is really good at showing you week by week what your baby's development is, www.pregnancy.org/fetaldevelopment ,you cannot take your child's life into your own hands out of fear of the unknown...I had two kids from two dads before I got married, my oldest daughters dad is still not involved in her life and she is 7, I too came from a broken home, what I have learned is that I now get to "break the cycle", I get to make better memories for them than I had, I get to protect them from dysfunctional environments, I get to love them the way I always longed to be loved, you cannot control the dads actions but you can choose your own, you can give this baby a WONDERFUL life, do not rob yourself of the joy that is within your womb because of his selfishness...being pregnant in a "perfect" situation can be tough, the hormones, the body changes etc...in your situation, the same one I was in years back, there is so much more going on than that...I think you are just experiencing "jitters", you are going to be a great mommy, you will be perfectly able to provide for yourself and this child, I have no doubt that you will meet a wonderful man who will CHOOSE to be a father...Just hang in there, I am here for you and I want to assure you that keeping this baby is the right thing for you, if not then you would not have been chosen to be his/her mommy!! I am so sorry that you are having a rough time, I truly am, just try to keep your head up and know that you are not alone...Love Meg

You have SOOOOO much on your plate right now! If I could give you any advice at all it would be to take a deep breath and let it out!

I have a little boy who's one year old now and while I was pregnant with him he and I both had a lot of medical complications. I remember texting my younger sister one time with the message: Sometimes I think having no hope would be less painful than having any hope at all.

It sounds so much to me like you're in that same spot. This hurts and it's hard and there are so many unknowns, but in a year, when you're in my spot, you're going to be looking at your baby and you're going to think back to all that pain and it's not going to be anything but a memory. And you'll be much stronger for having gone through it.

You already sound so much like a momma! You're worried that your baby is going to be hurt, or be scarred and that shows how much you love him or her already! If you lose your baby to natural causes you will be very sad but you will know that you did the motherly thing and carried your little one as best you could!

You should be proud of yourself for being strong enough to write all this out and put words to these feelings. The most important thing to realize is that you aren't alone. We're here for you and there are pregnancy centers all over the country that would love to help you through this. If you call 1-800-395-4357 you can talk to someone at Option Line and they can find something for you in your area.

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