Some mistakes can never be taken back, but what is the right thing to do when you feel like having a child is the biggest regret of your life? That was what one woman asked herself after she had a second kid to appease her family who were angry with her for terminating her last pregnancy. Based on the assumption that she would have their support after deciding to go through with her pregnancy this time, the mom gave birth to her now 9-month-old son. But she says her family is nowhere to be found and she's seriously struggling. Is she wrong if she wants to give the boy up for adoption?
The mom explained that previously, she terminated a pregnancy after she and her husband decided that they weren't ready for baby #2.
As she shared in an anonymous post on Reddit, she and her husband already had one child when she got pregnant for a second time only eight months later. But the timing wasn't right, so together they decided she would have an abortion at 15 weeks.
"We told no one because my family is fairly anti-abortion," she continued. "The only person I told, and this was a mistake in retrospect, was my sister. Who was understanding at the time but I guess she flat out told my mother."
The revelation put a strain on the relationship between the woman and her mom for a long time, but "I thought we reconciled and they accepted our decision then to terminate the pregnancy," she wrote.
But then she started to feel "immense guilt" for disappointing her mom -- and it influenced her to make another choice she now regrets.
Though she feared that her reason for getting pregnant again might seem "stupid," the truth was that she felt incredibly guilty for letting her mom down. "The unreasonable part of me wanted to make it up to her, and the unreasonable course of action was to have another child," she wrote. "I became pregnant again much to the delight of my mother and my unreasonable thought process was I was making it up to her."
But she quickly realized that she and her husband would need help to get through this. "I expressed to my family we weren't fully ready to have another child but we figured it'd follow the old adage 'it takes a village' and we'd get ample help from my parents," she added. "My mother flat out told me it's the right thing to do and she'd babysit whenever we wanted because she's retired."
But things didn't turn out exactly as planned. The couple had their second child and "my family completely left our lives. Straight up moved away, closed their Facebooks, never spoke to us again."
The woman wrote that before cutting her off within weeks, her mom admitted it was a punishment for getting the abortion, and in the blink of an eye that lost everyone. "[She said] that we're not part of the family anymore and we're on our own," she wrote. "My support system went to zero in a matter of weeks. Even my sister was on board and ghosted us 100%."
Now, the mom of two is miserable and she's considering giving their youngest up for adoption to fix the mistake she made.
"We now have a 2-and-a-half year old daughter and a 9-month-old son. My marriage is beginning to get strained," she wrote. "We weren't ready for a second child and honestly, I'm not sure we ever really wanted more than one."
Her life is not what she had imagined it would be before the pregnancy and has had to become a stay-at-home mom, which she never wanted to be. Recently, she's been thinking about giving the baby boy up for adoption and even brought the idea up to her husband "so he can be raised in a better household."
"Not only that, but maybe our marriage would repair itself, our daughter can have a better undivided life, and we can continue on our original path of just having one child," she wrote. "My husband is conflicted and said to give him a few months to work on us and if we can make it work, he'd like to keep both children as he loves them both. But I think deep down we all know things are in disarray now."
But she's hoping for a second opinion from other people online. Are they wrong for considering this path?
People online didn't hold back; many thought these parents were out of their minds.
"I can't believe what I'm reading here," wrote one person in the comments. "Can you imagine how immensely it would (expletive) up the kids to do this? The toddler would feel like at a moment's notice she would be disposed of just like her brother was. Get your tubes tied and use birth control. Also get tested for [Postpartum Depression] because I really do think you should have bonded to your baby by now. Even considering it is too much I think!"
"I suggest therapy. Excessive amounts of it," agreed someone else. "I suggest you never speak with your family again, unless it's to rub in another abortion or two, and even that is probably too much. I suggest you immediately abandon whatever ideologies you may have learned from said family. It's obviously really really evil. I suggest you seek permanent sterilization, tied tubes, vasectomy, IUD."
"You were using this child as a pawn and now that it didn't work you want to just give it up?" wrote a third person. "Thats not fair to the child. Adoption, in many cases, is a good idea but normally right after the child has been birthed not after almost a year of getting acquainted to its family."
But some people felt that the parents aren't entirely to blame -- mom's family is too.
"It’s very tempting to say YTA — but honestly, I don’t think you are," wrote one person. "If I’m understanding you correctly, you HAD your son because you thought your family would help you, but then they ghosted you. Because they’re anti-abortion. That’s (expletive) up and while I don’t blame you for wanting to put him up for adoption, I don’t think you should. You wouldn’t be the (expletive) for putting him up for adoption, but you SHOULD do the supererogatory thing and keep the child because his life would be harder otherwise."
Another person agreed the mom wasn't totally off base. "I'm simply stating that everyone makes mistakes. I feel she isn't the (expletive) for giving him up for adoption. It may be the best option instead of them resenting him later on for their mistakes."
But someone else thought that maybe there was something else going on. "You have postpartum depression. You are thinking crazy thoughts and it is not your fault. Please go to a doctor now!!"
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
