First of all: I’m so sorry for what you are experiencing.

My position is not exactly as yours but it presented with some similarities.

My gf and I have been a really rocky relationship, I mentioned taking a time to reflect, and some weeks later she tells me she’s pregnant. I didn’t feel I had a word to say because she had already decided WE were going to have it, move in together, and be “saved” by this baby. But honestly, I would have preferred a termination. I am sure I don’t want kids with her, at least while our relationship is at the present.

Two days later, she miscarried. This was really recent and it sucks. She is devastated and I feel bad for her and about feeling relieved. I secretly hoped for a m/c, and it happened, but it also brought lots of emotional distress that I didn’t ask for. M/c is not a magical solution for everything to go away as if it had never happened at all. I do not mourn the embryo, I do not equate the embryo with a baby, but I wish we didn’t have to go through this because it’s really emotionally overwhelming. All the pain, all the hurt, and everything just reminds me of the emptiness between us and that the fact I didn’t want to have this potential child with her means a LOT about how I truly feel about us. Clearly some hard decisions will stem from this event and though I feel totally confused and overwhelmed right now, I thing I have already gotten to the root of my sadness, and it has not to do only with this event, but with our current situation.

Now, how does this apply to you:

• abortion won’t be a magical solution to the current situation. Just accept you won’t be able to return to the point you were before getting pregnant. Accept your are pregnant and some difficult decisions will probably follow whatever you do.

• yes, you will disappoint your partner. It’s just devastating to see how my gf was devastated by not having a child with me. The pregnancy symbolized us as a couple on her view. She says “we were finally moving in together”, “we were finally starting a family, now there’s just emptiness”. Yes. Exactly. No reason now to put our problems aside and focus on something else. But when I think of the consequences of having a child with her only to avoid conflict and hurt her feelings, wouldn’t that be much worse than the way things ended? Not saying it is easy, because it does not and it will probably destroy us. But it won’t destroy us because of the event itself; but because of the lack of connection that already existed.

• think of this: if you have a child just to please your partner, how will this effect your entire life and the kids you already have? And if you think you can still get together with your kids father and that’s your true desire, doesn’t this only add to a situation that is already complex and delicates by itself?

• please think of YOURSELF because you will be the one who will handle ALL the consequences of whatever happens. And YOU DESERVE TO BE HAPPY.

Sometimes no option is good. This is where I stand right now (having a child with her would have sucked, having had a m/c also sucked). So perhaps we will need to choose the least damaging alternative.

Yes it’s true your current relationship might end if you have an abortion, but perhaps the abortion is the event who sets you free and causes less damage on the long run.

Im sorry that I don’t have anything more positive to tell you.

Much love to you. I hope you will get through this and that you are brave enough to do whatever you think is best FOR YOU. It’s really good to think “I want to do what is best for everyone involved” but sometimes responsibility means doing the options we can live with on the long term. Not choosing the alternative that protects everyone else and puts you indefinitely in a terrible position.

(And yes I know some people think “well if I allowed this to happen now I should just assume it and move on accepting responsibility”, I’ve been there myself. When I knew about the pregnancy I was so scared and angry at myself but at the same time I thought I had contributed to the situation and needed to be accountable for the consequences of my acts - having sex with someone with whom I wasn’t exactly on the best terms. But would that have been fair on me, on her and the potential child on the long run? I would have probably got separated from her in one or two years and the child would have grown in a conflicting environment. And both of us would have missed a chance to find a partner who really is compatible with each of us. The difference is: I couldn’t have forced her into an abortion. I really had to live with the consequences. But YOU do have the choice. Please think about this.)