Hi all, I posted here a couple days ago so I’m sorry if you’re seeing this story again. I found out that I’m pregnant 2 days ago. At first, I was terrified and I thought I couldn’t do this, I made an appointment to see a doctor for a medical abortion (appointment is next week). But after a bit of time, I’m feeling a little differently.
My heart is saying that I would like for this to work, but my head is worried because the reality of my situation is sketchy:
– My husband isn’t in my country yet, and we don’t know for sure when his immigration application will be accepted. It should just be a couple months, but there’s no telling for certain.
– I don’t have much of a support network. My mom is happy to help as much as she can, but she’s physically disabled (incomplete paraplegia) and works full time so she can only do so much.
My big fear is that if my husband’s immigration gets delayed for whatever reason… I can’t do this on my own. Our plan was that when I got pregnant, my husband would stay home with the baby since I make more money. If he’s not here and I have a baby, I would have to go on mat leave and would be living on $1000 per month after my rent/bills are paid (that’s including how much I’d get from government benefits). I don’t think that’s realistically doable but I have no clue how much it costs to take care of a baby. I could move back in with my mom to save on rent, but I love my apartment and don’t want to give it up (though I could sublet it) – also, she lives in the suburbs and I don’t have a car, I could use hers sometimes but she needs it for work. I’m also apprehensive about going on mat leave because I love my job and I don’t ever want to lose it (I haven’t been to college but I have a job I love that pays me $50K, I know I won’t find that again easily – though it’s a government job so it’s somewhat secure, and I’ve seen other women come back from mat leave with no problems).
My other worry is not being able to get pregnant again when I’m ready. I just turned 34 a couple months ago and I’ve never been pregnant before. Tbh I thought I was infertile because I had tried before unsuccessfully, but in hindsight, I think it was because I was anorexic and also drinking heavily. Now that I’m healthier, I ended up getting pregnant literally the first time we had unprotected sex during my ovulation days which I didn’t expect due to my history. 😳
I’ve made some appointments with “options counsellors” over the next week to help get some guidance. Ultimately I want what’s best for our whole family. I know you can “make it work”, but I’ve lived in poverty and struggled most of my life, and I don’t want to go back to that. I have anxiety and I’ll always err on the side of caution – meaning, if I can’t get any sort of confirmation over the next couple weeks concerning when my husband can come here, then I’m 99% sure I’ll go through with terminating. I just don’t feel it’s a safe risk to take for everyone involved. I also have 2 cats to care for.
But, I’m looking for some brutally honest outside opinions. Do you think that going through with this pregnancy without knowing when my husband can get here is setting us up for failure/a bad idea? If you were me, what would you do? Is it realistically doable to support yourself and a baby on $1K/month after rent?
Comments
I think a big thing to consider is the mental health impact this will have on you too. All of this together sounds like so many things to worry about – his immigration, your job status, being a single parent, $1000 a month, no family support. How are you going to cope mentally and how long do you want to do it for?