[desperate_in_ca]

Can anyone help me???! I just found out I'm pregnant, but my boyfriend and I are in no position at this time to raise a child. We simply aren't fit to give this child a good life right now. In addition to that, I am at high risk of serious complications if I carry this child to term and give birth to it. My doctor and my family are telling me that early abortion looks like my best option right now, and I thought I could force myself to go through with it, but I don't think I can. :'(
I want to donate my embryo, but because this is my first pregnancy and I was asthmatic as a kid, I'm not eligible to donate it to an embryo bank, but there has to be another way than abortion. Surely there is a family out there who would want to give this child a second chance. My boyfriend and I will most likely need a surrogate mother when we do decide to have children, but right now we are unable to give a child a good home. I don't want to have to abort, but I don't know where I can find a place that would want to adopt out my embryo! Please help!

[noelani2]

If I understand right, you are thinking that you can have the pregnancy taken out of you and transplanted into someone else. Is that correct? Actually, that is not possible. Embryo adoption involves eggs that have been taken from a donor and fertilized in a laboratory, grown for a few days, and then implanted into the uterus of whoever is "adopting" it, or frozen for implantation later on. I sure wish it was possible to transfer an existing pregnancy from one woman to another, and I am sure there have been people trying to figure out how to do it but, for now, your only options are to have an abortion or carry the baby until it is viable. If you have health problems that make carrying to term dangerous, what is usually done is to watch carefully, with a goal of delivery at 36 weeks, or a minimum of 28 weeks. If the mother's life is determined to be in danger, sooner, the baby may be delivered sooner, but they will do what they can to save it. There have been babies born as much as 16 weeks prematurely who have survived.

Since you obviously care very much about the baby you are carrying, I would really think carefully about having an abortion. I don't tell many people this, but when I was 17, I got pregnant and my parents coerced me into an abortion at 12 weeks. That was more than thirty years ago, and I still cry about it some times. I have met other women who actually wanted the abortions they had but later came to regret it and grieve the loss. If you don't feel ready to parent, there are many people looking for babies to adopt. Please make sure you consider all you options carefully. You will have to live with your choice for a long time. Best wishes to you.

[desperate_in_ca]

That's what I'm so worried about. I know abortion would be safer for me. I wont get too personal, but I have some internal damage, and I have had problems with hemorrhaging too. But I don't know if I could ever forgive myself if I aborted it. This is my child. And my boyfriend's child. Right now it's just a cluster of cells, but I will always wonder who it could have grown up to be. I feel like I'm being forced to choose between my life or my child's life. I was so hoping for a third option but I guess there isn't one. ;_;

[portlowski]

I am so sorry you are struggling with this. I wonder if counseling could help? While I absolutely respect the fact that you don't want to have an abortion, your life is also important. Perhaps a good counselor could help you weigh the risks. I think even those who are strongly anti-abortion would understand that if your very life is in jeopardy that abortion is an alternative that you should consider. If you do decide to carry your child to term, you also will need a good doctor and some counseling to determine your options once the child is born.

Once again...my heart goes out to you as you wrestle with this difficult decision.

[MichaelnJoannaadopt]

Desperate in CA: I am praying for you! If you have strong feelings against abortion, and your heart wants to carry this baby to term, then I would definitely get several other doctors opinions on if you can carry and have no or risk to your health. I am so sorry you are going through this! What ever your decision is I pray that god gives you strength, peace, and courage!

[anilorak13ska]

I pray for the day that what you are suggesting is an option, but sadly it is not yet. I am confident that the very fact that you are thinking along those lines shows that it's not as simple as "choosing" to have an abortion over adoption as it is being forced into it by your medical situation. I commend you for wanting to save your baby's life, and you definitely should seek the opinion of a high risk OBGYN to see if there are special precautions that can be taken under the care of a doc who specializes in high risk pregnancies so you can carry your baby to term. But if the professional opinion is such that you would be putting your life in danger by continuing with the pregnancy, you really aren't left with any choice, because your baby couldn't survive anyway if you didn't. This is a very difficult decision, and I think that meeting with a specialist in high risk pregnancies would help you have peace of mind about it. God bless.

[desperate_in_ca]

Thank you everybody for the supportive words. Honestly, I never did have strong feelings on abortion before, until this happened. Now I'm at a huge crossroads and I don't know what to do. It doesn't feel like just a zygote anymore. It feels like a decision between giving a little person life, or denying them. Idk, it could be motherly instincts kicking in, but that doesn't make it any less hard.
It does look like the cons of having the baby outweigh the pros, but I don't want them to. :'(
I am going in for an appt tomorrow at another hospital to discuss my options with another OBGYN, but the nurse I talked to over the phone didn't seem too confident. But we will see.
Another thing I also didn't mention is I am on several medications that I will not be able to stop taking. The first doctor said some of them could cause birth defects, but didn't really go into specifics. She was more concerned about the physical injuries I could sustain from childbirth. I have to ask about that too. I know my body isn't the safest place for a baby to form, which is why I will almost certainly have to find a serrogate mother when my bf and I are ready to have kids. I was just so hoping there was a third option for the baby I have now. But it doesn't look like it. I'm crushed I brought something into this world that will most likely have to be discarded. I keep thinking about what if my parents had done that to me. It's hard to explain. It's really hard.

[txparents]

Skip a regular OB/GYN. You need to talk to an OB/GYN who is also maternal-fetal medicine specialist. If you do decide to carry the pregnancy, you will likely also need a perinatologist.

I would not make a decision without talking to a Maternal-Fetal medicine doctor first. A regular OB is great for a regular pregnancy or for a pregnancy with some risks, but if you know from the start that you have serious medical problems, you need input from doctors who are more experienced in handling higher risk pregnancies.

[desperate_in_ca]

The first doctor I went to is my primary care physician/ obgyn. I've been going to her for many years. My local hospital happens to be Catholic run, so the doctors are only allowed to suggest abortion as an option if they really truly feel the risks involved for the mother are too high. But even then, they are not allowed to preform abortions at their facility or even prescribe the early abortion pill. They have to send you to outside care. My doctor felt sorry because I asked to be referred to somebody who would tell me differently, but she honestly couldn't think of anyone who would realistically suggest I have a baby. So she told me to seek a second opinion at another hospital, so thats what I'm doing tomorrow afternoon. I will ask for a maternal specialist as well, but it doesn't look like this is going to work out the way I wanted it to. I really really wanted to be able to transfer the embryo to a woman who wanted children but couldn't get pregnant. I'm totally new to embryo donation, so I'm crushed this procedure is not possible yet. I'm not ready to just give up completely though. I will see my new doctor. See if anything can be done, or if they even know somebody who can do something. Then I will decide.

[anilorak13ska]

d-in-ca, can I just say that you will make a wonderful mother someday, and you're being the best mother you can be right now to this baby. Sadly, some mothers do have to experience the death of a child, and I don't think it makes it any easier if it's before birth. I can't imagine being in your shoes, but it sounds like you will get a thorough opinion from a variety of sources. You ask what if your parents had "done this" to you... if trying to carry you to term had meant your mom wouldn't survive, then you may not have either. And like you said, if you're getting this opinion from a Catholic hospital of all places, then you know you're not being manipulated into disregarding the difficulty of the decision, and that even there, where you know abortion is never suggested or taken lightly, they are giving you the facts, even if they are grim.

Of course, I'm sure the others here agree with me when I say that I truly hope and pray that your second opinion will result in some hope for keeping BOTH of you safe for the duration of the pregnancy, but if this cannot be the case, know that you are welcome here to air out your emotions and get support...

[desperate_in_ca]

Thank you. Honestly, my bf and I haven't yet even decided if we ever do want children of our own or not. Right now we feel like we don't, but in a few years who knows. When we are ready we might feel differently. But I know I don't want the little embryo I'm carrying inside me now to have to be destroyed before it even has a chance at life. I know there are families who want babies but can't have them. I could find someone good for my child if I could get through the birth. My appointment is tomorrow afternoon. I'm so nervous. I'm not realistically expecting to get the answer I want, but I am hoping for it.

[MichaelnJoannaadopt]

Good Luck today! Big Hugs!

[anilorak13ska]

Ditto...Thinking of you...

[desperate_in_ca]

Thank you, all! Going in this afternoon! Will keep you updated. <3

[desperate_in_ca]

Well, thank you to everyone who tried to help and offer support during this awful time. I'm sorry to say that today, after seeing a second, and then still a third doctor at the hospital, I got the answer I was expecting, but not the one I was hoping for. The first doctor I saw today gave me my second ultrasound, and the first thing he said when he looked at my uterus was "Ohhhhhhhh... no! No. I'm sorry, no." He told me he knew I had come there hoping to hear differently, but that he could in no way ethically recommend I go through with the pregnancy. However he told me he was still willing to do bloodwork, and take a uralysis, and send me to speak to one of the high risk maternity specialists if I wanted a third opinion. I told him yes, I did want to. So I was sent to the 1st floor to get blood drawn, then a nurse came and took me to another room to wait for one of the leading doctors at the hospital who specializes in high risk pregnancies. But when she came in the room to speak with me, I could tell right when she said hello to me that the answer was still no. She gave me the cold hard truth and explained to me that typically the type of patients they see are women who's chances of getting through their pregnancies unharmed was determined to be about 70-80%, stressing to me that a 20-30% chance of sustaining serious injury or death was still a very high number to gamble one's life on, especially when most healthy normal women have more than a 99% chance of surviving their pregnancies in good health. She then told me point blank that based on the ultrasound, my bloodwork, and my medical history, my chances of going through childbirth and coming out ok were less than 40%, and in addition to that, the chances of me delivering a healthy baby were less than 60%. She said she was sorry she couldn't come to me with better news, and if I insisted, she could refer me to a few other high risk specialists and clinics, but warned me that no doctor or facility who cares a thing about their patient's health was going to be willing to consent to carrying me through a pregnancy when the odds are so against it going well. I couldn't say much, except that I understood, I had been told this for years before this happened. My ovaries are healthy, but my uterus and cervix are too scarred and faulty to reasonably sustain a baby without huge threats of health hazard to myself and the fetus. I told her I had prepared myself for this news, I just didn't want to go through with a termination before really finding out if there was any other option for me. She said she knew I wanted to save this child and if their department could have helped me, they would. I was brought back downstairs to the obgyn to go over the safest method of termination for me, which would be the early abortion pill. I, of course, unhappily consented to this and signed the forms, and the doctor left to get my first pill. Before I took it I told the little growing being inside me that I was sorry I wasn't able to save it (I only call it "it" because I'll never know if it was going to be a boy or a girl). I was sorry I hadn't used a better form of birth control to prevent this little life from entering the world only to be robbed of it's chance to exist as the person it could have grown up to be, and I was sorry it was conceived in a body that could not support it. And I hoped that if there was a little soul in there yet, that God would give it the second chance I couldn't give it with a much more able bodied woman who could give this little soul the gift of life it couldn't have from me. I felt so bad as I took the first pill. The doctor explained to me before this, that most women were sent home with the 4 pills they were to take on their own the next day, but because of my injured uterus that already plagues me with horridly unstable irregular periods and burning cramps and pain, I would need to come back to the hospital the next day to take the remaining pills in their presence due to my risk of hemorrhaging. I don't know how I am going to go back. I could barely swallow the first pill. I wanted to save this baby. I know I can't help my condition, but I really feel like I failed today. I'll always wonder who this child could have been if I was able to save it. I really hope God gives this one a second chance with someone else, if at all possible. I hate having to end a future person's existence before it barely even began. The feeling is overwhelmingly horrible. I hate the thought of this little one that could have been never existing again. Even though I don't talk to God as often as I probably should, today I begged Him to give this child a chance with someone else, or at least take it's little soul to heaven. I'm sorry to this baby. I'm sorry I couldn't give it life. ;_;