difficult child teen parents

[dlgallant]

As I've posted in other recent posts, my daughter (18) is trying to have a child and not real particular about the father. Her main choice for a donor is a felon in jail as a juvenile for assault and child molestation. My daughter was far more mature at 13 than 18. She has no home, flitters between friends, most of friends have criminal records. She has no job or insurance and is in poor health from living homeless for the last 6 weeks. Her father called my insurance to have her removed when she ran away. She never moved out, she simply ran away with the clothes on her back when she turned 18. He's an alocholic / addict who has personality disorders signigicant enough that he was institutionalized for a while. (I know great choice on my part too, but I had no idea when I married him) Her dad wants her on the streets as he knows how much it hurts me.

After all that, with my daughter's pending legal problems and if she actually does manage to get pregnant, I'm seeking advice from anyone whose difficult child child became pregnant and how the situation worked out. The frame of mind my daughter is in at the moment she would rather go to jail than counseling and I'm afraid that's where she will end. I couldn't sit by and watch her try to raise a child in the environment she's currently in if I had any options at all. I know I'm buying trouble that hasn't happened yet, but an 18 year old trying to get pregnant, the odds are it's likely to happen.

 

[Hound dog]

an 18 year old trying to get pregnant, the odds are it's likely to happen.

Sadly, that's true.

As you can see in my sig N has a 1 yr old little girl. When we found out she was preg at 16 I felt like someone sucked the life right out of me. I was scared to death. Both for N and the baby. N was no where near stable and she was still cutting and burning at the time. And N was still very immature.

Then N's psychiatrist informed me that N couldn't take her medications while preg.

It was a looooooong 9 months. N did attempt to hold things together without her medications, but as you can imagine it wasn't easy and didn't work too well.

Even with all that going on during the preg I watched N do some heavy duty growing up. Once baby arrived I already had a plan in place for what I would and wouldn't do. I wanted N to be the baby's Mom. I'd only play a supportive role.

A week or two after Aubrey was born N crashed. Post partum depression hit her with a vengence on top of all of those months unmedicated. She had to go into the hospital. It might sound weird but it was the best thing that ever happened to her. It was a great facility.

After that N worked hard to achieve and maintain stability. She's learned to be a wonderful loving Mom. She did all the Mom stuff for the baby, I'm just Nana. lol N has been stable for about 8 or 9 months now. She takes her own medications, reminds me of psychiatrist appoints, asks questions about her disorders and researches alot about them on her own. N is even starting college right after graduation next month. (something I thought I'd never get her to do)

So for N I guess having Aubrey was a blessing in a way. She's matured tons since she found out she was preg. It gave her purpose and direction for getting and staying stable. And yeah, I'm just a wee bit proud of her. lmao

Of course this is probably best case senerio. (I couldn't imagine it working out so well at the beginning) Stepgfg was the opposite. At 20 she had her first child. The baby spent her first 5 months living on the streets with her parents. Stepgfg did as little mothering as she could get away with and none if there was someone else around to do it. It was horrible and too long to go into details. After second child she made the decision to return to the streets and drugs. We haven't seen or heard from them since.

But I wanted to let you know how things worked out with N because a young difficult child getting pregnant doesn't always wind up a nitemare.

I understand too well your fears though. Hopefully someone else will be able to convince difficult child this is not the time to get preg.

((((hugs))))

 

[dlgallant]

Thanks so much for the ray of hope. My daughter has been an absolute delight her entire life except for this "episodes" she goes through. Usually they are short lived, but with this one lasting 6 weeks already I'm concerned. I think because before she was underage and I could intervene shortened the length of these episodes. Now that she's 18 and this one lasting so long I just don't know where she'll end up. While I don't think her having a child now is good for her or a baby, and I'm hoping for your daughter's experience and not your step-daughter's.