Note : Don't take offense at any of this Boundless. You seem like a nice person, this is just my opinion.
I know now that no matter what I want a baby more than anything else in the world.
That's just biology, it's no different than the feeling of a guy who wants to screw a pretty girl more than anything in the world. Females like to believe that the desire to have a baby is nobler than that but it's simply the female version of a guy wanting to spread his seed.
So what would you do? I didn't have a choice. But if you had that choice, what would you make?
When I was twenty I got my ex-girlfriend pregnant because we were foolishly not careful (I used one condom that broke so stupidly we just decided to not use them at all). She got an abortion. We both paid half. I felt a little guilty about it but it was the right thing to do. Five years later she got pregnant again (again for our being stupid). She pretended she had a miscarriage but she really got an abortion. Again, right choice. We broke up a few months later.
In late 2005 I met my current GF. For years we used the
Billings ovulation Method and it worked well, that is to say perfectly. But in late 2007 she decided to become pregnant (without my consent). I knew the drill well enough and I knew that we shouldn't have been having sex when we were (her period has just ended about a week before) but, well, I'm a foolish man, descended from a long line of foolish humans (the ones who were careful about reproduction died out) and I like sex so... anyway this caused a lot of (huge understatement) conflict & misery, most of which I'm not even going to discuss here & which perhaps would be disbelieved anyway. But anyway, I warn strongly against that particularly approach & caution men to be wary of it (which is another reason I'm not particularly sensitive to a woman's "need" to reproduce which I find about as charming as a man's "need" to screw, even at the cost of not worrying about consent).
I am near 22 year old, 6 months into a new career. I've known Abaddon a year today, and I know I'm going to be with him for the rest of my days and I love him more and more as time goes on.
Again, no offense but you're only 22, many people think that at that age (and even beyond) and a few years later they're divorced. You can't speak about the rest of your life based on how you feel right now.
This situation confirmed that. I guess there is some beauty in all the mess that comes with this. I know how personal this is now. I don't think someone else can tell you what you want. But I'm interested to hear why you would or wouldn't make the choice I had decided to do. I need to know that what I was planning on doing was the right one for me, and I guess hearing people's opinions on their OWN situation (not mine, please), would really help me stew it over.
Well frankly, I'm terrified of what type of world my daughter will grow up in. Life was a lot less stressful before I had a child & I wish I'd appreciated it more.
Once you have a kid your life is never truly yours again. WHatever your flaws & shortcomings before will be magnified, any issues with your sig. other will be magnified (like 100 fold, though if you have support from family this will be lessened). You'll private feelings of inadequacy will no longer be private as you will feel them in your relation to your child. Every day I feel like I could have done better as a father.
It's tough. Watching my daughter grow up is nice but all my issues with society & money & my partner make it much harder.
You & Abby sound like you have a much more stable situation than I did (we were sleeping in my S.O.'s b**ch mother's living room when our daughter was born, mother-in-law (so to speak, we weren't married) told me to GTFO when my daughter was only a few months ago. My partner stayed on without me for various reasons which I'm not going to get into here. It was a hellish time I would not wish on anyone. Fortunately, she's pretty well adjusted now but there's still a lot of strain in my relationship with her mother & I'm likely going to get my own place (again) in March (though I'll still come back 2-3 days a week to be in my daughter's life).
So the lesson from my life is DO : talk to out with the father, DO : make sure your life is stable, DO : make sure you have social support, DO : make sure neither of you is hated by the family of the other, DON'T : assume it will all work out, DON'T : "trust your body", your body is a reproduction machine & doesn't understand the complexities of modern life, it warps your brain, no matter how intelligent you are.
Good luck & I'm sorry about your different experience with losing your fetus before you even got a chance to decide what to do yourself.
Note : I used to not want to reveal stuff like this on the Internet but at the end of the day, who really gives a damn. If it helps anyone here it overrides my risk of embarrassment amongst people here, 99.99% of whom, I'll never even meet.
