Feeling so ashamed for feeling this way (TW: abortion)
I'm 6 weeks + 1 day pregnant. This was planned. My husband and I are both 31, and we've been together since we were 16.
For the past year and a half, we've been seriously talking about having children. It's been off and on for both of us though, we've had fights and we've both flipped sides at different points during the last year and a half. Before that, we were firmly in the childfree camp for about 10 years. Back in high school, we'd talk about having a family someday, but our 20s were a rollercoaster, mostly because I was dealing with significant mental health issues.
I'm finally in a much healthier place, and I think that's what made me open to motherhood again. We've also become much more stable in general. We sold our condo, bought our dream property, and both found ourselves thinking, "Maybe kids would actually fit into the life we've built." Our property feels like the perfect place to raise a family.
I got pregnant on our first cycle trying, which completely shocked me. I honestly didn't expect it to happen so quickly, and part of me had convinced myself I might be infertile.
At first, I felt excited. Maybe not over-the-moon excited, but hopeful.
Over the past two weeks, though, I've felt myself spiraling into despair.
A lot of it comes back to my own childhood. My mom had untreated mental health issues and, looking back, I don't think she ever truly thought through what becoming a parent would mean. Growing up, I always felt like motherhood wasn't the life she actually wanted, and it often felt like she regretted it. She parentified me, confided in me about her marriage to my dad, and shared burdens that no child should have to carry.
I cannot repeat that.
I saw someone write, "I'd rather regret not having kids than regret having kids," and that sentence has been stuck in my head ever since.
There's also another issue that's weighing on me. My partner and I never fully agreed on family size. I always pictured one child. Before we started trying, he said he wanted either two children or none at all. I hoped that once we were actually pregnant, we could revisit the conversation. I brought it up again the other day, and he was still firm: two or none.
Now I'm panicking. It feels wrong to continue this pregnancy while secretly hoping he'll change his mind. I don't think that's fair to either of us, and I don't want to build a family on the expectation that one of us will eventually give in.
I'm also deeply ashamed that we decided to try without fully working through these conversations first. I feel like I should have thought this through more carefully before we got here.
Has anyone else experienced something like this? Did the panic and regret pass? Or did you realize it was telling you something important? I could really use some perspective because I feel completely overwhelmed right now.
Edit: I just realized I never actually touched on the topic of abortion. Over the weekend I've had several discussions with my husband and while I know he will be disappointed, he is supportive of me going ahead and getting an abortion because he doesn't want to do this if my heart isn't truly in it. At first I thought maybe our relationship would be over but I think he knows we can still have a good life together, and that we are still young and it's not like it can't happen later down the road. At first I was afraid he would leave me so that he could find someone else I realized it would be so unhealthy to keep the pregnancy just to "keep him". Anywho, I called two clinics today to try and schedule a surgical abortion and I'm just terrified and so so ashamed.