Scarleteen

What, if anything, do you know about your own conception, mother's pregnancy, and birth? Do you know if you were the result of a planned or unplanned pregnancy? If so, do you have feelings around any of that? What are they?

How much do you feel like what you do know about any of this -- including if that's nothing at all -- influences your own feelings and thoughts about pregnancy, or influences any of your own sexual choices you make that have the capacity to create a pregnancy?

I know that, for me, for example, growing up knowing that I was the result not just of an unplanned pregnancy, but of a legal situation in which access to contraception and safe, legal abortion was a no-go for my mother had a HUGE impact on me, both in terms of my own sexual and reproductive choices but also, perhaps obviously, in the work I chose to make most of my life. I know that for me, too, there were certainly times growing up that I felt like being "an accident" created conflicts between me and other family members, and colored how I was seen or treated: that was pretty rough, even though it obviously didn't need to be (especially when you know that as many pregnancies in the world are unplanned as planned, anyway!). In a word, it had a pretty giant impact on me.

I know pretty much everything that there is to know about this with regards to myself. I was majorly planned. I know my parents were togther for almost a decade before marrying and that they got married because they preferred to be married before having children.

I know that they spent years discussing having children. They discussed what they liked about their upbringing and what they disliked about it and made important parenting decisions.

About two years after getting married my parents finally managed to conceive after months of trying. They made sure to rent and fix up a home before I was born because they didn't want me to grow up in an apartment.

They went to garage sales and second hand stores to make sure they bought quality baby items that would last. They made sure my stroller was comfortable.

My parents wanted a child. They made sure they were financially secure and could provide for me. My parents were very deliberate about the way that they brought me up.

All of this planning and forethought has had a major impact on me. I grew up happy and knowing I was loved. My parents and sibling are the most important people in my life. I am so incredibly fortunate to have the parents that I do.

The influence of this on my own choices about pregnancy is that I will only engage in potentially impregnating acts when using reliable protection and won't choose to become pregnant until I am as sure about it as my parents were. My parents gave me a wonderful childhood and I want to give that to any future child I may have.

Interesting topic. I hadn't ever thought about it much, but reflecting on it now, I think the information about how I came to be has had a pretty significant impact on me.

Like moonlight, I was planned. However, I arrived after several miscarriages and a bunch of medical interventions (I wasn't an IVF baby, but I get the impression from what my parents have said that it was an everything-but kind of situation). It was never explicitly stated, but it was very clear to me that I was the result of years and years of trying and effort and emotional turmoil and it did feel at times like I was expected to be outrageously successful in every way because so much was required just to have me. (The story of me is so important to them that it is told every year on my birthday at some point, usually starting with something like "You know, we tried for years to have you....")

The contrast between me and my sister in that regard is pretty stark: she was very much a "surprise" as my parents put it. She was always the "difficult one" but in retrospect I wonder if perhaps my parents simply weren't prepared for the emotionally messy reality of having children, children who have both struggled with mental health issues (although mine are not and never have been nearly as severe as my sister's). Physically we were very well cared for, and my parents obviously do love the both of us tremendously, as I do them, but we have an...interesting family dynamic and growing up in such a family was very difficult at times.

Personally, the two things that have impacted me the most in terms of my choices have been the experience of having parents who were often significantly older than my peers' parents, and watching the difficulties between my parents and sister. I'm faced now with caring for ageing parents in the very near future, something most people my age will not likely have to deal with for years. As well, there is a history of mental health issues on both sides of my family, and seeing how incredibly tough a time my sister has had (and my parents in trying to help her) makes me very very hesitant to have biological children at all, if there is even a possibility that my child(ren) will have to go through something similar. Some people would be excellent parents in such a situation, but I very much know that I would not be able to be.

My story is quite like Karyn's. My parents planned for me, bought a bigish house to accommodate the two or three children they wanted to have, and then had a very hard time getting pregnant. Eventually, on her doctor's advice, my Mum quit work to reduce her stress levels, and apparently it worked, because here I am. My Mum was 39 when I was born, and they wanted more children; but a few years later Mum had an ectopic pregnancy which ruptured a fallopian tube, and was advised that it'd be dangerous to try to conceive again, so I'm an only child.

I definitely feel the high expectations that Karyn mentioned; I always felt like all my parents' hopes and expectations rested on me, socially, academically, family-wise... it doesn't bother me now as much as it did when I was a teenager, I guess because having more distance from them makes their desires seem less immediate, but the pressure is still there.

My family is odd about communicating. I didn't know that what happened to Mum was an ectopic pregnancy until I was about 18, not because it was hidden from me, but because no-one wanted to try to explain that to a four year-old and it didn't come up in conversation for another fourteen years. So similarly I knew for a long time that my parents had "tried everything" and "been to the doctor a lot" when they were trying to conceive, but didn't know the details. I remember one RE lesson (religious education, which was more like philosophy with occasional references to religion the way my teacher taught it), when the topic of test tube babies came up, and I thought "Oh! That must be what I was!", and then the teacher commented that some Christians were against IVF because they believed an IVF baby would have no soul. That had a big impact on me - I wondered if it explained why I had such terrible depression, couldn't maintain relationships with people, and just didn't seem to fit into a world full of people who were emotionally functional.

I think my family situation has had a big impact on me in terms of plans around pregnancy. If I have children, I want them to have the same kind of stable childhood I had; I'd want to be financially secure and settled in one place. I also tend to think that being an older parent isn't really something to avoid; some of my friends have had children fairly young (early to mid twenties) because they don't want to be "old" by the time their kids leave home, but I figure you can live a good life at any age really, and having older parents is definitely an advantage in some respects. I also don't think I'd make a good mother. I was absolutely plagued by mental health issues when I was a teenager, and I hated my parents for not being able to help. Depression runs in my family, too - and I'm not sure I'd do a better job of looking after a mentally ill child than my parents did, which makes me think that maybe I shouldn't try it, because I wouldn't want my kid to go through what I did. And really, I wouldn't want to go through what my parents did either.

I heard two different stories since I didn't find out I was adopted until last summer.

The story I grew up with (I'm 20 now) is that I was unplanned, my parents had been together for about a decade but not yet married and when they found out I was coming they planned to get married. They got married on Christmas Eve and had me baptized the same day (I was born in July). I grew up knowing that unplanned babies happen, hearing all about how much contraception can fail (my school used scare tactics in sex-ed classes) and being told by parents to ABSOLUTELY NEVER have sex because any birth control I used would immediately fail and I'd never leave the house or be in contact with a guy for the rest of my life, because I'd be in so much trouble.

Then this summer I found out I was adopted. (This part gets pretty dark and has mention of anti-child thoughts, just fyi - I can edit them if I need to but for now I'm going to post my honest thoughts. If they're bothersome or I should edit my thoughts to better fit the tone of the forum, please let me know!)

I was unplanned; the woman I grew up thinking was my half-sister (mom had her with a different guy, divorced him, married my dad and had me) is actually my biological mom. My mom (I'll call her mom and biological mother 'bio-mom' to avoid confusion) *did* have her with a guy who isn't my dad at age 16 and divorced him, then got together with my dad, moved in with him, and raised bio-mom with him. Thanks to an aunt's 'help', my bio-mom got the idea to run away. When she was 18, they hadn't heard from her for a while and then got a call one day that she was pregnant with me. I was born when dad was on a business trip south for three months, so my parents didn't get to meet me until I was three months old. My bio-parents hadn't been working, they were living in an apartment with bio-dad's mom paying the rent for them, and they used drugs and alcohol (I don't think bio-mom did during pregnancy because I don't have any severe lasting effects from drug/alcohol use in the womb). When I was born it was found that I was anemic and needed special formula with added iron, but my bio-parents either sold the formula ticket things (like food stamps but different, I *think*) to buy alcohol or sold the formula itself for alcohol. When my parents visited bio-parents they noticed I was extremely pale and very underweight. They took me home (traveling halfway across the state) for a few days and took the few cans of formula and diapers with them. Bio-parents told them that they should give me water at every other feeding and dilute the formula by half, because 'that's what we do and it's working'. (!) Parents took me home and proceeded to take me back and forth halfway across the state, buying formula and diapers to hold me over while I was with bio-parents, for the next six months or so. Eventually they were taking care of me more than I was with bio-parents, so they got custody of me (so that if I needed a doctor they wouldn't have to drive three or more hours across the state for an appointment). Bio-mom was eager to give them custody because she knew she wouldn't be a good parent; bio-dad gave custody reluctantly and then disappeared. When parents wanted to officially adopt me, they had to hire a private investigator to find bio-dad; they found his address and stopped to leave notes multiple times requesting his presence at court but heard nothing back, and he kept switching addresses which made it even worse. (Bio-mom gave consent for adoption as soon as they asked.) Eventually, the judge signed the adoption papers on bio-dad's behalf. I remember that day - I was three or just turned four, and I remember going into the court, sitting in the back (very quietly and seriously) and being happy but not really understanding why after we left the courthouse.

From that long adventure, I'm just even more paranoid about being a parent. I have sensory processing issues where if there is a child screaming/crying anywhere nearby it sounds as though I'm repeatedly being bashed in the head with a megaphone playing said screams directly into my ears. It hurts my head and I will leave the room, knocking into people if they're in the way. Because of that, any time I'm around children my anxiety is way up, and I'm very afraid that I would unintentionally hurt a kid if it started crying and I couldn't leave the room (for instance, if it was my kid and needed taken care of). Also, I know bio-mom's health history, but I know nothing of bio-dad's, so my genetics are half a mystery and I don't know what I would pass on to any kids I would have. I was already planning to be childfree but that only increased the feelings. I also had the strong feeling (this is the controversial bit) that had my parents not been the ones to raise me - had I been put in foster care or adopted by strangers - I would have wanted to be aborted instead. I wasn't wanted, because my bio-parents gave me up so easily/lost all contact/were highly irresponsible with me, and I'm very lucky my parents took me in, because with all my health problems I don't think anyone would have wanted me in foster care. I'm just very ambivalent/anxious (somewhere in between) about parenting, the topic of even being around kids, any sort of reproductive stuff, etc. And the only contact I want with bio-dad is to get his full medical records so I know what I inherited from him besides his hair growth pattern, the odd gold shine no matter the color of hair, his forehead, and his tendency for addictive behavior (which I got from bio-mom too, oh joy!).


This has been a very fun topic. D: but thanks for posting it, it's interesting to read what people with more 'typical' upbringings experienced and how they perceive the idea of having kids themselves.

By the way, I really appreciate and feel enriched by everyone's responses here so far, and my hat's off to those of you for whom this is tough to talk about, but who are doing it anyway. We truly have the most amazing community here, and I'm so grateful all of you are part of it.