In the world we live in today, there is a very unique terror that comes with realizing that there is an uninvited guest growing in your womb. If you hadn’t planned to be pregnant and that’s where you find yourself, you’re going to go through a load of emotions before you decide what you want to do about it. An unplanned pregnancy can force you to question everything that you thought you knew about yourself, about the fairness of life, and about whether or not you were even equipped to raise a child in the world that we’re in right now.
If you’re quite young, finding yourself pregnant can throw you into adulthood in a very uncouth manner.In some ways, you’re going to feel bereft and grieving because you’re going to feel like your life was ripped from your hands. In others, you’re going to be very thankful for the roots of adoption or pills by post so that you can have an abortion. Whatever decision you choose to make, if you find yourself pregnant and you didn’t plan on it is absolutely OK. This is your choice to go forward or not, and you don’t have to feel apologetic for how you feel about it. Here are some steps to help you to get through the initial stages of an unplanned pregnancy.
- Confirm the pregnancy. You may have taken a pregnancy test, but sometimes those can be unreliable, so make sure you go to your doctor and confirm the pregnancy with them. They’ll be able to date the pregnancy to tell you how far along you are.
- Talk to somebody. Ask to speak to a councillor, a therapist. Go and speak to a relative, a sister or a friend. You need to tell somebody what’s happening with you so that you’re not trying to deal with everything by yourself.If you are still with or you know the father of the baby, then go and talk to him too, but only after you’ve made a decision on what you want to do. Remember, he can’t tell you what to do about this because it’s your body.
- Feel what you’re feeling and don’t feel guilty for it. There’s every chance you’re going to feel angry, afraid, disappointed, terror. There’s going to be an entire smugglers board of emotions in front of you and in that you still might feel excitement even if you don’t want to keep the pregnancy. It’s life changing to get pregnant and it’s even bigger of a change to keep the baby.
- Write down how you feel. You don’t necessarily want to say out loud how you’re feeling about this, especially if you’ve decided to go down the adoption or the abortion route. There might be some dark thoughts mixed up with all of the emotions you’re feeling right now, so get them down on paper. Keep a journal of how you’re feeling so that you can go back and look over it. Again, don’t feel guilty for whatever it is that you feel because remember your body is currently a mess of hormones and this has been a shock.
- Get comfortable with whichever decision you make. You don’t have very long to choose whether you keep a pregnancy that was unplanned or you decide to have bought it. Whatever decision you make, get comfortable with it because this decision is going to alter your life.
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