Pregnant 15 year old stepdaughter - I've had enough

"Stormlady" don't@ email.me wrote in message
...
"Since she is a
minor and you make medical decisions for her, make sure she delivers
without an epidural so she doesn't make that silly mistake again."

Well that's the stupidest thing I ever heard!!! How would that be
supportive? At 15 years old her labor would be hard enough, I certainly
think it would be the worst thing to do, to deny her pain medication if
she
needed it. And it certainly would do a lot to cause irreperable damage to
the relationship between the stepmother and stepdaughter.

OMG, about a year ago I was watching an episode of "Maternity Ward" on TLC
and there was a 14 year old girl having a baby and her mother said this
about "no epidural to make her learn her lesson". The girl was screaming
and in utter agony and begging for an epidural and her mother kept saying
"NO, I want her to learn her lesson". It was SO sad. The OB finally talked
some sense into the girls mother, and the girl finally got her epidural, but
you could tell that the 14 year old was extremely upset with her Mom and
there probably WAS a problem with their relationship because of this.

IMO, this would be downright cruel to refuse to let her have an epidural to
teach her a lesson.

Come on, he's having sex with a 15 year old. He should be locked up
for statutory rape.

Where did she say his age? I just assumed he was about the same age as the
girl. If he's older, that changes things somewhat. Otherwise, I don't see how
separating the girl from someone she has an attachment to is going to help her
at this difficult time, and the boy needs to be encouraged to have a
relationship with his child if they are going to keep it.

Leslie

"Since she is a
minor and you make medical decisions for her, make sure she delivers
without an epidural so she doesn't make that silly mistake again."

Stormlady answered:

Well that's the stupidest thing I ever heard!!! How would that be
supportive? At 15 years old her labor would be hard enough, I certainly
think it would be the worst thing to do, to deny her pain medication if she
needed it. And it certainly would do a lot to cause irreperable damage to
the relationship between the stepmother and stepdaughter. Not to mention
the father and mother, whose decision it would be anyway, not the
stepmothers.

ITA. That would be cruel, if she wants one. Having a baby to raise will be
enough of a wakeup call for her.

It was not an "accident" it was done on purpose. Someday, the
girl will probably settle down, get a job, get married, and want to have
more children. Why scare her away from a potentially good family life with
more children because of a bad labor and delivery when she was 15.

The girl wishes to raise the child so I don't think anyone has the right to
tell her that she is having an abortion or giving the child up for adoption.
While the circumstances may not be the best, the baby is still a precious
gift that should be treasured and enjoyed. It is quite possible that this
will be the wake up call that the girl needs and she will settle down and be
a good parent to the baby. It would not be the first time that it happened.

I've seen that happen myself.


Leslie had it all right with her post earlier!!!

Thanks. :-)

Leslie

On 24 May 2004 14:56:53 GMT, (Leslie) wrote:
If she were my child, I would go to court to have visitation taken away from
the mother. The boyfriend may be from a bad family, but you haven't said
anything to indicate that he is a bad guy, so I would allow him to visit your
daughter at your home under your supervision. She is a minor so you don't have
to let her marry him or move in with him, nor should you. You also need to get
counseling for her. She needs to be comfortable about what she decides to do
with her baby. If you force her to give the baby away she will never forgive
you, but with counseling she may reach this decision herself.
Here is where the tough love comes in. you require her to seek prenatal care,
take good care of herself while pregnant, attend parenting classes, go to
counseling, go to school, and get good grades. You also require that she show
respect to you and to her father. In return you provide support and allow
supervised visits with the boyfriend (whose wishes about the baby's future
should also, IMO, be taken into consideration).
You make it clear to her that after the baby is born she will still need to go
to school (or study at home), and that the care of the baby when she is at home
will be up to her. You could insist that she work to provide support for the
baby, but I wouldn't do this. I would instead make plans for the boyfriend to
contribute. In return, you agree to continue to provide a home for her and for
the baby.

Coming from someone who has been in a somewhat similar position as the
pregnant girl in the OP, I completely agree with Leslie.
Do NOT try to convince her to stay away from the boyfriend or to give
the baby up or have an abortion. That can haunt her for years to come,
I know.
Marie

Marie said:

Coming from someone who has been in a somewhat similar position as the
pregnant girl in the OP, I completely agree with Leslie.

Thanks, Marie. I hope I never have to follow this advice myself, but it's nice
to hear from someone who knows that it's helpful advice!

Do NOT try to convince her to stay away from the boyfriend or to give
the baby up or have an abortion. That can haunt her for years to come,
I know.

I'm so sorry. :-(

Leslie

On 24 May 2004 15:54:11 -0700, (jitney) wrote:

Since she is a
minor and you make medical decisions for her, make sure she delivers
without an epidural so she doesn't make that silly mistake again.

Oh. my. gawd.
You've got to be kidding. Withholding pain relief would be the utmost
in cruelty!
This is not some "silly mistake" that she needs to have consequences
forced on her.... the natural consequences that will occur might be
enough!

Nan

Jitney wrote:

"Since she is a
minor and you make medical decisions for her, make sure she delivers
without an epidural so she doesn't make that silly mistake again."

Uh.....huh. And while we're at it, let's circumcise teenaged boys so they
won't masturbate, and oh, um, let's see. When you go in to the ER to get
stitches for cutting your hand while trying to slice a bagel, let's refuse
you the novacaine because what you did was stupid and you should learn from
your mistake, and when you get in a fender-bender because you leaned down to
grab a CD that fell on the floor, and you screw up your neck and back, let's
refuse you muscle relaxants and anti-inflammatories because you need to
learn not to be so stupid, and pain is SUCH a good teacher....

--angela

"jitney" wrote in message
om...
I would wait until a little while after the baby is born. Often (not
always) a pregnancy/childbirth is just the wake up call that a
youngster needs to start taking life seriously. I would recommend
against abortion, it only continues the cycle of not facing
consequences, and she might well end up pregnant again. Since she is a
minor and you make medical decisions for her, make sure she delivers
without an epidural so she doesn't make that silly mistake again.
You and DH should get into counseling now before your relationship
goes past an irreversible decline. You have my prayers and best
wishes.-Jitney

When you have a child before you're 18 you get to make your own medical
decisions.

Denise

(snip description of stepparenting hell)
It's completely a mess and I've had enough! My husband is great and
I love him but we all saw this coming. The child has never had any
consequences for anything and has been coddle so much.If my husband
would give the tough love that he preaches so much about it would be
a different story but he says one thing and doesn't allow follow
through with it. Anytime I bring it to his attention he gets
extremley aggitated. Supposedly he is telling her (stepdaughter)
at the meeting tomorrow with all involved that if she is going to
live w/ the b-friend that her bags will be packed and she'll be out
tomorrow night but I doubt that he'll follow through with it. So you
see I'm tired of all of it...we've been trying to have a child and it
always seems that something comes up with the stepdaughter that gets
his mind off track.I truly contemplated throwing in the towel. She
doesn't want to give the baby up for adoption (we want her to go to
a maternity home) and I just can't see my husband kicking her out for
a while (she's only 5 weeks preg.) We know for a fact she did it on
purpose getting pregnant because she does and gets what she wants.
Her mother dossn't care to see her anymore (yeah after she allowed all
of this tohappen) so here we are to take care of all the crap. I just
don't think I deserve this anymore. Like I said I love my husband he's
great but at what point to you say I'm gonna be a basic case
if I continue with this. The child totally disrepects me...Help

This is a horrid situation, and I'm sorry to hear you're going through
it.

I went through something kind of similar just a few years ago, only in
my case it was an irresponsible stepson. He had a great deal of
potential when he was younger, but as with your situation, there were
signs of upcoming trouble along the way and my then-husband wouldn't
nip them in the bud as they came up. Instead, there would be a lot of
blustering and threats about how the kid was going to be punished the
next time he did something wrong, and of course, when the kid
misbehaved again, there was little or no followup. There was also a
lot of finger-pointing at his ex-wife, even though she lived 200 miles
away, rarely saw the boy, and wasn't the one monitoring him.

I did make some attempts to improve the situation, asking that we all
go to family counseling and that we do something to improve our
parenting skills. (Some of the stuff that went on made it clear that
we were pretty darned inept.) I even contacted the ex-wife and asked
for her permission to go to counseling with the kid myself, but my
husband managed to defeat that effort. In the end, my attempts were
pretty ineffectual, and combined with my husband's inconsistent
parenting style - either overly harsh or nonexistent - the kid grew up
thinking that actions don't have consequences.

At some point I became the sole wage earner and things became even
worse. My job was horrible, with lots of stress and very long hours.
My husband would sit around all day watching trashy TV and downloading
porn off the web. My stepson dropped out of school altogether and my
out-of-work husband couldn't seem to find the time to go to counseling
appointments at the continuation school or make his son do school
assignments. Then, unbeknownst to me, my then 18-year old stepson
began boffing his under age girlfriend in his bedroom while his dad
was in the house and I was at work. When I found out, I hit the
ceiling; not only was it illegal, not only would his dad do nothing to
stop it, but I started having visions of ending up slaving to support
two more mouths (girlfriend + a baby).

The conclusion to this is that I finally got enough and moved out. I
guess the final straw was realizing that this man I was sharing my
life with had time to play with himself all day, but he didn't even
love his own son enough to work with him and try to get his life on
course. Knowing that, I didn't respect him anymore and I couldn't
stand to live with him. I got gouged very badly in the divorce, but it
was worth it just to get my life on track. I'm now happily remarried
to a great guy, most of the financial hell is over, and I'm expecting
a child in September. (Which reminds me: funny how the ex conveniently
forgot his promise to reverse his vasectomy after we got married.)


All of that is pretty long-winded; sorry. The common threads I think I
see with your situation a

- Stepparenting can be a pretty gut-wrenching experience. You can be
devoted to your husband and really care about the kid, but in the end
your needs and opinions may be ignored AND you may get to deal with
the fallout of whatever happens.

- The business of your husband not being consistent about discipline
is pretty scary. You've already seen some of the results of that, and
it isn't likely to get any better unless he changes his ways. Getting
pregnant at fifteen may be the tip of the iceburg.

- There may not be a blessed thing you can do to make things better
unless your husband is willing to admit that there's a problem and
seek help for it. In fact, you may end up being reviled for even
pointing out that there's a problem. And you're not only going to get
to deal with the consequences of what your husband does, but what his
ex-wife does as well.

- Your husband has had a relationship with his daughter longer than he
has you, so unfortunately, your relationship may take a backseat to
that one until she's grown. That includes things like starting a
family.

- Your stepdaughter needs love and consistent discipline, but you may
not be in a position to provide them, even if you want to.


My suggestions:

- See if you can get some distance from the problem for awhile. Go
stay with friends or relatives, get some space, think about what you
want and need from life. Pamper yourself and recharge your batteries.
That may give you greater clarity about what you need to do, whether
it's staying in this relationship or getting out of it.

- See if your husband is willing to go to counseling with you or
otherwise work on some of the issues you're all having to deal with.
If he isn't, well, draw your own conclusions. In my case, that was
indicative of not really being committed to the relationship or making
things better.

- Regardless of anything else, go to counseling or find some other
support mechanism for yourself. You're going through a lot of stress
and are having to confront a lot of decisions, and it would be nice to
have some support.

Good luck!

"Denise Anderson" wrote in message
...

"jitney" wrote in message
om...
I would wait until a little while after the baby is born. Often (not
always) a pregnancy/childbirth is just the wake up call that a
youngster needs to start taking life seriously. I would recommend
against abortion, it only continues the cycle of not facing
consequences, and she might well end up pregnant again. Since she is a
minor and you make medical decisions for her, make sure she delivers
without an epidural so she doesn't make that silly mistake again.
You and DH should get into counseling now before your relationship
goes past an irreversible decline. You have my prayers and best
wishes.-Jitney

When you have a child before you're 18 you get to make your own medical
decisions.

Denise


Actually, this has been an issue-when my 11 yr old student told me she was
pregnant at school, by law, we couldn't directly contact her mother.
Legally, we had no right to do so. What we ended up doing was contacting
Children's services, since any sexual activity in a child that young is
considered to be sexual abuse, and they had to contact the mother.
Similarly, I know she was able to throw her mother and aunt OUT of the
delivery room entirely and to block them from seeing the baby. Legally, a
pregnant girl has the same rights a pregnant woman has.