Pregnant? – Now what?

Discovering you are pregnant, can release a whole range of emotions. It is a time when your circumstances, plans for the future, desires and deepest feelings come to the fore. You may have conflicting thoughts and emotions, with your circumstances suggesting one course of action and your feelings leaning towards another. Your head and your heart can pull you in different directions.

But there is a big question to answer and it helps if you can address it calmly.  Will you choose:

• To continue with the pregnancy and be a parent when the child is born?
• To continue with the pregnancy and plan to release the child for adoption?
• To end the pregnancy by abortion?

To speak to a member of our counselling team who will support you in exploring your thoughts and feelings, please contact Acorn on 01903 823893 or complete our contact form to make an appointment.

Here are some steps to help you, if you are not able to come to Acorn or reach us by phone.

1.  At Acorn, we help you look at your circumstances.

You could list them. They might include:

• Your age
• Your health
• Your finances
• Your relationships
• Your future plans and dreams

You can then consider what your circumstances would suggest to you about a way forward.

For example,  “I can/can’t have this baby because I’m young/old….”
“If I go ahead/terminate this pregnancy my boyfriend/partner/husband will be pleased/disappointed/angry…”

2.  At Acorn, we also help you look at your desires and deepest feelings.

Deep feelings can come from instincts or beliefs, held either consciously or unconsciously. For example:

• You may never have expected to be considering an abortion
• You may have been critical of people who have abortions
• You may worry that people would judge you
• You may not want to have an abortion, but feel you have no choice
• You may love children and hope to have a family one day

 

3. You may find yourself in a conflict between your head (logical thinking) and your heart (deep desires, gut feelings and instincts)

There is a need to recognise this and take some time to try to unite the two sides – the rational and intuitive parts of you.  Listen to your own voice and know your own mind, because the decision is yours and will affect you the most.

At Acorn we encourage you to consider your unique situation, then list the advantages (or gains) and disadvantages (or losses) for all three options.

Here is an example. Yours may be very different.

We suggest you think about each gain or loss and decide if it would be a long term or short term gain or loss. It can help to rate them on a scale of 1-10 to decide how much they will affect you, both now and in the future (say 10 years’ time). You may decide that you need more information about the three options before you make your final decision.

When all these steps have been worked through, you may be closer to being able to make your decision.  You can still phone 01903 823893 for an appointment to talk to one of our counselling team.