Possibly going to be a father (out of wedlock)

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MJDorry said:
This is going to be a long. I don’t know what I want to get out of posting it. Encouragement? Prayer? Advice? Just to vent my anxieties? I’m 28 and I feel like I’m 15.

I’ve only been dating my GF exclusively for about four months, but we’ve been seeing each other for six. For the first five months, we were good about not getting physically intimate. Then, back during the second week of June, we sinned and chose our sexual desires over our love of God and purity. It was one time and I did more than “pull out”; we stopped having intercourse well before I even reached a tipping point. But perhaps this was enough, as I am now reading that some men can carry residual sperm in their pre-ejaculate fluid.

My GF was supposed to get her period at the beginning of last week. As of today, she’s a week-and-a-half late. Granted, there are a couple of other factors that may be playing into this: she did start a new and intense workout regimen last month, and I suspect she wasn’t eating enough (she apparently has a habit and history of skipping meals). And she’s dealt with polycystic ovary syndrome-like symptoms since coming off of birth control a few years ago, with her cycle never quite being chartable, and other physical expressions of hormonal imbalance.

She says she’s been having a lot of clear discharge and only today had some brown. The former of which I’ve read can be an early sign of pregnancy; the latter being a sign of old blood—and in cases of potential pregnancy, a sign of implantation bleeding…

In the case that I do become a father, I don’t know how I’m going to pull everything together. I have a secure job, but I only gross $30K, and my old college bills bury me as it is. My GF doesn’t fare any better.

I’m a full-on doctrinal Catholic at heart, but I’ve never taken the plunge of confirmation and entry (mostly because I’m wary of liberal or poorly-developed RCIA programs). My GF is not Catholic, and although she states she’s open to Catholicism, she’s not confident she’ll ever agree with some of the most important doctrines. I want to marry in the Church, and I want to do it right with a Catholic woman, raising my children Catholic, but I also don’t want to abandon my GF or raise our child as two single parents if my GF won’t convert with me.

I’m just swirling in my head right now.
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First things first…

Get her to take a pregnancy test to see if she is actually pregnant. No need panicking if she isn’t even pregnant.

If she Is, I would also request a paternity test.

Only when those two tests are positive do you need to think about things.
 
Truth_Faith13 said:
First things first…

Get her to take a pregnancy test to see if she is actually pregnant. No need panicking if she isn’t even pregnant.

If she Is, I would also request a paternity test.

Only when those two tests are positive do you need to think about things.
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If she’s pregnant, she’s going to be pregnant a long time before a paternity test is an option.
 
Truth_Faith13 said:
First things first…

Get her to take a pregnancy test to see if she is actually pregnant. No need panicking if she isn’t even pregnant.

If she Is, I would also request a paternity test.

Only when those two tests are positive do you need to think about things.
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Right. :rolleyes:

No need to concern oneself about how to go about housing, feeding, dressing, and raising a child until a couple weeks after that child is born. What could go wrong with that plan?

The irresponsibility is strong with this one!
 
Xantippe said:
If she’s pregnant, she’s going to be pregnant a long time before a paternity test is an option.
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Not anymore. Prenatal paternity tests are available via a maternal blood draw at around week 10, no amnio required. Not all insurance companies cover them though, and if he’s reasonably certain his girlfriend has been faithful, the request for one may not be worth the resulting fallout with her.
 
BlueEyedLady said:
Not anymore. Prenatal paternity tests are available via a maternal blood draw at around week 10, no amnio required. Not all insurance companies cover them though, and if he’s reasonably certain his girlfriend has been faithful, the request for one may not be worth the resulting fallout with her.
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Interesting.
 
Allegra said:
Right. :rolleyes:

No need to concern oneself about how to go about housing, feeding, dressing, and raising a child until a couple weeks after that child is born. What could go wrong with that plan?

The irresponsibility is strong with this one!
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That’s not exactly what I meant. I’m sure there are paternity tests that can be performed while she is pregnant but I could have made that up. I only meant to calm him down. He is panicking about everything and she may not even be pregnant. Even then it may not be his so he doesn’t need to worry about marriage etc until he knows the answers. Obviously the child needs to be cares for…

But thanks for being rude…
 
BlueEyedLady said:
Not anymore. Prenatal paternity tests are available via a maternal blood draw at around week 10, no amnio required. Not all insurance companies cover them though, and if he’s reasonably certain his girlfriend has been faithful, the request for one may not be worth the resulting fallout with her.
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Nice to know I didn’t make it up. I thought there was something but couldn’t remember details
 
Allegra said:
Right. :rolleyes:

No need to concern oneself about how to go about housing, feeding, dressing, and raising a child until a couple weeks after that child is born. What could go wrong with that plan?

The irresponsibility is strong with this one!
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I don’t think he/she is saying that. They’re just saying first things first. First, figure out if she actually IS pregnant. Then, if so, you can start planning for what comes next. But worrying about which crib to get is a bit premature at this point.
 
Truth_Faith13 said:
That’s not exactly what I meant. I’m sure there are paternity tests that can be performed while she is pregnant but I could have made that up. I only meant to calm him down. He is panicking about everything and she may not even be pregnant. Even then it may not be his so he doesn’t need to worry about marriage etc until he knows the answers. Obviously the child needs to be cares for…

But thanks for being rude…
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Your welcome, and I’m glad to hear that you were only talking about waiting to discern marriage and not waiting to prepare to actually support the hypothetical child until paternity is proven. You didn’t make that distinction in your post. You said he didn’t need to “think about things”. It sounded an awful lot like the preliminary line from every deadbeat dad when they find out they’re girlfriend is pregnant. You can’t ask for a paternity test without accusing a woman of infidelity. Depending on the situation, that might not be the best route.
 
BoomBoomMancini said:
I don’t think he/she is saying that. They’re just saying first things first. First, figure out if she actually IS pregnant. Then, if so, you can start planning for what comes next. But worrying about which crib to get is a bit premature at this point.
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That’s how I understood it too.

Prayers for all involved in this situation.
 
That’s probably for the best since the OP seems to have abandoned the thread.
 
Prayers said, all around.

I can understand the OP’s panic, especially if he is prone to having issues with anxiety.

I agree with everyone else though, in that his girlfriend should just do a pregnancy test.

I wish the OP well, whatever the outcome. 🙂
 
Allegra said:
Your welcome, and I’m glad to hear that you were only talking about waiting to discern marriage and not waiting to prepare to actually support the hypothetical child until paternity is proven. You didn’t make that distinction in your post. You said he didn’t need to “think about things”. It sounded an awful lot like the preliminary line from every deadbeat dad when they find out they’re girlfriend is pregnant. You can’t ask for a paternity test without accusing a woman of infidelity. Depending on the situation, that might not be the best route.
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I wouldn’t always suggest it, but something about this story made me think he should check.

By the way, I’m a stay at home Mum of 2 children and pregnant with 3rd so full aware of parental responsibility and not a deadbeat Dad.
 
UPDATE: She started having her full period today. She tested negative yesterday on the First Response pregnancy test.

I am inexpressibly relieved, to say the least. But I did want to clarify some things in response to some of the posts. First, she did test last weekend also, and came up negative, but according to the World Wide University of Google, coming up negative doesn’t always mean you’re not pregnant, especially early on. Some women don’t produce enough HCG for even a blood test to pick up until their third month. Being as my GF has wacky hormones, I wouldn’t’ve been surprised if her pregnancy flew under the HPT radar.

My GF doesn’t use birth control either, and we had sex during her peek fertility—according to her cycle-tracking app—so you can see why I would still be distrustful of HPTs. In light of this, you might also see why I completely failed to understand the purpose of a paternity test until just now (their reasoning being, I now realize, that a pregnancy in unlikely circumstances may be a sign of infidelity). However, I would stress that I think the immediate jump to this advice from some posters comes off as a tad more cynical than was called for. But I understand the impulse.

I would like to thank those individuals who shared encouraging words. I would like to thank those who offered their advice in earnest. I would like to thank those who reminded me that this was an opportunity to really reflect on the man, the (potential) father, and the Catholic I want to be. And I would to thank anybody who may have prayed for my girlfriend, me, and our situation. I am grateful for it all.

I will say that this shocked me out of my recent complacency about my chastity with my GF. It shocked me into a renewed desire cling to Christ and Church in their fullness, and it also showed me that despite my fear and panic over a possible unplanned-for pregnancy, I was willing to own up and face the challenge of being a good parent. I had already begun to mentally prepare myself to shift into parent mode just in case.

Perhaps you might not agree, but I think that God played a hand in this for these precise reasons. I choose to see this scare not as a mere lesson, but as a grace, erring in the direction of a severe mercy. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit!
 
MJDorry said:
UPDATE: She started having her full period today. She tested negative yesterday on the First Response pregnancy test.

I am inexpressibly relieved, to say the least. But I did want to clarify some things in response to some of the posts. First, she did test last weekend also, and came up negative, but according to the World Wide University of Google, coming up negative doesn’t always mean you’re not pregnant, especially early on. Some women don’t produce enough HCG for even a blood test to pick up until their third month. Being as my GF has wacky hormones, I wouldn’t’ve been surprised if her pregnancy flew under the HPT radar.

My GF doesn’t use birth control either, and we had sex during her peek fertility—according to her cycle-tracking app—so you can see why I would still be distrustful of HPTs. In light of this, you might also see why I completely failed to understand the purpose of a paternity test until just now (their reasoning being, I now realize, that a pregnancy in unlikely circumstances may be a sign of infidelity). However, I would stress that I think the immediate jump to this advice from some posters comes off as a tad more cynical than was called for. But I understand the impulse.

I would like to thank those individuals who shared encouraging words. I would like to thank those who offered their advice in earnest. I would like to thank those who reminded me that this was an opportunity to really reflect on the man, the (potential) father, and the Catholic I want to be. And I would to thank anybody who may have prayed for my girlfriend, me, and our situation. I am grateful for it all.

I will say that this shocked me out of my recent complacency about my chastity with my GF. It shocked me into a renewed desire cling to Christ and Church in their fullness, and it also showed me that despite my fear and panic over a possible unplanned-for pregnancy, I was willing to own up and face the challenge of being a good parent. I had already begun to mentally prepare myself to shift into parent mode just in case.

Perhaps you might not agree, but I think that God played a hand in this for these precise reasons. I choose to see this scare not as a mere lesson, but as a grace, erring in the direction of a severe mercy. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit!
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Best wishes!
 
MJDorry said:
UPDATE: She started having her full period today. She tested negative yesterday on the First Response pregnancy test.

I am inexpressibly relieved, to say the least. But I did want to clarify some things in response to some of the posts. First, she did test last weekend also, and came up negative, but according to the World Wide University of Google, coming up negative doesn’t always mean you’re not pregnant, especially early on. Some women don’t produce enough HCG for even a blood test to pick up until their third month. Being as my GF has wacky hormones, I wouldn’t’ve been surprised if her pregnancy flew under the HPT radar.

My GF doesn’t use birth control either, and we had sex during her peek fertility—according to her cycle-tracking app—so you can see why I would still be distrustful of HPTs. In light of this, you might also see why I completely failed to understand the purpose of a paternity test until just now (their reasoning being, I now realize, that a pregnancy in unlikely circumstances may be a sign of infidelity). However, I would stress that I think the immediate jump to this advice from some posters comes off as a tad more cynical than was called for. But I understand the impulse.

I would like to thank those individuals who shared encouraging words. I would like to thank those who offered their advice in earnest. I would like to thank those who reminded me that this was an opportunity to really reflect on the man, the (potential) father, and the Catholic I want to be. And I would to thank anybody who may have prayed for my girlfriend, me, and our situation. I am grateful for it all.

I will say that this shocked me out of my recent complacency about my chastity with my GF. It shocked me into a renewed desire cling to Christ and Church in their fullness, and it also showed me that despite my fear and panic over a possible unplanned-for pregnancy, I was willing to own up and face the challenge of being a good parent. I had already begun to mentally prepare myself to shift into parent mode just in case.

Perhaps you might not agree, but I think that God played a hand in this for these precise reasons. I choose to see this scare not as a mere lesson, but as a grace, erring in the direction of a severe mercy. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit!
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I wish you and your girlfriend, all of the very best, too!
 
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