You are not going to get any answers from strangers on a college blog, this is up to your daughter.
She did have another choice that you didn’t mention, she could forget Princeton and go to a college closer to home, many people have successful lives graduating from non ivies.
Your daughter is probably feeling scared, lost and that she has let you down, I would suggest you continue to love and support her and not let her feel like she has disappointed you in any way.
We all have dreams for our Children but sometimes life has different plans for us.
Hugs to you and your daughter. I hope together you all will make the decision that all of you could live with in the long term. One option will definitely be out for me, that is to marry that BF. I wouldn’t call him devout Mormon if he had premarital sex.
Best of luck.
Just agreeing, if termination is on the list of options, then the window for that decision may be a couple weeks more, and certainly not anything like 16 weeks more.
If she has just found out she is pregnant, she could be 8 or more weeks already (since pregnancy “begins” on the date of the last period and some young women may not realize they have missed a period so don’t realize it’s a possibility until several more weeks have passed). Ordinarily, the window for termination closes by the end of the 12th week of pregnancy so that option would be “on the table” for a brief period and after that, comes off for good.
Get to a doctor to confirm it and identify how “far along” she is, and take it from there.
My heart goes out to all of you.
Princeton is SCEA not ED so if another school closer to home makes more sense she has no obligation to attend Princeton. You do need to be mindful of the deadline to notify them of her intent to take a gap year which is in the spring.
Your immediate issue is will she graduate on time? Can she remain in her current high school if she remains pregnant and assuming there are no complications in the pregnancy so she stays enrolled? Is she even willing to do that? That may help provide the answer for you.
What does your daughter want to do? Does she have a strong opinion about what she wants to do, or is she on the fence?
In considering her options, the most important thing to keep in mind is that the decision will impact the rest of her life – not just the next four college years.
If it matters to you, I can tell you what I know I would have done at that age – and what my own daughter would do in that situation. Sometimes it helps to hear how others would approach it. LMK if you want to know.
Assuming this is real, I don’t believe starting Princeton in the spring is an option, and even if it were I wouldn’t recommend it even if it were. I had a roommate (at Harvard) who got pregnant junior year. They folks there were remarkable supportive. They allowed her to carry a very light load that spring. She decided to carry the baby to term and give it up for adoption. She did marry the Dad, but only many years later. It was not easy - she probably cried every day that spring.
I think your daughter should get counseling. I think it’s her choice whether to keep the baby, give it up or have an abortion. She can take a gap year if she does either of the first two options and figure out. Princeton will wait. I personally don’t think she should marry the boyfriend. She’s too young.
https://hres.princeton.edu/undergraduates/explore/other-housing-cases says that Princeton undergraduates with children may be able to live in graduate student housing.
Other schools may also have their own provisions for undergraduates with children or spouses.
This does happen to families. So it seems worth discussing since it will probably happen to someone reading along. It has happened to various family friends, and I know individuals who made all the decisions outlined in the OP, and think it is important to think of the long term consequences.
One young woman came home for the winter break freshman year, pregnant and very clear that a relationship with the bio-father was impossible. She never went back to college, moved home with her parents and they raised the baby while finishing raising her. She was the youngest of a large family. Her baby had cousins the same age. She worked in family businesses after her child went to school.
In another family, the mother insisted her son (last year of college) marry a young woman he barely knew after a drunken oops. His parents told him they were going to help raise the baby, financially and otherwise. That marriage lasted a couple of decades, through on and off separations, until Grandmama passed away. Her daughter-in-law and granddaughter both adored her. Son is happily remarried.
These were families fortunate enough that finances weren’t a huge issue in the decision, but keeping the baby absolutely changed a whole lot of lives. Both of these young parents had siblings impacted by the decision (sometimes resentful as the grandparents were understandably focused on the baby for whom they were essentially primary caregivers) . And no empty nesting
While I agree that ultimately this is the pregnant daughter’s decision, it is a decision that has the potential to impact a family for the foreseeable future… There is a whole lot of consider and there isn’t a universal right and wrong here in my opinion.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
Let’s keep the responses respectful, please. Since this could be helpful to users in addition to the OP, let’s assume the question is valid.
If this is believable, I would seek counseling for your daughter.
Assuming this is real…as a pro-life Catholic, I’m going to wade in here to object to @Sue22 's advice to avoid getting advice from pro-life groups and adoption agencies. In this scenario, IMO, EVERYONE is biased. Nobody is going to kidnap her and force her to give birth if she seeks advice from e.g., Catholic Charities, or adoption agencies. But pro-life groups are more likely to step forward to give help if having the baby is the OP’s D’s choice and thus are better able to give advice as to how overcome difficulties.
As @oldfort explained, the D may not have maternity coverage. There are 4 ways that I know of to overcome this problem. One is to marry the dad IF he has coverage–and if he’s in school, he probably doesn’t. One is to ask Catholic Charities or another pro-life group for help. Usually, there is a network of pro-life doctors and Catholic hospitals who will help out financially with free prenatal care and delivery.The Sisters of Life is another good source of help that way and in other ways http://www.sistersoflife.org/visitation-mission-pregnancy-help The third is to give the child up for a private adoption, with the adoptive parents agreeing to pay medical expenses. The benefit of choosing the “pro-life” adoption here is that the bills are paid whether or not the bio mom gives the child up for adoption.The fourth is for the young woman to buy her own individual policy. My understanding is that this is hard to do but the earlier it is in the pregnancy the more likely an insurer will permit this. (And,often Catholic Charities is a good place to find out which insurers, if any, in a state will permit this.)
Some Catholic colleges are very welcoming to pregnant students/single moms. See, e.g., http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/quality-care-for-pregnant-students .
Adoption these days can be as open or closed as you want. Indeed, there are adoption agencies which permit a pregnant mom and prospective parents to correspond via email and phone calls for many months before meeting in person before deciding if this is the right fit. One of my co-workers who wanted to adopt was paranoid about drug and alcohol abuse during a pregnancy, so he and his wife actually had the mom and her older child move in with them for almost the entire pregancy. That way, they knew she wasn’t getting drunk or high, was seeing a doctor regularly, and was eating right.
Again, I don’t know if this post is “for real.” I am not so naive that I am unaware that many, if not most, young American women in this situation choose abortion. I am only saying that if a young woman isn’t sure what she wants to do, it makes sense to investigate all her options and to consult more than one place for advice.
The college doesn’t matter one bit.
If true…make sure this young future mother has excellent prenatal care.
You need to go together to the doctor’s and have absolute confirmation of how far along she is. Eight weeks would be very typical, even ten (teens are very good with the ‘its not happening’ panic/denial mode) meaning you really don’t have sixteen weeks (unless you meant she is due in sixteen weeks) but regardless of what you do you need to know how many weeks the embryo or fetus is.
It may have been a situation where kids are very focused on pretending they’re not having sex ‘because they’re good kid’… so they don’t need protection’… and then it happens anyway. (Adolescent magical thinking: if I don’t have condoms, then I wouldn’t have sex and I’ll remain chaste. I’m serious.)
Marrying is not an option in my opinion.
If they’re meant to be they’ll remain friends and can marry once they both graduate from college.
Where is the father going to go to school? Will he even be able to get involved in the baby’s life?
My opinion, which could well be very different from yours and your daughter’s, is that she shouldnt have a baby since she can’t provide for it/him/her (nor herself). And I really don’t think teenagers should have to go through the pain of adoption if it can be avoided.
A teenager about to finish high school is even in a different situation than a college junior or senior. Going through the physical and psychological pains of motherhood just don’t mesh with high school age. There’s a huge psychological and quite some physical difference between 17 and 21.
How have you reacted? What have you said?
It must have taken her enormous courage to speak up. And you must be very upset.
She must be feeling distraught, confused, lost, guilty (especially since you didn’t think she was sexually active - and for all you know, she wasn’t, until she was.)
Does your faith community have a belief in that matter, is that a belief you share, that your daughter shares?
Has she asked for your support? Your help? Your advice?
I think this needs to be a two step process. The first is gathering information and deciding what she wants to do. The second is formulating a more specific plan with the help of outside agencies. The problem with going to an adoption agency or advocacy group is that it can interfere with step one. An adoption agency counselor may have her best interests at heart but they are approaching pregnant from a perspective that adoption is best and they have a vested interest in seeing the child placed with an adoptive family.
Going into an adoption arrangement without a clear intention to place the child is IMO, cruel. You’re asking a childless couple who may have waited for years and suffered through countless medical procedures to pay for medical expenses for a child who will never be theirs. Birth mothers do change their minds, and adoptive families understand that but she needs to do some serious thinking before committing to adoption or any other alternative.
Take a breath. Do some talking, some thinking, some research. Have her talk to her doctor, her partner, her pastor, her parents. Make a plan knowing it could change. Love her, hug her. Tell her that although her life may never be the same it is not ruined. No matter what she decides she will be the same smart, accomplished, lovable person she was before and she can still do great things with her life.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
I would have assumed that I did not need to say this, but I assumed incorrectly:
This is not the thread to dazzle other users with your knowledge of statistics. Nor is it the place to debate pro-choice v. pro-life. The OP is looking for advice and support, not a PowerPoint presentation with graphs. Several posts deleted.
She told you she is pregnant. Did she take a test?
It’s surprising that the BF is a devout Mormon but had premarital sex anyway. I guess he’s not really that devout.
CONGRATULATIONS !!!
I was born when my mom was 17. She graduated from college (gap year helped) and stayed married to my father for 50 years. Made great career. Actually, she was 40 when she started making career, and her children were already in college and she was free. It worked really well for her.
Princeton provides excellent support to young families. Your D will be living in a subsidized apartment, take advantage of free child care and, hopefully, her tuition will be waived as well.
What not to like?
IME a whole lot of unplanned pregnancies happen to couples believing premarital relations and BC to be sinful.