SecretMethod70

Well I wasn't going to mention it, but others have, including soma, so it does seem suspect to me that you've been going through relationship troubles and that you're so much more stable than she is and now *oops!* she's pregnant. I wouldn't accuse her of it directly - there's no good way to do that - but it's something to consider when you're deciding whether to keep trying for a relationship with her or simply fulfill your duty as a father. What were you two doing for birth control? Condoms? The pill? Both? Something else?

As for this mentality that it's your own damn fault for having sex in the first place, I'm not one to blame people for following biological imperatives. Blaming someone for having sex is like blaming someone for eating. That said, just like one can eat irresponsibly (overeating, eating more than they can afford), one can also have sex irresponsibly (without adequate birth control, etc). Assuming you were using birth control, I think your biggest mistake was having sex with someone who you weren't positive was sane enough to recognize when a pregnancy should not be continued. Anyway, that's all in the past. My point is simply to say that it's unreasonable to expect people to forgo sex entirely. That urge - and these sorts of mistakes - are kind of the entire basis of our advancement as a species.

I think genuinegirly gives some very good advice, but I disagree with the idea that your parents might magically be OK with an interracial relationship just because there's a grandkid on the way. I don't know why, but people have this tendency to think children fix everything. Your girlfriend seems to think it will fix your relationship (it won't, and it will screw all three of you over in the long run), others here seem to think that the wonder of creating a life will make up for the fact your financial life is going to suck for the next 10-20 years (it won't, regardless of what approach you take to the situation), and still others seem to think that a cute little interracial baby just washes away any inherent racism grandparents might have (it won't, in fact it might just make it worse, especially considering the child is out of wedlock).

None of this is to say that these are good excuses to be a deadbeat dad or anything like that. I don't get the impression that you're considering skipping out on your responsibilities, and I don't know why some others seem to default to that assumption just because you're not happy with the situation. Rather, I acknowledge the negative to sympathize with you: telling you what you feel is wrong and that you should be happy about all this isn't going to do anything to help. It's important to know, first and foremost, that what you're feeling is OK. It's OK that you're not happy. Don't ignore what you're feeling because other people tell you it's not right; embrace your feelings so that you can see them, accept them, and move on from them.

Once you've accepted that what you're feeling is OK, it's easier to move past those feelings and determine the best course of action. Your relationship to the child - should it be born and kept by the mother - only has a few options, ranging from full on dad to absent source of money. Seeing as how any hint of you doing anything less than that is only in the imagination of other posters here, I'm not going to dwell on that.

Your first step is to have many long, hard discussions with the mother about why it's not a good idea to keep the child. I don't know what her reasons are for not having an abortion, so let's assume that's non-negotiable. If that's the case, I'd focus on the fact the child will have a much better life with a different family than with the two of you barely able to support it. It doesn't sound like she's one to respond to reason, but it's worth a shot. Focus on how the child's life will be better, not how your lives will be better. She's clearly not capable of thinking rationally about your own lives. I'd mention the prospect of having grandparents who resent it as well, because that is an important issue if you're talking about providing the best life for the child.

During these discussions, observe her reactions, because your next step after finalizing what is going to happen with this pregnancy is figuring out what is going to happen to your relationship with the mother. Even if you convince her to go through with adoption, she could change her mind, so you need to assume that you'll be responsible for the baby until it is officially, legally not your responsibility. Working with that assumption, you need to know if there's good reason to suspect that it is not truly yours or that she got pregnant intentionally. Observe how she talks about the pregnancy, how she reactions to the idea of adoption, why she is against putting the baby up for adoption, and decide how likely you think it is that the baby is not yours or was intentional.

Asking for a DNA test is likely to severely damage your relationship with the mother. If she has cheated in the past then you have good reason to want one, but she's going to be insulted by the request either way. Be prepared for that consequence before you decide to ask. Not because your relationship with the mother particularly matters here, but because if she keeps the baby then your relationship with her will affect your relationship with the child. Asking for a DNA test will be a very sensitive discussion. That's not to say you shouldn't do it: if you do suspect that the child may not be yours, then going through that difficult discussion is better than going through a lifetime of caring for a child that is not your responsibility.

The even bigger issue is the question of whether or not this pregnancy was intentional. There's no point in ever making this accusation directly, because nothing can be done with it. Intentional or not, if the child is yours then it is your responsibility. (Side note: Men seriously get screwed by the law in this regard, but I have yet to think of a satisfactory way to give men the same power to denounce a pregnancy that a woman has.) Could she have intentionally skipped birth control? Could she have sabotaged your condoms? If you come to believe that she planned this, then that does two things for you: 1) It will tell you that this is not a woman you want to remain in a relationship with. This will help you determine what role you are going to play in the child's life, and it will also help determine whether or not you think the issue of a DNA test is worth bringing up. 2) It may help you convince her to give the child up for adoption. If she intentionally got pregnant thinking that it would tie you to her and you make it clear that you have no intention of letting this pregnancy tie you to her as well as the child, then she may realize it's best to give the child up for adoption than to raise it as a single mother. You'll never know if she did this intentionally, so the best you can go on here is intuition.

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I just thought to add: a very good friend of mine found out he was the father of an unwanted pregnancy back in February. Both he and the mother have law degrees, and they had already been living together for over a year at that point. They decided to keep the baby and got married right away, but they were not exactly enthused by the development. They weren't calling their friends spreading the good news, and when they finally got around to telling me that they got married and will be having a baby, there was a mixture of happiness and disappointment. I share this story to stress, again, that you should not feel guilty for being unhappy about all this. If two relatively stable young lawyers who are already in a committed relationship aren't happy about their unwanted pregnancy, then you definitely have a right to be unhappy about yours.

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