is the child alive or not?

hello..

i have a friend who is pregnant..

when she confirmed that she is pregnant the baby is about 3 months..

after a week she decided to take an abortion pill, cytotec to be precised..

she followed the instruction of her friend who suggested her to abort the child..

yet a week had passed, no abortion occurred.. no bleeding or anything at all

so she decided to do everything that is a big no no for pregnant women..

she eats a lot of salty food, drinking sodas, drinking brandy..

and another thing, i forgot to tell you that the father of the child is her own father..

her belly seems to grow slowly..

and she still has no menstration..

when she went to a clinic, (a very small clinic just along the roadside) the doctor did some tests like the thing that detects the heartbeat of the baby... it took some minutes before the doctor find the heartbeat.. the doctor said the baby is normal..

the day after..

she requested an ultrasound in the same clinic because it is very cheap.. a lot cheaper compared to other clinic's ultrasound.. the one who did the ultrasound said that the bay is normal and its about 4 months and a day old..

yet the picture out of the ultrasound machine, seemed unclear.. and they didn't explain where the baby is, what its feature or shape.. she is having difficulty finding the baby in the picture.. and the doctor said they can't still figure out the gender of the baby..

it's been a week after the tests, she still does the things that pregnant women should avoid..

what do you think?

i can't answer her questions..

so i decided to get some help from this site.. pls help us..

thanks..

no one in the family knows that she's pregnant..  

she's really having a hard time and i'm the only one who can help her..

but i dont know what to do..

[tiredbuthappy]

The child is alive. Some ultrasound machines are not as good as others, which most likely explains the unclear picture. Honestly, a "a very small clinic just along the roadside" will most likely not have the best equipment.

Cytotec is a PRESCRIPTION medication with potentially dangerous sideffects. She should NOT take this without a doctor's guidance. Please please please stress this to her.

I don't know where you are, but there are safer options for her.
First of all, doing things she is not supposed to do will not cause her to abort naturally. It may make HER sick, and can definitely harm the baby, but it will not terminate the pregnancy. The clinic she went to may be able to discuss her options with her. She may be too late for an abortion.

Also, consider speaking to her about getting to a rape crisis center. She is obviously having trouble difficulty coping with the situation. Her father belongs in jail. If he is doing this to her, it is very possible that he is doing this to other young girls.

[kjbutcher]

seriously, the brandy is the only real concerning thing here.  salty foods, sodas...not really a huge deal.  some on here may disagree, but you can drink 3 8oz cups of coffee with caffee per day and still be ok.  I have never heard not to eat too many salty foods.  that is actually on thing that people crave, is salty foods. and to make you feel a bit better, technically it would take 2 drinks per day to get fetal alcohol syndrome.  some docs even say a drink here or there isnt horrible.  Personally on this one, I wouldnt do it.  It is not abnormal to not know the gender at this time.  It is not abnormal to have an unclear u/s.  if she did not drink enough water before the sonogram, it could be cloudy.  I dont understand what you mean by they didnt explain its features or shape and where the baby is.  the baby is in the uterus or she would be in the hosptial with emergency surgery, and it looks like a normal baby.  I have never had a sonographer hand me a picture and go over it with me.  It is just a souveniour, not a medical document.  I would do my best to explain to her that it is a healthy baby at this point.  should she decide to try to kill it, she will still have to deliver this baby and doctors will figure out WHY it died and she willb e in trouble!  Most likely if she tried to kill it, it will not die and she will end up with a retarded baby and she will have to deal with for the rest of her life.  At this point she only has 5 months left so she might as well get on some vitamins and stop drinking and deal with it.  she needs to get some couciling for the fact that her own dad is the father and get the heck away from him.  she should also meet with some planned parenthood people to discuss her options for adoption should she really not want to keep this baby.  

[GRose]

Very well said kjbutcher!!!

[peekawho]

What country are you in?  She has to decide if she's going to continue with the pregnancy or not, if indeed she is actually pregnant.

The whole thing sounds frankly bizarre.  She needs to stop going to roadside ultrasound stands and get in to a real doctor and find out what exactly the situation is.

Then she has to decide quickly whether to have the baby or not.  What she's doing is not going to make a pregnancy go away.

[Countrymama]

i think the best thing to do at this point would be to seek REAL, PROFESSIONAL medical assistance...medicaid or even indigent health care may take her. or she can seek a shelter that will help her get medical attention that she and the baby need. and get away from the man that did this to her.
drinking and eating unhealthy are just that....unhealthy. it's not good for her or the baby. if there is a hearbeat, then the baby is alive...but the effects of the cytotec and alcohol consumption won't be known until the baby is born. i think that after the first trimester she has no choice but to continue with the pregnancy.
good luck to her.