just an average tuesday morning panic attack (edited for honesty)

What if I waited too long?  What if the delicate balance we have in our household - one where Niblet has undivided attention - will be destroyed with another little person?

I have long said that I wanted a baby because I want a baby, but what would this do to Niblet?  She has always wanted a sibling.  But she is now almost 8.  She thinks she wants to love another little person in our home - that a sibling, even a baby, would just mean another soul to love. Just yesterday, she expressed that she would love to "teach a baby all kinds of things." But any adult could tell her that her life would change.  She would be a part of a larger unit. She would no longer live the only life she's known as an only child.

Let me say at the outset that I don't believe that she should be expected in any way to help with a baby, if one were to fall into my lap tomorrow.  I write this because a the few people I have spoken with this about in real life have commented that I would have an automatic mothers' helper.  Well, that makes me uncomfortable.  She is not a mother, she is a little girl who has her own loves and joys and dreams.  I want to continue on her own path, with the activities that she loves.   I am really uncomfortable with theoretically laying an expectation on her as she gets older, like being a built-in baby-sitter when she's a teenager.  That would be the road to resentment, wouldn't it?

But what would a home look like if we were no longer three?  Is it even possible for me not to upend my daughter's life if my attention is divided?  I am quite sure that other moms who work outside the home with more than one child would be laughing their asses at me right now, but REALLY, is it possible for me to parent the way I currently parent if I am parenting more than one?  Of course it isn't.  Is that a bad thing?  I just don't know.

Sorry for my whining.  It's just that this is just feeling so-goddamned unfair today.  All of it.  The pesky fear that I am on the wrong path, and potentially ruining the lives of my loved ones, most importantly my one living daughter.  By not just leaving well enough alone and coming to terms with my infertility.

Jesus I'm sad.  We started at this when she was ALMOST THREE years old.  Five years later.  A fucking eternity has passed. And I am still here.  Stuck.