Expanding the family?

Well, we finally got health insurance! Yay! We've been waiting for months to be able to get insurance so we can work on having another (final) baby. The only problem is that now that I can actually go ahead and get pregnant, I'm finding myself scared to death. I really want my daughter to have a sibling and I want to have them pretty close in age. I just can't help thinking about how much harder my life is likely going to become. I think about the nap situation a lot. My daughter used to nap on top of me for the first 6 months of her life and I was strapped to the couch for two hours or more a day while she did this. There is no way that is going to happen with a second child as I will have to be running around after the first. Also, my daughter is down to one nap now and the new baby will be napping a lot and then will go to two naps so how do I ever leave the house? How do I coordinate naptimes between the two of them? I don't know how I will be able to function without my two hour break in the middle of the day.

Leaving the house is another pain in the butt prospect. Trying to lug the baby around while chasing after the toddler does not sound like fun to me. Throw in there a purse and diaper bag and it sounds like pure hell. My daughter has been sleeping through the night for months and months now and I don't know how I will go with the lack of sleep again. It was ok before because when my daughter kept me up at night, she would sleep most of the day and I could nap with her. I won't be able to do that this time around because I have to take care of my older child. I don't function too well on very little sleep and I feel that I am nowhere near the best mother I can be when I have not slept well. I also worry about the fact that we only have two bedrooms so the kids will have to share a room. I remember the first week that we had the baby sleeping in her room she cried and cried and I don't want to have her waking up all the time when the new baby is crying. It is just such a logistical nightmare!

I feel like I have finally regained some semblance of my own life and it will be kind of hard to give that up. I'm also selfishly afraid what a second pregnancy will do to my body. It was very kind to me the first time around, but I'm not so sure about a second time.

All in all, now is the best time to do it since I still have a couple more years in school (which is online) so I can stay home with the baby before I have to worry about getting a job. I also know that even though it will probably be very difficult for the first 6 months or maybe a little longer, it will ultimately be wonderful and it will add such happiness to our family and give my daughter a playmate and friend.

I have always taken the easier path in my life and I know that the easier path in this case would be to stick with just one child and pour all my love and attention onto her and just enjoy the blessing that I have now. Having a second child will be more chaotic, stressful and tiring, but it will be worth the extra work. Nothing in life worth having ever comes easy and I think that applies to this situation as well. I'm just going to have to take up drinking coffee or something! I hope that if it ever comes to be that both the kids are sleeping at the same time, I can magically learn to fall asleep very quickly and get a little refreshed.

Even as I write this I don't know why because worrying about all this stuff is not going to make me not have another child and it is not going to do any good because I can't really figure out any of the particulars until after I have the baby and see how he or she deals with sleeping and all that other stuff. I guess I'll just take a deep breath, stop worrying, and start trying! Wish me luck! :-)