Why I Fear Another Baby

As I laid in bed with my youngest this morning trying to get her to take a nap she ran her little hand through my hair almost as if she knew I was thinking about my fears of welcoming another baby. At the same time I could feel movement in my belly from our new baby and my mind couldn’t help to think about what that baby might mean for my other three children. I don’t have fears about the stress, my postpartum body, the money, the love or the lack of time I will have to myself because those are all things that will fall in place. I fear jealousy. I fear that my other three will get less time from me and in turn the new baby won’t get the quality time he/she deserves. I fear that my other three children will feel left out or angry with me. My oldest is in kindergarten and sometimes it is hard enough finding time for him to read to me at night so what will I do when there is another? The plan is that this baby like all the others will be breastfed and what will my one year old think when I am occupied for twenty minutes every few hours by a new baby? This is not the second time I have had these fears – when I was pregnant with Mason I had the same fears for Wyatt. My boys are 18 months apart and around 20 weeks all I could think about was that maybe we were too quick to get pregnant again. Wyatt was just starting to talk and develop his own personality and here I was bringing another baby into his territory. This time it feels different though – it feels worse – it is hitting me a lot harder. Although I am not as worried for the boys I worry about Delilah. Things are different with her – she will be one and a half when the baby is born, just like Wyatt was when I had Mason, but we spent a week in the NICU, a week in the PICU, I breastfed her for an entire year all the while she wouldn’t drink from a bottle and because I work from home she gets my undivided attention all.day.long. Will she cry and through tantrums? Will she only want her dada? Will she try to be mean to her new little brother or sister? As I cry tears about it today I do have visions of my new family of six snuggling in my queen size bed on Saturday mornings. A few kids will be at the foot of the bed and there won’t be enough blankets to stretch around us all but everyone will be loved.