Please please please be kind, I am really going through it with this and could just do with some impartiality. Forgive me this is long and I don't really know where else to go.
My son is 2, happy and healthy. I'm due to turn 43 this month and my partner will be 48 in the new year so we had him late in life. Conceived naturally thankfully after a couple of very early miscarriages. Life just hadn't worked out the way we'd planned to have children sooner.
My partner has chronic health conditions - ulcerative colitis and a newly diagnosed liver condition which is related and could eventually lead to scarring of his bile ducts. It's quite rare and there's no cure so we don't really know what the future holds and he's at higher risk of getting cancer but he has regular colonoscopies, ultrasounds and CT scans. His diagnosis has taken us to some dark places mentally and it obviously plays on his mind a lot. His energy levels have definitely dropped in recent years and while I am part time but in quite a stressful job (working 4 days in 3), the bulk of parenting tends to fall to me, even when we're both off work. I think it's part laziness, part not knowing what to do, and part energy levels to be honest. I love it but I do find it exhausting and have wondered if I'd find the physical side easier had I been a younger mum (and I'm fairly fit and active). He has improved a bit as our son has got older but feeding and the sleepless nights pretty much fell to me in the early days. We have very little support around us family wise.
We are due to get married abroad next May. Deposits have been paid, outfits have been bought and the best part of 50 guests have booked hotels and accommodation.
I thought I had been fairly open to the idea of possibly having a second child to give my son a sibling and didn't particularly want to go back on the pill at my age, which my partner knew. I didn't want to have to tell my son that I'd proactively stopped him having a sibling, but felt if it wasn't meant to be that would be easier to live with. After 2 years of periods being a bit all over the place, worsening PMT and no pregnancy, I figured mother nature had other ideas and I was possibly perimenopausal. Went to the GP to get contraception to try and regulate my cycle, help with the mood swings and to ensure a pregnancy wouldn't clash with the wedding. Took a test that morning as I felt my period was a bit late and it was positive. I would be due about a week after the wedding.
Yes I've been utterly utterly stupid. But I am genuinely torn over what to do and I am so upset I've put myself in this position. I have cried for days and go from one extreme in my head to the other.
My partner wants to focus on our son and being grateful for the healthy blessing he is. He thinks the risks are too high with having a second at our ages.
I love the idea of having a sibling for my son but don't know if that is a big enough reason to go ahead. I don't want my partner to resent this second child and the chaos it will bring to our lives, even though none of the chaos is forever. My dad and my brother never got on for similar resentment reasons and seeing that with my own child and their father would break my heart.
I also don't want to risk his resentment when there's a risk of potential complications/genetic issues especially given our ages. I know there is a lot of screening done now but I keep reading about the links between older sperm and babies who go on to have schizophrenia, autism, learning difficulties and things that won't get picked up on a test. Plus there's a risk my partner could pass on his health issues.
Financially we would cope, but it would mean a big upheaval and potentially not being able to give our son everything we'd wanted to. Although I know he'd probably prefer a sibling to anything money can buy, even though there's no guarantee they'd get on.
Then I think about whether I can put my body through another pregnancy. And the risks that come with that. And how I was finally starting to feel like me again, although I now feel exhausted. I wouldn't want something to happen to me, or have a child with severe additional needs that then needs my son's care when we die. At the moment he'd be alone, albeit he does have 5 cousins he sees pretty regularly, but at least he'd get everything left to him. Then I think if my partner's health does deteriorate, am I better off just focusing on my son so there's just the two of us to get through it, whatever that might mean.
I also don't want to play God and live to regret ending a life that we are responsible for but didn't ask to be created. But then I'd struggle to forgive myself putting extra strain on my partner and son if something were to go wrong. I also think about how getting pregnant in the first place is a blessing and something lots of people pray for, and we should be grateful. I feel awful admitting it but I keep hoping I miscarry so the decision will be made for me, which is really cowardly I know.
I would really appreciate some thoughts as it is still very early days (4 to 5 weeks).
Thank you