I’m afraid of having another child because of my disabled sister

I’m currently 9 months pregnant with my first child. I already had this fear even before I was pregnant, but now that I’m here, the question has become even more real. I have other reservations, the main one being the lack of money, which would decide for us if we’re OAD as we simply couldn’t function if we had another. I also have mixed feelings if I’m even capable of genuinely loving two children equally without unintentionally favoring one child. And then the whole balancing act of making sure you’re devoting equal amounts of time to each child sounds exhausting and impossible to guarantee. I just don’t know if I have that attention span frankly.

But those aren’t the reasons I wrote this post. I think my childhood is a unique one in that even though I am the oldest of two, I was functionally an only child. To put it bluntly, I got none of the pros and all of the cons when it came to having a sibling. I have a three year age gap between my little sister, Ella, and I. I was actually one of those kids who was dying of excitement at the thought of having a sibling, especially another girl to play Barbie’s and dress up with. And for a time we had a normal sibling bond, but then Ella started showing signs of regression. At two, she was diagnosed with autism. She is a nonverbal severely autistic person who will need 24/7 care for the rest of her life. There are only a few things she can do for herself unassisted and she isn’t able to communicate beyond a few certain words. Needless to say, this affected every aspect of our lives. I never got the playmate and friend I hoped for, but I did feel the loss of my parent’s attention as a child. In the end, I still had no one to talk to and spent the majority of my free time alone, but with the added pressure that since I was the “normal” one, I had to be on my best behavior. I wasn’t allowed to be mad or frustrated at the situation. And turns out I’m also autistic, but my parents couldn’t see that since I’m high functioning.

Growing up I was very aware of all the strain my sister’s condition put on my parent’s mental health and marriage. My mother especially (and still to this day) is an emotional trainwreck barely keeping it together. Just absolutely riddled with terrible coping mechanisms. Now here’s why I feel like I’m OAD. I was always sure I wanted to be a mom, but as I got older I developed a fear of having a child like my sister. That it would completely dictate every aspect of my life and I would become like my parents. I know it’s very superstitious of me to think my second child will be very disabled purely because that was the case with my parents, but I can’t shake the feeling. If my son turns out to be neurotypical or at the least high functioning, there’s something in me saying to count my blessings and never attempt to have children again.

I feel like my story is the antithesis of the idea that adding a sibling improves the quality of your first child’s life. I love my sister, but no, my and my parent’s lives would have been objectively more peaceful if she hadn’t been born. I know to many that sounds like an unforgivable thing to say, but it is the truth when you strip away all emotion. I don’t say this to imply that I wish she was dead or to wallow around in what ifs, that is a waste of time. She is here, she is my sister and all we can do is accept reality and try our best. I still mourn that we were never able to have the regular sibling relationship as sisters, bad and good. The truth people don’t want to acknowledge is every pregnancy is a gamble and you have no idea what you’re signing yourself up for. You have to decide what level of risk you are comfortable with. But idk, let me know if I’m being silly. Would you be leaning the same way in my position?