Soul Searching...

I'm new to this forum, and something tells me that I'll be a part of this community for a long time to follow. I was adopted at birth by loving and caring parents who provided a wonderful life to me. My birthmother was quite young (15) and was born to two teenagers who "had to get married" and her mother resented her all of her life, so when she was 14 and pregnant, her father insisted that she give it up for adoption so that she would not repeat this cycle... So, that's my background. Here's the present... For a few years after I was married and tried to have children I wound up at a fertility clinic and was placed on medication to make me ovulate. A short time after that, I had my first child, who is now 14 years old. I had my second child 22 months later (all planned because of the necessity of being on hormones) and 4 years later, I found that I had been enrolled in a buy two get one free program. My body it seems, started to "work properly" all on it's own and I was the surprised, shocked (and intially not overly thrilled) owner of a "positive" pregnancy test. So, to recap, I just turned 40 years old, I have 3 children who are now aged 14, 12 and 8. I just found out (much to my shock and horror this time) that I am again pregnant when my birth control failed. I'm a woman of better than average intelligence, and for crying out loud, my oldest child is nearly at an age where discussions of birth control should take place. I'm finding that I'm going to NOT be the best person to have that discussion! I am weighing my options, they're all difficult. I was raised to believe that abortion was immoral. Within my own "family" I have a cousin and his wife who are not able to have children, and I am sure that I could not ever dream up a better home for a baby. They are both Doctors and have desperately wanted a child for a number of years. Hearthache after heartache has fallen upon them as they attempted to adopt from within the country that they live, and then going abroad. My dilema is that I don't know what choice I can live with in life. I don't know that when push comes to shove, I would not be able to relinquish my child to a loving set of parents after I carried the baby to term. In addition, there's the whole quandrum of how to explain that to my children as well as to my family. I also know, (based on some other things in the big picture of my life) that I don't think that I could start this parenthood thing over again from scratch. My youngest child had some serious special needs, which has diminshed greatly in the past two years, but he is still a "unique" little man who is a few years behind his peers in his development. The cause of his "uniqueness" has never been diagnosed or explained to me... my chances of this being a repeat performance are unknown to me, but of course will linger in the back of my mind. I am "older" now and will be nearly 41 at the time that I should be delivering. The purpose for this post... I'm unsure. Soul searching "out loud" I suppose. With each of my pregnancies I had kidney stones which were more difficult/problematic with each child that I had.. and I was younger and more the "ideal" age for being pregnant. I've been to my Doctor, who of course will not go either left or right with his comments. I just know that I'm becoming more and more anxious as the days go on. I'm beginning week 7 of my pregnancy and realize that I must really do a lot of research in a very short period of time. Factually, I know that the uniqueness of my little man left me emotionally drained and despressed for a number of years.. I'm over all of that now, but I also know that I am not made of the stuff that it would take to do that all over again. I know that I really, REALLY don't want to be going to my oldest son's High School graduation with a toddler sitting on my lap. I know that I don't want to be referred to as this child's grandmother (could EASILY be my grandchild already at this age) and that I don't want to have a child that is orphaned at an early age. Options.. I view all my options as being wrong. There simply is NOT one that is the "good" outcome for me. I feel that there will always be the sense that I did the wrong thing. To abort will not be physically difficult, but emotionally I'm suspecting it will be a killer. To carry to term and deliver (all while hoping that the impending kidney stone attack doesn't actually harm the infant) is not going to be an easy thing for me given that I'm not exactly healthy as a horse. I have issues/concerns about the toll that it takes, and the increased possiblility of having gestational diabetes as well as high blood pressure. I know that my other 3 children will have to suffer as I would go along in my pregnancy in that I would not be able to do the things with them that I can now. I was HUGELY more pregnant with each child. My last pregnancy was brutally uncomfortable from about the 7th month onward as my bladder became the size of a thimble. And from there... delivering and giving it up for adoption, is a life time of issues for my children... having given away their sibling, "what if's" for me in my mind.. the always wondering/wishing/dreaming... and the option of keeping it and raising it.. again, not a place that I ever expected, or quite honestly, not a place that I WANT to be at in this point of my life. I welcome feedback of any sort from anyone out there. Has anyone ever gone through BOTH of the options and can offer any light or insight that I may be missing here? Thank you in advance for your consideration. Regards, Aleisa