Glad I could help.
Not so much with the new-baby fears thing, though. I got nothin’ on that count.
A few things:
On sharing rooms - when my house was built in 1928 it was smaller than it is now (a porch was later enclosed) so let’s say it probably had 1500 square feet. Kitchen, living room, dining room, one bathroom, three bedrooms (we use one as an office.) In the 1930 census there were SEVEN PEOPLE living in this house, two of them an uncle and nephew. They obviously survived just fine - most of the older people I know never had the luxury of their own room, well, sometimes ever if they got married young.
Additionally, not that I want to add more stress to your life or anything, but have you considered more radical changes? If your money goes god knows where, your job is sucking, and your house is too small, have you considered moving? You can get a lot more house for a lot less in a lot of the country, possibly.
When it comes to the money - it’s going somewhere. You gotta find out where. Food bill? Okay, are you wasting anything? Throwing stuff out when it gets rotten? Do you need to do more menu planning? (Try cookforgood.com for some really good tasty recipes that cost practically nothing.)
And you know you can’t think of the money you make in terms of the money your dad made. The last year my mother taught, she pulled in a big fat eleven grand. That was with a masters’ plus 30 and 16 years experience. Now I make almost four times that, but I still don’t make a ton of money, you know?
And don’t worry too much about the baby - when I was born my mom was 39 and my dad was 49. It was fine. Consider this - I’m 31, and now they’re suddenly taking on my half-brother’s three teenagers. You could be doing that!
My sister and I also shared a room for a long time, we are also very very different, and it also didn’t kill us. In fact, according to college folk, having your kid share a room is actually very good parenting, since it teaches them compromise, manners, communal living skills, etc. So while the 11 year old may want her own room, well, there are some pretty significant benefits to her development if she’s denied that.
Check and see if your company has an EAP and whether you can talk to a therapist. It sounds like, in addition to all the stress you’re carrying, you recognize that you are also having irrational fears, and it may help to talk to someone.
That was about the same size of the house our family of seven lived in for eight years, too (I think the one bathroom was the worst part of it - no using the toilet while someone else was bathing). We did have a basement, though, so we played in it and eventually my sister got a room in it.
I don’t think you should be afraid to take some exercise time without your kids, either - I’m sure you love them all to death, but maybe you’re a better dad when you take some stress-relief time and stop wanting to strangle them. 
(And some time alone with your wife on after dinner walks is like a mini-date, which I’m guessing the two of you don’t do much of any more).
That is the sweetest idea!
No words of wisdom, because I’m not married, have no children, no mortgage, no car payment (old car). But I just wanted to let you know, Crown Prince, that I am genuinely in awe of how you have kept it together so far with all of the stressors in your life. I think of my life as pretty stressful (PhD programs are only slightly less painful than paying some thug $50,000 to kick you in the nuts once a day), but I don’t have half of the shit going on that you do. No one (other than my students, but they’re all adults, nominally anyway) depends on me and I can come and go as I please pretty much.
So, keep on keeping on, Crown Prince. You’re strong, you’ve demonstrated that much. You’ve gotten through the stuff before, and you’ll get through this.
Shovelglove. Swinging around a heavy sledgehammer for 15 minutes does a world for stress relief. You can even imagine yourself bashing all the stressful things in your life. Raaawwrrr!
Advice: Use that awesome income of yours and hire a nanny or a regular babysitter. Kids are overwhelming when you don’t have enough space.
For me, I find what often helps is to come up with whatever solutions I can find, to the problems bothering me. So, if I were you, I would say:
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I have been to the Doctor, and am ok physically. The feeling of dread is likely due to stress. When I feel it, I can remind myself of that, and pick a more positive mental frame: I am only 39, I have lots of good years left to spend with my kids.
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the 11 year old will survive sharing a room with her sister, and perhaps benefit from it in many ways. perhaps I can help her find ways to cope with the situation better, get what she needs. Then I can strike it off my worry list. The furnace and crack are more of a concern; we need to find a way to budget for issues such as those.
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regarding finances, the best way I have found is to itemize every expense. Though perhaps this one might be better left to slide until after the newborn weeks. Then look and see where corners could be cut to save $$ for other priorities. We gave up cable, we don’t eat out, we don’t get takeout or delivery. We have a prepaid phone that we put $100 on once a year, and use for emergencies only. With a little one in the house we do depend on frozen meals (lasagnes, etc) for truly heinous days, because it fits in the budget. But there are a lot of cheap, healthy, quick meals we use the rest of the time. We buy pretty much all clothes second hand, especially for the kids, and this makes a huge difference to our bottom line (we buy underwear, bathing suits, pjs, and shoes new - my personal preferences). We spent money on a GPS, and a backpack carrier for the little one, and our weekend family activities are free - picnics and geocaching. Then once we have a good idea of what we need to spend, we allocate amounts to monthly categories (groceries, other household expenses, personal expenses) and record all we spend. Seems like a big task, but when you get used to it it’s really just a couple of minutes a week. It helps immensely, because when we look at the bottom line, we can decide “well, we can live with fraying towels indefinitely. they are not worth breaking the budget for”. Then monthly we put a set amount into an emergency buffer for unexpected, necessary expenses.
How to Stop Worrying and Start Living, by Dale Carnegie.
I’m ordinarily not a fan of self-help books. They tend to be “one solution fits all” and it never fits me. But this one is different. You use it like a workbook – he even recommends highlighting sections and going back and re-reading it several times. There’s nothing earth-shattering or new about his methods (fer crying out loud, the book was written over 50 years ago!). But they’re “tried and true” and that means they work.
My husband has a high-stress job and he carries it around with him. I begged him to read this book and he dug his heels in – he’s just not a self-help book kind of guy. A month or so later, I started noticing his mood had improved. He seemed happier, more upbeat, way less worried. When I mentioned that I had noticed the difference, he sheepishly “confessed” that he’d been reading this book.
Mazel Tov on the new arrival!
A very strong suggestion - lose the 40 and a few more. I cannot begin to tell you what an incredible difference that will make in your life and your outlook on life.
Weight Watchers, extra exercise, whatever it takes.
And a vasectomy is cheap, comparatively speaking.
Single, childless Doper here…but with two possibly useful notes.
A co-worker of mine a few years ago seemed to have a lot on his plate. He lived in a small two bedroom house, and had one and a half kids. I was helping him do some remodeling at the house in anticipation of the rest of the half kid showing up. Even though we worked long hours on weekends at his place…and our real work was busy during the week, he kept everything going. He’d come into the office in the morning and tell me about what he accomplished at home that morning - painted a bathroom, redid some electrical lines in the kitchen, etc. And he’d tell me about time he spent with his kid.
I asked him how he kept going. His answer - when you have a family, you just DO. You find a way.
Other story - when I was growing up, my father had a rule that we couldn’t bug him about anything for the first half hour after he came home from work. This created a buffer zone for him where he could just relax and decompress after the office. Half an hour later, he was in full Dad mode, with all the rights and responsibilities that entailed. I think that time really helped him cope with stress.
Good luck.
-D/a
I’m going to be 50 this year, and I’ve got a 2 1/2 year old and a 6 month baby. We thought hard about having kids at this stage of our lives (my wife is 12 years younger).
I’m a few pounds over what I should be, but I exercise frequently, and have more energy than many fathers who are 10 years younger. Of course, we’ll see how it will be in another 10 years 
If you can lose the weight, I think you’ll find you have more energy.
Growing up, the five of us kids (3 boys, 2 girls) shared two bedrooms.
Sorry I haven’t checked in for a few days - thanks again to all for your advice and sentiments.
To everyone recommending I start exercising - I’ve resolved that I absolutely need to. Finding the time is challenging to say the least, but I thought long and hard about it about it, and if I don’t find the time to get in better shape, I’m not only cheating myself out of the best years of my kids’ childhoods, but I won’t be in any condition to enjoy life after the kids leave the house. I do believe that I’d be better equipped to handle the physical symptoms of stress if the vessel containing the stress were in better condition.
As for the other stuff - no simple answers there, but you guys have really helped me see that the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t a freight train. It’s especially good to know that so many of you shared bedrooms and wound up ok (I’m being a bit presumptuous - half of you may be serial killers, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt :)).
You know, this might be a significant factor for me - I normally have a half-hour drive to and from work, but for the last month or so, I’ve been working from home much more often due to some early morning calls for a project in Europe. Having the 30 minutes to prepare for the day, and decompress afterward probably helped me to sort out my stress better than getting on calls straight away, and having the girls come home from school literally the minute my workday ends (often I’m still trying to wrap up after the girls have gotten home and started fighting).
Luckily, the frequency of these calls has been reduced, so I should be able to make it in to the office a lot more - we’ll see if that helps any.
Can’t help much with the other parts, but this? That was where I was about a year ago – I literally was covering responsibilities that took three people in any of the other areas of the plant. Way too much work, we hired a PhD to split the work with (I’m just a BA engineer), and it looked like I would be losing all the “fun” parts of my job and getting shown up by the PhD.
Not how it worked out At All. A year going on my stress levels are way down, I actually have time outside of work to enjoy. And – most importantly for you – I got lots of kudos for the smooth transition and for having done all that work myself for so long. (And lots of apologies along the lines of “Sorry, we didn’t know it was that bad until [new PhD] started trying to learn it all.”)
So, rather than worry, I’d say look forward to the relief. More time with the kids, I’d think, too. But you’re likely to find the turn-over a feather in your cap, rather than an excuse for termination. And it’s much easier to maintain perspective without high stress levels from work.
I would recommend getting involved in the hiring process for the new help, though. Me and the new PhD get along really well, which made bringing him up to speed much more enjoyable, and makes work itself much more fun being part of a team, too. It was really win-win for me.
oh, yeah: Go, work out and get out in the sun more, too.
My suggestion is maybe you could put in a garden in your yard and grow vegetables. You could get your exercise in and harvest food that you didn’t need to buy. Maybe it’s just psychological, but I have a earthbox on my balcony and I get a lot of satisfaction harvesting my tomatoes and peppers in the summer.
I’m going to go against the grain here. I think there’s a strong possibility that your fourth child is already a write-off. It’s not even born yet and it’s a burden for you; that’s not likely to change when the doc places the little bundle in your arms. Do you know any couples who are desperate to have a child and can’t?
A suggestion for the 11-year-old:
What type of bed does she have? If it’s bunkbeds, it’s simple, otherwise, it requires a little work. Set up drapes around her bed, to give her some visual privacy. Heck, do it for the younger girl at well. If that’s not feasible, then one of those folding panels to divide the room.
Consider holding a garage sale and getting rid of as much clutter as possible. If you haven’t used it in a year (with the exception of baby stuff), get rid of it. What you can’t get rid of, organize, and put the kids to work as well. This is a family, there is a new member arriving, and they have responsibilities.
Keep an eye on Craigslist and Goodwill for stuff you know you will need. Find a yoga or Zumba or kung fu DVD the whole family can exercise to. Make use of your library and parks.
Can you cut down to just one car? The savings in gas, insurance, and car payments would be tremendous.
Starting a garden (from seeds, not seedlings) sounds like a good idea as well.
Good luck, and hang in there.
Huggles.
Have you considered a vasectomy? I don’t think having yet another child is a good idea considering your living situation.
At the risk of sounding judgmental, an 11 year old girl REALLY should NOT have to share a bedroom with a sibling. It won’t kill her but if you CAN make space for her to have her own room, do it. For now, maybe consider keeping the baby in your bedroom and putting your younger daughter and son in the same room (putting a newborn with your son will not be conducive to him getting any sleep).
Look at your house space to see if there is someplace you can cannibalize or split up to add in another bedroom. Family room? A small finished area of the basement? An addition onto your house? When I was a teenager I slept for a couple years in our damp, unfinished basement just to get some privacy, and loved it compared to the alternative. Just because you can’t sell your home doesn’t mean you can’t carve out a private space for a preteen.
Hell even just putting up a solid partition to divide a bedroom in half would be a great start.
Being on the coast in Northern California, I know what its like to live in gloom, mist, rain, wind, fog, and thats all on a good day. I grew up in the desert Southwest and I am not adjusting well lack of sun. I got a few full spectrum lamps and put them in places where I sit and read or work. Mr. Surrounded likes the fact I have to wear tank tops under them.
I think we all forget how to live with less. When my mother left my father, all 9 of us shared a 2 bedroom basement apartment. I remember being so frustrated with having to share a room that I went and slept outside on the back porch in the summer. It was amazing to wake up and feel the wind, see the stars, and hear the crickets. I wouldn’t trade that for anything. We ate leftovers for breakfast. To this day I would rather have reheated meatloaf and mashed potatoes over ceral anyday.
It was, God I hate to admit it, and if you ever tell my mother I will deny it then come to your house and punch you in the throat, character building.