As my cat ages becomes harder to take care of, I can't imagine ever wanting another pet.

This is probably the wrong place to post this, but I'm wondering if any current pet owners have felt this way, and if this is normal for my stage in life, or if I've changed forever from my more innocent days.

I used to love animals, almost more so than people. I adopted my current cat in 2013, when I already had another cat. So I had 2 cats until 2020, when my first passed away. That wasn't a good experience--it was a sudden medical problem that probably could have been treated if we'd recognized it right away, but was too far progressed by the time we took him in. I'm not sure if my guilty feelings over that are making me jaded, or what, but as my other cat is also beginning to have more medical and behavioral issues (which we are diligently going to the vet about), I've lost almost all of my pet-lover feelings.

All that's left are the chores of taking care of a cat that has become increasingly high maintenance. Food, medicine, litter box issues, constant meowing, etc. He used to sleep with us in the master bedroom, but now we have to close him out because he thinks the bed is his marking territory (He's been neutered since I adopted him). So he is always trying to sneak in our room to pee on the bed (we have went to the vet about this, it's not just an old cat bladder problem). He meows so much, and even if you give him everything he could possibly want, it's a gamble if he will stop. When I'm on the phone or a virtual meeting and people hear him, they think someone is being tortured. The sound of the meowing stresses me out so much that I sometimes have to take a walk or put 2 closed doors between us just to get away from it.

Added to these issues, I am 8 months pregnant, and the thought of having to take care of this cat when I have a newborn and a 3 year old is driving me nuts. I feel like there is a slight chance that the cat knows I'm pregnant, and maybe his bad behaviors will decrease after the birth, but if not, I'm going to go insane...

Is this the norm when pets age? Sometimes I remember how easy things were 3 years ago, or even better, 5 years ago when he was still playing and jumping around youthfully. Am I a horrible person, not suited to be a pet owner ever again, because I don't seem to have the loving feelings that others have for their older pets? People that have gone through the aging/medical-decline/expense of pets and then went on to adopt pets again, how could you do it?

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from Pets https://www.reddit.com/r/Pets/comments/mrd3sl/as_my_cat_ages_becomes_harder_to_take_care_of_i/