Learning to loosen the ropes

For the past year and a half, Will has had only one babysitter. She watches him all day every day, and although I’m sure she would be willing we’ve never asked her to watch him at night or on the weekends. She needs her personal time with her own family, and having her give up that time to watch him even more just wouldn’t be right. So we stay home most of the time and only go out for a date night when one of his Grandmas is in town.
 
Recently, we’ve realized we need a back-up babysitter. We need to have someone, or a group of people, available to watch him. We need to be able to do things together, to enjoy each other’s company as a married couple instead of sitting at home staring at each other and at the television all the time. We need to be able to do things with our friends, and maintain a healthy social life so we don’t kill each other. At the very least, we need to have somebody that can be our emergency back-up.
 
So earlier this week, we ventured out to meet a woman recommended to us by Will’s regular sitter. Everything went fine, we really liked her and her husband, and the opinion of our current sitter weighed heavily in their favor. We’re going to have her watch him for a few days next month.
 
I’m thankful that this opportunity came to us, but at the same time I’m already feeling anxious about leaving Will with somebody new. I’m sure everything will go just fine, but I experience a pretty high degree of anxiety when it comes to my child. I worry that something bad will happen, that the person won’t know how to care for him the “right” way. I feel guilty that I’m not there. I beat myself up over all of that. I know some of those feelings are normal, but I do think that a big part of it is exaggerated by my anxiety issues. I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s also one of those situations that will be harder on the parents than on the child.
 
I’m trying to put this in perspective and remind myself that this is not a terrible thing. I was anxious when we first left him with L, and things turned out just fine. There’s no reason to believe this will be any different.

Right?