am i selfish?

[Leigh22]

Hi There,

I am not sure if this is in the right area so I apoligise if it is not. My husband and I have been together for 6 years, married for 4, and emotionally we are very ready to add a little baby to our household. Financially we probably have a ways to go, if we were to have a baby now then I will need to go back to work after my 12 weeks paid maternity leave.

Am i being selfish wanting a baby now even though I know that I will have to go back to work (at least 3 days per week)?

Thanks for all opinions!

[briggsy's girl]

Hi There,

I am not sure if this is in the right area so I apoligise if it is not. My husband and I have been together for 6 years, married for 4, and emotionally we are very ready to add a little baby to our household. Financially we probably have a ways to go, if we were to have a baby now then I will need to go back to work after my 12 weeks paid maternity leave.

Am i being selfish wanting a baby now even though I know that I will have to go back to work (at least 3 days per week)?

Thanks for all opinions!

if everyone waited til they were financially in the best place possible to have a child, population growth would be in the negative big time! it's entirely up to you when you have a child - for one thing, you may not become pg straight away, which gives you additional time to save for baby's arrival...

i think if you look at the baby bonus payments, and maybe work out with your employer if you can take your mat leave over twice as long at half pay (i'm doing this) you migth find you can spread your leave over a longer period of time...

do what is right for you - if you're ready, you're ready. anything can change your financial situation at any time - you simply learn to cope! going without a family until times are ideal - well, that isn't so easy to do...

[BeautifulMadness]

As usual BG good advice.

No one is ever finically stable for a baby, and there is nothing wrong with going back to work part time for 3 days.

For me id like to continue my studies when my 2nd baby is around 6 mths old. just so i feel normal and apart of the human body.

[Leigh22]

Thanks ladies,

I was really happy with our decision but a friend today made an insensitive comment.

Feeling much better again now Yay to officially starting trying to conceive! At the end of the day our baby will be loved, thats the main thing.

[tattoo_mama]

darl, people will always say rude things, someone said to me that im irresponsible cause DP and i are not "set up" yet, as in own a house etc...so i said, you think itd be better to wait til we have a debt of $400k? she was a bit taken aback by that one LOL

im planning on staying hm for at least a yr, cause that suits us (i worked out that if i go back to work i will lose alot of centrelink benefits plus childcare costs, even if i went back 30 hrs a week wed only be about $100 a week better off, not worth it IMHO)
but its diff for everyone. i dont think youre selfish at all. just make sure you research and check out whichever child care centres your keen on sending your bubs too...my friend just went back to work fulltime and puts her 7 month old in CC, since hes been there he has become very clingy cause the CC workers hold him ALL day, she gets hm from a day of work and he wont let her leave the room for 1 minute....and theyve mucked up his previous sleeping patterns too.
just gotta weigh up the pros and the cons, HTH GL

[beau_9]

i'm going back to work when bubs 9 weeks. i work at a childcare centre so bub will at least come to work with me. people keep saying to me am i taking 6mth - 1 yr off and when i say 9 wks they give me a strange look, but i have bills and a mortgage and i also love my job and think i'll be bored out of my mind at home alone, but that may change when i settle into a routine, and may only go back part time. ultimately its your decision.

[Floweryfields]

Yes, good advice indeed!

[mitzy81]

I was in the same sort of situation, can we afford a baby or not, we sat down and worked it out, and have a saving plan and are TTC. Don't feel guilty at all, like someone said, we have mortgages, rent, bills and food to buy, it is very different to when our parents had us and stayed at home and raised us and didn't get back into the workforce until we were at school! I would like to be able to take 12months off once I am on maternity leave, but whether or not that happens, I don't know.

[Glamourcide]

Good luck hun, don't worry, there is NOTHING at all selfish about adjusting your income/work pattern etc to suit your personal situation. As others have said, and I firmly believe - if you wait until you're 'ready' financially, chances are you'll be old and grey before that day arrives! I truly believe that in some cases it's better to just jump in at the deep end and figure the rest out later on - babies don't need buckets of money and nice things thrown at them to thrive, so if you have the money, great, but if you don't, you'll figure it out
DH and I were in pretty dire straits when we got pregnant with DD, and she was planned. I was waitressing part-time, he was on the dole, and we managed to provide the necessary things for her despite struggling to pay the bills. We planned to have another baby 'when we had the money', and then DH was having a chat with an older workmate, and the workmate just told him, 'Mate, get in there and have another one or you'll be 60 before you can 'afford' the next one'... so DH came home from work that day and said if I wanted to, we could start trying right away - which was awesome because I'd told him months beforehand that I wanted to start trying in August, so its birthday would be in the middle of the year, and he had said no until the chat with his colleague, which just so happened to be at the start of August! Of course a lot of people called us crazy, wondering how we were going to afford two kids, but it's so easy when you prioritise and use what help you can get - family/friends can help you out at baby showers etc, Centrelink is quite generous to families so definitely look into what sort of entitlements you will be eligible for (honestly, don't know what we'd do without the couple of hundred a fortnight we get for DD!), and employers can be very accommodating if you just put yourself out there and ask what sort of options can be worked out for you.

I'm a stay-at-home mum and DH works, sure money can get a little tight at times but for the most part we are doing really well - budgeting is so important, learning to live without those little 'luxuries' is hard, but it makes you feel like a much stronger person when you can see that you can do it If going back to work has to be done, then it has to be done - you won't miss out on anything and the best thing is that you will have your gorgeous little family to come home to every day! Everybody's individual circumstance is different to the next person's, so don't worry about the judgment you will get from misinformed people who think they know better because they did things a certain way. Stay at home, go to work, partner at home, part-time work... trust me, you can't win!!
So just go with your heart and do what feels good *for you*. You own't regret it.

Good luck with the babymaking!! Hope it all comes to fruition very soon

[Doing my best]

Hi Leigh,

IMO, if you wait till you are financially ready, it may never happen.. BUT, you can make things work for you.. We were married for 4 years before we had DD and would have loved a baby earlier, but we needed and wanted to get a few debts sorted 1st..

But there are ways you can make it work. It is hard going back to work when baby is so young, but if that is what you need to do and want to do, then that is ok. I know a lot of ladies who have had to put children in CC at that age, and while it tore them to pieces, they had no choice. I did it for a while, but then we made some sacrifices so that I was able to stay home again.

I don't think you are being selfish, but maybe if you do a bit more planning and you might find some ways to cut costs so you can afford it now.. GL

[tellytubby]

Leigh so happy you're now TTC!
I agree with the others, if you waited till you could 'afford' a baby, you'd be waiting a long time! LOL! Things will always work out. Don't stress what others say, starting a family is a beautiful thing!