Pregnancy: Are You Ready to Have a Baby? |
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Family:
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Most of what's written comes straight from the
book (Mother of All Pregnancy Books), but some of it I just shortened and
put in my own words.
"So you're thinking of having a baby - of trading your relatively same and orderly life for the chance to hop on board what can best be described as an 18-year-long roller-coaster ride." "Well, before you do anything rash, like tossing the birth control pills out the window or reaching for the thermometer and temperature graph, put on the brakes for a moment. After all, don't you owe it to yourself to find out what it's really like to become a parent before you agree to sign on the dotted line?" There are lots of things to consider before you make the big decision. Timing is one of the most important ones, and the one that most couple agonize over. If you are waiting for a magical signal that tells you that this IS the absolute with out a doubt perfect time, you'll be waiting forever. There are always more reasons not to get pregnant than there are reasons to start a family. If you and your partner were to sit down with a pot of coffee and a pad of paper, you'd be bound to come up with a whole laundry list of reasons why you'd be insane to even think about getting pregnant right now. Here are a few examples:
And the list goes on.... There are always a million and one reasons not to have a baby. However, if you are waiting until your financial affairs are in order, your calendar is clear for the next nine months, you've reached your ideal weight, and you feel psychologically fit to become a parent (what ever that means!), you could be waiting a very long time. |
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According to the Center for International Statistics at the Canadian Council on Social Development, it costs almost 160 000$ to raise a child from birth through age 18. To raise a baby from birth to age one (not including the pregnancy expenses) is 9 450$.
| Food |
1 274$ |
| Clothing | 1 679$ |
| Health Care | 206$ |
| Childcare | 4 363$ |
| Shelter, Furnishings, household operations | 1 928$ |
| Total | 9 450$ |
As you've no doubt noticed by now, prospective fathers tend to be particularly shell-shocked by these types of statistics. Clearly this provider thing is hot-wired into men's brains. It's a good thing for men to be this way, because when women get into the "baby-making" mode, our judgment gets kind of clouded, however, some men are a little too worried when they start obsessing over university expenses.
| The Vanier Institute of the Family estimates that it costs an average middle-class Canadian family about 15% of its take-home pay to care for one child, 25% to care for two children, and 33% to care for three or more children. |
Some people obsess about how they're going to put their children through university/college with a mortgage to pay off. A more sensible approach is to ensure that you'll be able to afford to take some time off work and that you'll have enough cash on hand to pay for your immediate baby-related expenses.
The approach that one couple took since the mother to be was self employed (and therefore would not receive any compensation for maternity leave) was to save up enough money to pay off the rent so she could stay home without worrying about the money.
As if money-related worries weren't enough, many women find themselves worrying about the impact that having a baby will have on their careers. I am personally a little "jaded" on this subject because to me, I don't mind sacrificing my career for a few years to raise children. As long as I have a man to support me and the children. But since I know that not all women share this view, I'll add the information here anyway.
Most employers (although some are understanding) seem to believe that if you are no longer willing to put in 60 or more hours a week to prove to the powers that be that you're still on the career track, you could find yourself being overlooked come promotion time. Then there are all the intangible opportunities that may be lost if you choose to work less-than-full-time hours or if you decide to drop out of the workforce altogether for a couple of years after your baby's arrival. Time off work means time out of circulation. If you lose too many contacts, it can be a long time before you get them back.
However, this doesn't mean that having a baby or starting a family will derail your entire career. Although sacrificing a degree of career advancement and financial well-being is inevitable, the blow can be cushioned by having both partners work at it. More and more couples are deciding to split the maternity leave.
Unfortunately, once women do return to work, they are finding it difficult to balance work and family. If you have an important meeting, who takes care of you sick child? If your son has a soccer game and you're supposed to be there, who does the budget for the next quarter? Your husband needs you there, so does your boss. So does your co-worker. Who wins? The work-family tug of war is getting worse, not better, over the past 5 years. Does this mean that parents should just wave the white flag and leave the workforce entirely?
Most families can't afford to do that. It takes two incomes to keep the bill collectors at bay. One woman offers these words of wisdom to women who are trying to decide whether to return to work after their babies arrive:
"I wish I had known that the period in which I was consumed by motherhood would be such a relatively short one relative to my career. At the time, it seemed like I was giving up so much and as if those sacrifices were forever. My children are already at an age [12 and 22] where they are as much a help to me as a responsibility, and I am only now entering my prim career years. If I could have known then what I know now, I think I would have relaxed a bit and enjoyed things all the more."
The latest figures from Statistics Canada indicate that almost one-third of births (31%) in 1997 were to first-time mothers over the age of 30, as compared to 19% a decade earlier. What's more, fully half of all births in Ontario that year were to mothers age 30 or older.
Although most women chose to start their families while they are younger and feel more able to keep up with little ones, more and more women are choosing to wait until they are a little more established in life. Although they is nothing wrong with waiting till you are ready, here are a few points to consider if you are thinking about putting you're baby-making plans on hold for now.:
 | Your odds of conceiving decrease as you age. While a women in her early 20s has a 20 to 25% chance of conceiving during a particular menstrual cycle, a woman in her late 30s has just an 8 to 10% chance. | ||||||||||||
| Women who become pregnant later in life are more likely to conceive multiples. Given the higher rate of complications in multiple pregnancies and the fact that multiples are more likely to be born prematurely and to weigh less than five pounds at birth, this can be a mixed blessing indeed. | ||||||||||||
| While a 25-year-old woman faces 1 in 476 odds of giving birth to a baby with a chromosomal problem such as Down syndrome, a 45-year-old woman faces 1 in 21 odds. | ||||||||||||
| Women who become pregnant after age 40 are more
likely to develop such potentially serious pregnancy-related complications
as the ones listed below, and are also more likely to have pre-existing
health problems (eg. coronary artery disease) that can complicate their pregnancies.
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| Older mothers are more likely to require an operative vaginal delivery (eg. a delivery in which forceps or a vacuum extractor are used) or an inductions (when labour is induced artificially), and according to the U.S. medical jounal "Obstertrics and Gynecology", women over 44 are 7.5 times as likely to require a Caesarean delivery as younger women. (U.S. Caesarean rates are always higher than Canadian rates, but it's an interesting fact to note nonetheless). |
Unlike a fine wine, your fertility does not improve with age. If having a family is important to you, you may want to consider starting it sooner rather than later. However, if having children isn't in the cards for you in the near future but you do want to have children, there are a few things you can do to safe guard your fertility.
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