How to Afford Another Baby

I case you were wondering, this is NOT an ad. I am NOT selling my precious baby. I'm just illustrating the fact that babies DO cost money. They aren't cheap. In fact, I think one of the biggest question people have when they see me carting around four kids is, how we can afford it? Especially after they learn that my husband is finishing the tail end of grad school. He's done, but hasn't officially finished or graduated. He started his five year PhD program when our first child was a baby. I'm sure many people would be floored if they were to find out that three of our four kids were born while my husband was in grad school, before he was working full time.

At this point most people automatically assume we must have been on medicaid. We never have used medicaid. We did use WIC after I had our first baby, and up until I got pregnant with our third child. While we still qualified for help, I didn't feel comfortable with the idea of using WIC anymore. I decided that it wasn't right to use the program and choose to keep getting pregnant. If we were supposed to have another baby, and decided to do so we should be able to take care of them ourselves. I know others may disagree, but I feel that was the right choice for us. I realized that even though we weren't rich, that somehow God would help us out. He has. Other than WIC, we haven't received any other government aid.

Because I know you're probably curious, I'll share what our finances were like... When my husband, Daniel, and I were first married, I was doing an internship where I was teaching world civilizations to middle school students. My husband had graduated with a psychology degree and started working at a lock-down facility with juvenile delinquents. I had no debt at all, but Daniel had student loans and we still had to pay off our wedding rings. I've never been a spender and had insisted that I didn't want a real diamond, so I opted to get a moissanite diamond instead. My husband was really surprised by my decision, but I was able to persuade him I really didn't need or even want a diamond. So, there wasn't much we owed on our rings. We used my salary as a teacher to pay off loans and the rings. Before I was done with my internship we were debt free and had a pretty decent amount of savings.

That summer I found out I was expecting our first child and I decided to give up a position I was offered to teach and instead opted to tutor foreign Korean students part time until our daughter arrived. We knew Daniel was planning on applying for a PhD/Masters psychology program, so we continued to live like poor college students and saved up.

After our daughter was born, Daniel applied to and was accepted in a PhD program. His first year he didn't work at all--he wasn't allowed to. The following three years he worked part time. He is now finishing up his fifth year and is finishing an internship where he is earning an officer's pay through the military.

So, the first year we lived off of savings. Then the next couple of years we lived off of savings and what Daniel earned from work until we had to take out our first student loan. Soon after, Daniel applied for and was accepted into the military med core where he got a scholarship. This extra bit of help allowed us to make it through the rest of Daniel's program without taking out another loan. Because we saved and pinched pennies (and have continued to do so despite having much more cash flowing into our bank account now), we now have enough in savings to pay back all of our student loans, and Daniel hasn't even graduated.

I'm not trying to sell our financial plan to anyone, or to prove everyone can or should try to have more children. I think different things work for different people. I just wanted to share how having more children has worked for us, and how it's been a really good choice for us and our family. I'll share some of the ways we saved in a future post for those interested.

Outwitted!

You'd think after having four kids I'd have learned... never feel smug or think you've outwitted a one-year-old. Our youngest hasn't been sitting well in her highchair when we eat. She'll stand up and turn around and lean over. It's scary at times because she looks like she'll fall to her death, so I decided I'd do something about it. I strapped her in with a belt from my bag. I thought I had her and exclaimed, "Ha! Now you won't be going anywhere!" I even somewhat enjoyed seeing her frustrated as she struggled to move...until she actually stood up. I was out smarted by a baby!

 So of course I had to outwit the child. I added another strap to secure the red plastic thingie that held the tray down. "Take that!" I'm feeling kind of dumb admitting I was gloating over the fact that I had her now. Especially since it only took a couple of days before the kid wiggled her way into finding a way to humiliate me yet again. I can't even make a safety belt for my child.

Yes, They Are All Mine...

...and I'm so glad they are.

So, this blog has been neglected, but you wouldn't know it since I have it as a private blog (and never got around to inviting anyone). I'm pretty sure I'm ready to change that though. If you're reading this you'll know I've made that leap. I started contemplating making this public after an appointment I recently had.

We'd just returned from an amazing mini vacation. It was really needed. My husband, Daniel, had been extremely busy working on and finally defending his dissertation. While he was crossing all his t's and dotting his i's, we had to sacrifice some of the little time we had with him. To celebrate his success, and to have some much needed daddy time, we decided to use the free passes Busch Gardens gives to military families (thank you by the way) and we went to Sesame Place in Pennsylvania. We then drove through Lancaster County so that Daniel and the kids could experience real Dutch cooking and Amish goods. Anyhow, despite leaving the house nice and clean, after such a fun weekend, the to-do list for Monday was pretty long. I was busy sorting all the laundry when I realized I had an appointment, and if I was going to make it I had to get going.

There was no time to find a babysitter. So, I got all four kids dressed and packed a lunch to eat in the waiting room. Daniel, was able to take a quick lunch break, meet me at the clinic, and supervise the kids in the waiting room while I went with the doctor.

When I was called back the doctor held the door open for me. I turned to wait for her to take the lead and guide me to a room, when I saw she was peeking in on my kiddos who were all quietly munching PB&J's. She seemed quite shocked when she asked, "Is that your family?" I get that question quite a bit so, I laughed and answered, "Yes."

As we began entering the room, she gave me the same face I'd seen in the hall, only I realized she hadn't just been shocked. She sounded a bit perturbed as she asked, "Three kids?" with raised eyebrows.

I've been in similar situations, and I always try to give people a benefit of the doubt when I feel I'm being wrongly judged. I also try not to apologize for having more than two kids, so I smiled and said, "No. Actually, four."

After another look of disgust, I thought the subject would be dropped. However, she asked more about my pregnancies and I think it was too much for her to remain completely professional and not add her two-cents. After several more eye rolls, and raised eyebrows, I told her I had four healthy and normal pregnancies. She continued to ask about my history and whether I was breast feeding etc. she also learned my husband's education and even his occupation. After a ten minute interview she had enough information to dispel any concerns she may have had about domestic violence, child abuse, or that we weren't on welfare. I'd assumed her passive-aggressive facial expressions and somewhat chiding tone were all I'd have to deal with concerning my choice to be a mom of four, but I was mistaken.

She asked (I'm assuming for medical purposes), "Do you plan on having any more children?" When I answered, "Perhaps. I'm not sure right now," she seemed to not be able to help herself. I got another disappointed and disgusted look as she shook her said, "That's a lot of babies." I stood my ground and replied. "Sure, it might be, but I'm not sure if we'll have more. We'll see." I was disappointed when she couldn't leave it at that and replied once more in her growing scolding tone, "Well, that's a lot of babies," and she shook her head and began typing away. She seemed to thoroughly want to chastise me, or give me a good verbal spanking. I was miffed.

I'll bet you are wondering what see saw when she peered into the waiting room. It looked like this when I left:

 And like this:

  Well, if I'm to be honest my kids didn't quite look like these drawings since they were zoned out watching TV; However, they were sitting and eating quietly. I think the Dr. envisioned something more along the lines of this:

Okay, that's a bit dramatic. Likely, it was something more like this:

No matter what it was that she found so wrong, it was pretty clear she'd found my problem:

I think women encounter experiences like this quite a bit. You know, instances where our life choices are questioned. There are many hot topics. For example, what women choose to do for a profession, whether we decide to have children, whether or not we stay at home with kids, and how we raise our kids. I've come to find out over and over again, what is right for me isn't right for other people, and I'm okay with that. I also understand everyone won't agree with my life decisions, and I'm okay with that as long as I'm not treated like I'm a bad person, ignorant, or somehow less-than-human. I believe those who disagree with my choice to have four kids (or whatever else) in a negative way often misunderstand where I'm coming from. I also believe that if I had the chance to share why I've made the choice to be a stay-at-home mother of four many of these people would likely find they could respect my decisions even if they adamantly disagreed with them.

Some of the worries people seem to have concerning people who have more than two kids:

1.  Finances

2. Government aid

3. Overpopulation

4. That I'm being supressed

and when they find out I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (in other words...I'm a Mormon) it's sometimes assumed...

5. I've been brainwashed to believe I have to have lots of kids, and I've been brainwashed in many other ways. I even read a comment that a non-Mormon wrote on the matter where they said we believed in order to make it to the highest glory of heaven we HAD to have at least five kids! In case you can't read my shock, that's totally false.

I'll try to address some of these concerns to explain how our choices to have more than two kids works--and it works well for us.

Have you heard of other concerns about large families?

In preparing for our first big move with the military, my husband and I decided to go to the base to talk with the people in charge of moves. We figured they'd know what they were talking about since we continued to get conflicting info. We were wrong. They were even less help there. The guy there even suggested we "load our house into our car," so we could make money off of the move. I don't know how he failed to see we were a family of five (almost six). Who knows how he thought we'd be able to pack our belongings after we filled our van with our kids. We found out later, almost all the advice he gave (and he didn't give much) was wrong.

I should have suspected as much, especially after our last trip there to get our military ID. That was when the serviceman was adamant that I was born somewhere in Nebraska (or somewhere like that) because apparently my social security card started with the digits people born from Nebraska have. While he was right about each card's first few digits being the same as other people who were born in the  same state, he was pre-tty far off about where I was born. After politely telling him he was mistaken, he insisted he wasn't. I ended the conversation as he passionately defended his argument by going into some spiel about how it was clear I'd been born in Nebraska, or at least Ohio. 

I should have said, "Hmmm, interesting. Yes. You're probably right. Why would I know where I was born. My parents must have lied to me all this time. How could I have been fooled by them this whole time?" Or maybe I should have started crying and said, "I always thought I was adopted!"

Needless to say, the inefficiency and lack of knowledge mixed in with an extra measure of arrogance in some of these people is astounding! I have great respect for those serving our country, but in moments like these, I wish those serving in offices were trained to at least know what they were talking about, supposed to be doing, or at least know be able to point us in a helpful direction. It would save a lot of people's time and the government's money.

Here I am getting off track though. So as I explained earlier, Daniel and I were there with our three (almost four) kids. Yep, the fourth little bugger happened to be all toasty and warm inside my womb. We weren't familiar with the military quite yet. Daniel had a scholarship through them and hadn't experienced training or anything yet (doing his PhD had excused him from training or doing anything besides paperwork for a couple of years [the man didn't even know how to salute]). We were getting ready to have the baby and then say goodbye to Daniel as he headed off to officer's training while I got us ready for our big move out East. Anyhow, we obviously had no idea what we were doing and decided to get a feel for what military life would be like.

Part of this included looking at the exchange store they had on base. So we got the youngest in the stroller and then had the two older kids hold our hands as we walked/waddled inside. Now, anytime you go anywhere with children (whether you have two or 20) you tend to get attention. However, we were in Utah at the time and there are a lot of bigger families there, so we usually were able to avoid getting too many stares. Usually, the stares and awkward conversations happened when I was tending to our three kids alone in public.

After getting my girls in and out of the bathroom for a potty break, I waddled over to meet up with my husband. As we continued walking to get inside the main store an Asian woman walked right beside and kept right in stride with us as she began one of those awkward conversations:

She began asking one of the questions parents with big families get asked most, "Are all of these yours?"

Me: "Yes, they are."

Lady: "Wow! You look to young to have this many kids."

Me: (Not knowing whether that is a compliment or not) "Thanks."

This conversation happens to me all the time and it usually ends soon after; However, instead of just letting us wander off and go on our we she continued:

Lady: "And look you have another baby on the way!"

Me: "Yes I do."

Lady: "So you have four! Wow!"

Me: "Yes. We'll have four."

Lady: Turning to Daniel, "Wow! You a baby making machine!"

Daniel didn't know quite how to respond to this and nodded and continued walking.

Lady: Turning to my kids and bending down a bit, "Your daddy a baby making machine! Your daddy is baby making machine!" and just to make sure she told Daniel one last time, "You a baby making machine!" before we parted ways.

The "Baby Making Machine" and family...

Evidence...

I died laughing inside and barely made it out of her earshot before I bust out laughing. Normally, I'd have found this engagement a bit awkward, but since I'd watched my husband squirm and turn red not knowing how to react, I couldn't help finding it hilarious. I'd had many conversations about how awkward and even annoying some comments about the number of children I have can be. He never quite got it until this moment.

Who knew three kids (almost four) should be considered such a big family. I think what gets responses like this one though is the fact that mine are all pretty close in age (around 20 months apart), and I bring them out in public every week to go shopping, or run errands. I admit I don't see many other moms or dads willing to brave the stores alone with more than two, so I suppose people are just shocked to see someone brave enough to be so outnumbered in a store.

What responses do you get when you bring your kids along?