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Also Dear OP if you have a budget now is the time to post it, and please detail in specific any planned purchases of candles, pop culture memorabilia and/or frequent restaurant visits. e: \/ agree, I so badly want your partner to also have a horse Tamarillo fucked around with this message at 01:28 on Aug 16, 2016 |
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Aug 16, 2016 01:07
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Most importantly, how much is your horse line item?
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Aug 16, 2016 01:21
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In all seriousness, it's hard to offer you any advice on career moves and baby-planning when we have no clue of your financial picture. I'd ask you to post a budget but, and correct me if I'm wrong, I'm guessing there are three issues: 1. You don't have one 2. You haven't combined finances and have no clue of her budget 3. You don't think there's any point because it'll depend fully on what your partner decides
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Aug 16, 2016 01:30
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There is a lot of interesting advice in this thread. I got my girlfriend pregnant when she was 20 and I was 23. We weren't ready for a child. Neither of us had great jobs (i made around $30k/year and she mad a bit less). We gave it a go anyway. We had the kid, got married, got divorced. We have joint custody now. I was motivated by the challenge, worked exceptionally hard to move forward in my career, and ultimately credit the unplanned pregnancy for the great job I have today. My ex wife went the other way, let her life go to poo poo and is now dependent on the state for everything, owing me thousands of dollars. For me, I can't imagine where i'd be if I had given my daughter up for adoption, or worse, let her be aborted. For reference, I don't consider myself a family man or define myself that way, but I am a responsible person and understand my duty and obligation for my actions. Moral of the story: life is what you choose to make of it.
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Aug 16, 2016 04:40
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If teaching in higher education is too unstable and low-paying, have you considered teaching in a High School? It's stable decent work. with health insurance and retirement plans. It won't make you rich, but you'll be able to afford those child support payments. Don't quit a job just to go to a job interview. If you have to quit halfway through the term, so be it. Apologize and plead being a poor, desperate father. They will be annoyed but probably understand. If you died, they would find a way of replacing you, wouldn't they? So they will find someone. Have you discussed adoption with your partner at all? It sounds like her mental health is very poor right now, and mental health is very vulnerable to getting worse due to the hormone changes of pregnancy and birth, and the stresses of being a slave to a helpless, sleepless newborn for years. It can cause severe depression in completely mentally healthy women. Adoption is a very fine choice, and not just something for poor teenagers or drug addicts. Steve Jobs was given up for adoption by his middle-class university student parents, and obviously he did fantastic in life - it was the right choice for them. Don't think of the unpleasant stats about foster care - a newborn baby can be arranged to be adopted right now, so the adoptive parents are involved in the pregnancy and completely prepared to take the baby straight away, no foster system involved. It may be the right choice for your baby to go into a stable, prepared household. Your partner will be able to give her mental health the attention it needs instead of struggling with a baby, and the baby won't have the negative developmental effects of being cared for by two stressed out parents with problems.
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Aug 16, 2016 15:40
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Don't worry about all these people trying to bully you into aborting or adopting out your baby when you've already decided to keep it. You came here for help with the decision you two made as adults, not to be told it's the wrong decision. Yes, it sounds like your partner is having a bad time, but if she was level headed enough to seek help for her depression and get on medication then she's capable of taking care of herself. Having a mental illness that is appropriately treated does not make you incapable of raising a child. If she were refusing treatment that would be a different story, but it sounds like she is managing it like a responsible adult. Also, you are not great financially alone, but it sounds like your girlfriend is doing pretty well seeing as she got a mortgage and has 10 months of payments saved up. You will both be even better off when you move in together. I agree you shouldn't marry her just because of the baby, but moving in together will make caring for an infant way easier on both of you. It may not work out, but for the time being its your best option and easier to undo then a marriage should you decide you're better apart. Everything everyone has said about you not quitting not your current job without having a new job and doing what is best for you rather than your employer is all very good advice and you should follow it. The biggest thing I didn't see mentioned was insurance. She needs to keep her current employer insurance. Prenatal care is expensive and unless I'm not up with current insurance law, switching to a new insurance mid-pregnancy might result in the pregnancy-related costs not being covered. Also, you don't want to start over with a new deductible if you don't have to. Lastly, you will be okay. I'm 2/3rds of the way through a planned/wanted pregnancy and there are still days when I am terrified of how this will change my life. Everyone feels that way at some point, but having a baby doesn't need to ruin your dreams. It might change the path you get there on, but it only crushes them if you let it. 
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Aug 16, 2016 19:10
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Tamarillo posted:Regardless of the morality of abortion etc, in a purely technical sense I'm pretty sure at this stage it is more like a triggered stillbirth in that it requires an actual labour and delivery of an admittedly pretty small foetus, so it's not just a pill or a quick operation. You've nailed it basically. I suppose there is guilt mixed in because, I certainly don't feel like I'm doing enough. The amount of time it takes me to lesson plan, grade, and otherwise conduct the courses I've got (one of which I have to start with from scratch since it's a new prep) is simply too much to be worth it. I want to be able to provide in a comfortable way and keep my sanity because teaching can really burn me out.
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Aug 16, 2016 21:55
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Tamarillo posted:Also Dear OP if you have a budget now is the time to post it, and please detail in specific any planned purchases of candles, pop culture memorabilia and/or frequent restaurant visits. Current amount of $ in the bank: 1287 Expenses Car insurance: 55/m Phone: 50/m Gas: 20/wk Student loan: 250/m Food: about 10-15 daily Housing: (with family) 0 Income: 2000 before taxes the 2nd of each month starting next month. I will move in with her early September, since then I will have income to contribute. We plan on getting our baby stuff from the baby shower, family and yard sale type groups and what not. Also considering cloth diapers, but that's for later.
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Aug 16, 2016 22:06
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:In all seriousness, it's hard to offer you any advice on career moves and baby-planning when we have no clue of your financial picture. Her budget when she resumes work, and assuming she continues all the way through the end of the year is something like 3200 before taxes. I am unsure of maternity leave pay, but my biggest concern is stepping up when she has to step down. Mortgage is 1350 or so utilities are about 80 I don't know what other things she may spend her money on, but over the summer it seems like very little.
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Aug 16, 2016 22:12
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Raul Sinropa posted:Also considering cloth diapers, but that's for later. NO ITS FOR NOW If you're doing childcare arrangements, consider not doing cloth diapers. Dealing with turds in cloth diapers may be more than your daycare or family members are willing to deal with, so then you'll end up buying some disposables to supplement the cloth diapers. The financials of choosing cloth diapers is usually pitting the ongoing expense of disposable vs. the larger up-front expense of cloth diapers, with cloth diapers winning in the long term. If you're doing a blend of both, you might be getting the worst of both worlds.
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Aug 16, 2016 22:15
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BarbarianElephant posted:If teaching in higher education is too unstable and low-paying, have you considered teaching in a High School? It's stable decent work. with health insurance and retirement plans. It won't make you rich, but you'll be able to afford those child support payments. Unfortunately, to teach high school, I would have to go back to school and get a credential to teach k-12, so that's not gonna work right now. Adoption is not on the table, she wants the kid and so do I. It's gonna be rough, but I acknowledge the challenge and I will dedicate myself to doing the best I can. My own parents raised me when poo poo got rough for them. My dad had been fired when I was born and then he got a job making 5 bucks an hour. He and my mom's toil bought them their home and provided a loving home for my brother and I. I really don't think that just because I don't feel ready and because things are down now, that I am doomed to lovely life of misery. My partner is receiving treatment with a psychiatrist and therapist for the present situation. Many other women become depressed during their pregnancies, but with the right course of care, things can get better and I am confident they will.
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Aug 16, 2016 22:17
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Raul Sinropa posted:Current amount of $ in the bank: 1287 Budget thoughts - 1. Convert things into monthly equivalents 2. Figure out your after-tax income because this is the money you are actually receiving 3. I think you're missing a lot of categories - Do you get your clothing for free? Entertainment of any kind? Internet access? I would suggest that you take a full look at the things you spend your money on. Either check out this thread - http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3549291 or create a https://www.mint.com account and show us the pie chart of what you've spent your money on in the past year. I didn't notice before that you're living for free with your own family. Moving in with your girlfriend isn't going to save you yourself any money - it just sounds like you're offering to split her bills with her. I don't want to get too deep into the E/N side of things without your consent since the thread got moved out of there, but you're going to be helping foot the bill for this baby and the mom whether you live with her or not. If you're allowed to remain with your family, you don't need to move in with the GF unless you actually want to. I still can't really tell how "together" you and the GF are. Do you want her to have any input on your budgeting? Do you want to have any insight on hers? Or are you just going to let the other take care of themselves as long as there's enough $$$ to keep the lights on and the baby fed?
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Aug 16, 2016 22:22
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Raul Sinropa posted:Unfortunately, to teach high school, I would have to go back to school and get a credential to teach k-12, so that's not gonna work right now. It could! At least as soon as your partner is more stable in employment/mental health and the baby is sleeping better (usually about 6 months to a year for most babies.) Fathers always seem to think that surprise baby means PANIC GET A JOB ANY JOB but this can lead to a lot of suffering later. Babies are not as expensive as you might suppose. Their main expense is childcare. Don't sacrifice your future on the altar of "Baby" because this kid is going to need money for 18-22 years, and a little training early on to increase your earning power can head off a lot of suffering later on, particularly when the kid goes to college (expensive!) Have you thought about childcare options? Do you have any family willing to do it for free/cheap, or will you be going the daycare route? Raul Sinropa posted:Adoption is not on the table, she wants the kid and so do I. OK then! I just wanted to check you weren't against it due to old-fashioned ideas about orphanages and successions of grim foster families (a surprisingly common meme among young parents for some reason.)
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Aug 17, 2016 13:33
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BarbarianElephant posted:Babies are not as expensive as you might suppose. Caveat: if you let people convince you that baby needs its own large room, baby needs all this silly furniture, baby needs all these toys it doesn't understand, baby needs all these designer clothes, they can be very expensive and people will try to convince you of all of this.
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Aug 17, 2016 13:56
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Nail Rat posted:Caveat: if you let people convince you that baby needs its own large room, baby needs all this silly furniture, baby needs all these toys it doesn't understand, baby needs all these designer clothes, they can be very expensive and people will try to convince you of all of this. I've been told I need a minivan and a larger house and that was just in my second trimester.
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Aug 17, 2016 13:57
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You should probably request a paternity test. It's entirely possible that your condom use and her birth control failed; it's also possible that that's not the case.
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Aug 17, 2016 19:35
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BarbarianElephant posted:OK then! I just wanted to check you weren't against it due to old-fashioned ideas about orphanages and successions of grim foster families (a surprisingly common meme among young parents for some reason.)
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Aug 17, 2016 19:45
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Nail Rat posted:Caveat: if you let people convince you that baby needs its own large room, baby needs all this silly furniture, baby needs all these toys it doesn't understand, baby needs all these designer clothes, they can be very expensive and people will try to convince you of all of this. defectivemonkey posted:I've been told I need a minivan and a larger house and that was just in my second trimester. Holy crap this stuff is true. My sister lives in a 2 BD townhouse and has a baby due soon. Everyone is freaking out about how they need to move into AT LEAST a 3 BD. "We're going to want to come over and stay with you to help with the baby! But where will we sleep if there's no spare room!" Sleep in the baby's room if you really want to help so fuckin' bad. People just want to stay with the new parents, occasionally cook or do the dishes, and brag to the community about how ~it takes a village~
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Aug 17, 2016 19:46
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wait why would i ever want to stay in the same house as a baby that ain't mine this is why they have Hotels
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Aug 17, 2016 19:57
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If you guys are insistent on keeping the baby, then the only reasonable solution is to look into joining the French Foreign Legion and then overstaying your visa to start a new life. You can find most of the info you'll need here: http://en.legion-etrangere.com/
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Aug 17, 2016 20:02
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Thanatosian posted:You should probably request a paternity test. It's entirely possible that your condom use and her birth control failed; it's also possible that that's not the case. I was actually thinking this too. There is really no way to do it tactfully but if it were me in this situation I would want to know.
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Aug 17, 2016 22:09
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:wait why would i ever want to stay in the same house as a baby that ain't mine this is why they have Hotels
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Aug 17, 2016 22:10
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:Holy crap this stuff is true. My sister lives in a 2 BD townhouse and has a baby due soon. Everyone is freaking out about how they need to move into AT LEAST a 3 BD. It is apparently physically impossible to get a baby in and out of a Prius. I have resigned myself to a lifetime of back problems. OP, there is so much dumb poo poo to ignore. Every once in a while when I see a long list of "what a newborn needs" I go back to this amittedly pretty insufferable but still worth reading post. It's also out of date -- your girlfriend's health insurance should cover a breast pump. I expected them to be like "oh yeah we will cover this manual breast pump that is basically useless" but mine covers the one I wanted anyway. You can put in the request whenever, they just won't ship it until later. I know I mentioned in PMs that I found that not finding out the sex has curbed my impulse cute-clothes shopping. But one annoying thing that has popped up is that people are afraid to give me their hand-me-downs because they don't believe me that I don't care if they're pink and covered in unicorns or blue and covered in monster trucks because it's a baby and it just needs to be clothed. defectivemonkey fucked around with this message at 18:47 on Aug 18, 2016 |
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Aug 18, 2016 16:32
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defectivemonkey posted:It is apparently physically impossible to get a baby in and out of a Prius. I have resigned myself to a lifetime of back problems.
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Aug 18, 2016 18:46
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rio posted:I was actually thinking this too. There is really no way to do it tactfully but if it were me in this situation I would want to know. Take a look at these graphs for long term birth control usage: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/09/14/sunday-review/unplanned-pregnancies.html?_r=0 Over a 10 year period, condoms are about 14% effective and the pill is about 39% effective. People usually look at the 1 year effectiveness of birth control when they should be looking at the effectiveness over the time period they plan to be single and childless. If you plan to be single and sexually active for 10-15 years you need to look to things like a vasectomy, IUD, or vasalgel when it becomes available. Condoms and the pill are only really effective in delaying a pregnancy for a few years, not avoiding one entirely. Bottom line, she probably just got pregnant because they were using inadequate birth control. If you don't already suspect that she cheated then this pregnancy provides no evidence of infidelity and you should spend your worries on things that actually matter.
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Aug 23, 2016 13:54
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Jumping on this trainwreck. To me it sounds like your wife just doesn't want to work a fulltime job. Rather stay at home and be a mother. In the military, that's called a dependapotamus. Good luck OP. I think you need a serious heart to heart with the planned parenthood people.
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Aug 23, 2016 17:06
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Leviathan Song posted:Condoms and the pill are only really effective in delaying a pregnancy for a few years, not avoiding one entirely. This doesn't match my experience. Used the pill 20 years so far, no accidents, only got a baby when actually trying (so no fertility issues.) The thing is, most people use them wrong. The condom is in the guy's other pants or the pill gets forgotten and that's all it takes, especially if you get careless a lot. As you can see "perfect use" is much better odds - and that doesn't mean using it like the god of contraception, just simple things like remembering to take the pill at the same time every single day. Please don't put people off birth control by trying to downplay its effectiveness, leave that to the Pope 
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Aug 23, 2016 20:12
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Yeah, the long-term reliability of the pill is based on human error, not the pill itself.
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Aug 23, 2016 20:16
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In other wordsinsufficient guns posted:They are not using one or both of these correctly.
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Aug 23, 2016 21:18
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BarbarianElephant posted:This doesn't match my experience. Used the pill 20 years so far, no accidents, only got a baby when actually trying (so no fertility issues.) This is why we have statistics instead of anecdotes! GoGoGadgetChris posted:Yeah, the long-term reliability of the pill is based on human error, not the pill itself. This is meaningless, since human error is an inevitability. Even ignoring things like medications interacting and a ton of other things. Also even with 'perfect use' a pregnancy after 10 years would not be unusual given the associated probabilities.
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Aug 23, 2016 23:52
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The US needs to get that injectable, sperm-maiming liner approved for males that is already legal in India and (as far as I'm aware) drat near 100% reversible, unlike a vasectomy.
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Aug 24, 2016 01:20
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Nail Rat posted:Caveat: if you let people convince you that baby needs its own large room, baby needs all this silly furniture, baby needs all these toys it doesn't understand, baby needs all these designer clothes, they can be very expensive and people will try to convince you of all of this. He is currently cashing out more of his stock portfolio to pay for more unnecessary items. melon cat fucked around with this message at 01:37 on Aug 24, 2016 |
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Aug 24, 2016 01:32
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melon cat posted:I've seen people go completely haywire during baby arrival time. I know a guy who recently bought a new VW Tiguan (Dieselgate what), custom-fitted floor mats for the new vehicle, a new 55-inch LED TV + a more expensive cable plan ("the baby will need entertainment"), a new iPad for "teaching the baby" and some sort of super-deluxe stroller that's roughly the size of a Smartcar. It was truly bizarre to watch. He went from penny-pinching miser to foolish dummy overnight. I don't know if he was trying to over-prepare for the baby, or simply wanted all of this stuff and thought that the baby's arrival would be a great excuse for it. Let me guess, the baby doesn't have a 529 yet. But hey, iPad!
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Aug 24, 2016 07:00
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melon cat posted:He is currently cashing out more of his stock portfolio to pay for more unnecessary items. Single company stock, by any chance? Because then he'd be diversifying away from a risky overexposure in one investment, toward multiple separate hard assets 
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Aug 24, 2016 07:14
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Bastard Tetris posted:Let me guess, the baby doesn't have a 529 yet. But hey, iPad! SpelledBackwards posted:Single company stock, by any chance? Because then he'd be diversifying away from a risky overexposure in one investment, toward multiple separate hard assets With that said, back to the OP's dilemma: a lot of people are posting mostly-accurate advice about the true costs of child-rearing. But I think your biggest issue is the fact that you've never lived together. Moving in with a spouse/partner and adjusting to them is a big challenge, even when things go right. It'll be a monumental challenge now that there's a baby in the picture. Something to keep in mind.
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Aug 24, 2016 13:39
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melon cat posted:But of course it's a single company stock! Matched company stock options. And he keeps selling them before the ex-dividend dates.
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Aug 24, 2016 17:35
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tsa posted:This is why we have statistics instead of anecdotes! Believe it or not, it's actually within the power of even mentally ill people to take a pill every day, or realize when they didn't and act accordingly. And doctors know that medical interactions exist and factor that in when they prescribe medications Those statistics are inherently unreliable due to the nature of self-reporting anyway. There's no way to tell how many people saying they used it perfectly actually did. Vasectomies / tubal ligations are still pretty awesome, though. My wife is probably getting her tubes tied when it's practical.
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Aug 24, 2016 22:04
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22 Eargesplitten posted:Believe it or not, it's actually within the power of even mentally ill people to take a pill every day, or realize when they didn't and act accordingly. And doctors know that medical interactions exist and factor that in when they prescribe medications
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Aug 24, 2016 22:05
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:Budget thoughts - This needs to be done. Your budget is incomplete. You have not actually budgeted and you appear to have no savings for costs related to the birth, baby essentials and any debts with minimum payments etc. As a part of the budget your actual cash flow needs to be established so that we can provide you with advice that will actually get you through the most difficult part. Be aware that you will not have the same amount of disposable income available once there is another mouth to feed. Also how is the mortgage being paid once your gf stops working. Does she have any savings? Have you done any planning together? Do you collect star wars figurines?
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Aug 24, 2016 23:32
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Devian666 posted:This needs to be done. Your budget is incomplete. You have not actually budgeted and you appear to have no savings for costs related to the birth, baby essentials and any debts with minimum payments etc. As a part of the budget your actual cash flow needs to be established so that we can provide you with advice that will actually get you through the most difficult part.
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Aug 25, 2016 02:52
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