Saving for a Baby

Having a baby was a very conscious decision for me, and it involved financially preparing and saving. We've been married since 2001 and been together since 1988, so in theory we could have done it a lot sooner, but we had our Uni years, followed by our my drinking years, followed by my career years, and so on. I knew one day my maternal instincts would kick in, and eventually they did. But before they did, work was VERY much my baby! Daddy had other priorities too. The circular energy you hold, as a Mother, like a cradle at home, once you have a baby, is the energy I held at work. Literally I sensed it if someone sneezed - I cared about people's emotional needs as well as our legal responsibilities as an employer - not that I was the employer, but in HR you adopt that care-taking role... of compliance, processes, procedure and both forward and retrospective thinking, along with a whole lot of budgeting. Actually even instilling discipline is akin to being a Mum, except as a Mother there's no Staff Handbook to write, print or keep up to date ha ha! And I can't promote Aaron or give him a pay rise...

I was a HR Manager and most of what I did was very intuitive, relying on my gut instinct loads. I wasn't an Employment Lawyer but I stayed very on top of case law and legal changes, both current and forthcoming. I had a flair for being able to read a complex case and make sense of it. In my last role this skill was really rewarded, but in my previous role I was in a very large company with layers of management above me, often with less of an understanding of case law, but that was okay, as in that role, I went into a brand new team, who trained the whole department on Employment Law so it was PERFECT! 

Even though I am NOT at all a natural housewife, I was always ready for an audit, as I stayed on top of due diligence, compliance and paperwork. Shame the same can't be said of my maternity cover! This accuracy and attention to detail skill was something that was first recognised in my last retail role, before the two head office roles I did after that. If you can get upwards of 90% in an audit in a busy Oxford Street store, when coping with shift work, it's then a doddle to do it in Head Office environments.

Once I got a work BlackBerry, my work ethic meant my job became 24/7. My biggest concern, apart from saving for a baby, was being able to let go. How could I hand over my role to someone I didn't really know? This was the hardest thing ever... I even went back in and did a 12 hour day on the Sunday, two days after finishing work on the Friday. To get the feeling of closure I needed. To rid my filing cabinet of years old stuff that was no longer needed, to give my maternity cover more room to file. Oh the irony of that. She didn't file a single thing the whole time she was there, and they got my help to fire her WHILE I was on maternity leave. Yeah! Hell on earth right?!?!?!? So many people were on emergency tax when I returned as she hadn't even posted their P45s to Payroll *sigh*.

But I DID go on maternity leave (albeit with a BlackBerry so I continued to work throughout - for free) and this was that Sunday, where I worked tirelessly all day despite already being full term. I worked up till 38 weeks, but thankfully, Aaron was 8 days late, which gave me a bit longer. I also taught yoga every Friday night up until then.

But let's rewind a little. At the age of 30 Daddy first started floating the idea of having a baby. I remember it like yesterday. I looked at all my credit card debt and said "I'll clear it in 5 years, let's have a baby at 35". Fair play to me, I achieved that. But that would mean that at the end of 2007, we should have started trying... but life sent me a curve ball. My Father in Law who I adored like a Dad passed away in the August. As a family we had to fly to Nigerian for the burial. I had to take vaccinations, including for Malaria. The box said, that you could not get pregnant, within 3 months of taking them. i remember feeling crushed. That should have meant we started trying in 2008 sometime, but I think I got sidetracked with my career again.

The good thing was, that the delay meant I didn't just clear my credit cards AND loans. I also started squireling money away in an ISA. Making financial investments with your money, consciously, is a sensible thing to do before getting pregnant, especially if stability is important to you. I chose an ISA that I would be allowed to dip into, and of course because the savings are tax free. I did so, because although I was on a very healthy salary then (oh how things have changed), our little company only did statutory maternity pay, and I knew I wouldn't enjoy my maternity leave on that.

Also, the root chakra is all about food, money and shelter and being secure (having "enough"), and the lower three chakras are very much required for conceiving, carrying and birthing a baby. Sorry, can you tell I am a Kundalini Yoga Teacher ;-) ?

I remember the day we started trying. It was April 2009, and it's a funny story. We used to go to Ikea very often, as I love buying their tea light candles and lots of other bits and bobs. The husband loves their meatballs, so a shopping visit would always incorporate lunch in their restaurant. It was Good Friday, April 10th 2009. I was innocently shopping, looking at scented candles. I full bloom radiant pregnant lady walked passed me. I looked at her, and as she waked away, I burst into tears. I hadn't even had babies on my mind that day, or that month. ALTHOUGH, since January, I'd been saying on my old blog that I was losing weight (and it was to have a baby, although I can't remember if I mentioned my reasons on that blog). Anyway, I cried. I wanted that bump. I wanted that radiance. I wanted a .... B A B Y. So we started trying that day, and we got pregnant straight away, except I suffered from implantation failure, which then meant I had to go on Chinese Herbs, to make sure that when and if we'd get pregnant again, it would stick. There were months trying wasn't possible, like me being at The European Yoga Festival when I was ovulating, BUT we were pregnant by the September, and I'd had another few months on my good salary to be even more ready.

Also, at the festival, a whole year before, I'd had my first ever full astrological chart reading with a Brahmin, and he'd said, if I didn't go home from the festival August 2008, with a view to being pregnant by November 2008, I'd have to wait a year. I went home, and decided with the husband that I didn't feel ready to get pregnant that year. I can't even remember why, but being the career girl I was, it was PROBABLY because of something going on at work. But it's a big deal, because NORMALLY when people put it off, they say "we can try next month" but I believed what he had said, so I knew it meant I was postponing it by a year. In case a non believer is reading this post, it meant that my baby and me had a specific star sign in mind for his birth. There are no accidents as far as the cosmos is concerned, even though they may appear as such from the earthly realm. So getting pregnant September 2009, was within the time frame the Brahmin had predicted, which is why I felt confident starting NewMumOnline when I wasn't even pregnant yet. I did however start it when I was pre-pregnant, which is an energetic state you go into, similar to nesting, which is where I like to think I am now, as I go into a Conscious period of getting ready to carry a sibling for Aaron.

Sorry for the length of this post, I didn't realise all of these words were inside me...........

The pic at the start of this post, may look as if I had a neat bump, but I can assure you I did not. I looked as though I was carrying twins:

Disclosure: This post is a collaboration with Legal and General.