Making the leap…

I’ve had some friends ask me to write about having 2 babies- especially close together. Im going to start with how we came to the decision to have a second baby. On another day, I’ll write about post-second-baby.

Branden and I have known for a long time that we wanted a second child. I actually wouldn’t have minded 3 but branden says 2 so gotta go with the lower number and believe me two is plenty!! We also decided years ago that we wanted to have our children close together. Mainly because we wanted them to grow up together and wanted to be young parents so we can enjoy them and not be tired and be able to watch our grandkids grow up. yes, we are 23/24 yrs old and thinking about grandkids already, hahaha.

Anywho, we wanted to be responsible about bringing another child into the world. We talked about it a lot before and after Brayden. Our answer was the same- we definitely wanted another baby right away. Now we had to figure out if we could. just call me fertile myrtle so that wasn’t the issue. Im talking about career and finances.

I pretty much started planning while Brayden was still a newborn, haha.

I worked up 2 mock budgets – one with one of us staying at home and one with both of us working full-time.

The one with one of us staying at home was pretty easy. Branden and I get paid the same salary. The only difference is I have the insurance coming out of my bi-weekly paychecks. If one of us stayed home, we would still need to carry insurance so i just used my monthly salary as the amount we would be earning.

Before I could work up a mock budget with both of us working full time, I needed to figure out what we would be paying in daycare expenses for two kids. Brayden was currently at a big name daycare. They charged $205 a WEEK for just one baby. For two? Over $400 a WEEK. Whoa… Some people can afford that. I, however, cannot. I was already looking to go elsewhere, I was not comfortable sending him there for other reasons. I began looking into in home daycare, I was able to find someone that I really trusted. For two babies it would a tad bit over what i was paying for one baby at the other daycare. She was willing to take on Brayden and save a spot for Brylee. BTW, Brylee wasn’t even conceived yet. We didn’t know if we could have a another baby?? lol

Now that I found an affordable daycare for two kids, I was able to work up the budget for both of us working full-time. Taking into consideration daycare, gas to get to work, etc. We would be making quite a bit more money if i continued to work.

THANK GOD! I really wanted to continue working. I enjoyed having an adult social life, getting out of the house, and providing for my family. Plus, I know i would lose my mind if i stayed at home all day.

We knew that having another baby would come with even more sacrifices. We just decided it was worth it. Brayden having a playmate was very important to us. My family just didn’t feel complete and i wanted to complete it ASAP so baby #2 didn’t feel left out of family events that happened before she was born.