My husband and I conceived after 10 months ttc. I never thought I was ready until we had a pregnancy scare, and I wound up not being pregnant—I was so upset. So we started ttc and told ourselves we would start chiseling away debt as we ttc and throughout the pregnancy. We’re not by any means drowning in debt, but we have a nearly maxed out cc at $6,000 (this happened a few years ago during grad school and an unpaid internship), a Lowe’s card we are paying off from when we first bought our house, and a couple smaller cc’s with low limits on them. I got into an accident this year in my fully paid off car, and now I have a car payment in addition to our mortgage and his car payment.

I’m so stressed!!! We have a plan to pay off several smaller debts before the baby arrives, as I will be doing some online teaching to supplement my current teaching job. We both make decent money, and I’m fortunate to have a SAHM friend who is willing to keep baby once I go back to work. I guess i don’t love going into this with two car payments, a mortgage, the $6,000 cc debt, and the Lowe’s card, even though our other debt will be paid off. I keep telling myself that lots of people have children who are drowning in way more debt, and that chiseling away such a large chunk before the baby comes is a good accomplishment. Hell, my mom raised 8 of us on one income (although they wound up going bankrupt when the economy sank in 2006-07). I also keep having to remind myself not to be hard on myself because it’s like my whole mindset changed once we found out about the baby—every dollar we spend, I’m thinking about the future and our baby arriving this August. It’s changed how I view our money and our future.

Anyway, this is our first baby, and I’m so excited! I guess my anxiety is just getting the better of me, but I’m needing some reassurement that starting my family before paying off all our debt wasn’t a crazy idea. I feel like I’m always so hard on myself.