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Up the creek without a paddle and a baby on board!

 

I love my kids, I love them so much that I could say with certainty that I absolutely was not having any more. 

Sunday mornings were good again.  A little bit of banging around downstairs whilst they prepared their own breakfast but acceptable nonetheless.  Yes, I had reached the destination of “Smug Parentville”.  That place where your children are self-sufficient and you no longer have to take a suitcase of supplies with you on every outing.

The mistake I made was to verbalise this smugness one Sunday morning.  Clearly loud enough for the universal karma bank to take my deposit and spit it out with interest just one week later!

The shock of being pregnant hit me hard.  After coming around from the daze (this took a few months) I also realised that my health insurance was not quite what I thought it was.  Even worse was that I did not have the maternity benefits that I thought I had. 

Due to previous complications, I knew that this pregnancy and delivery would cost me at least S$15,000.  Here I was up the creek without a paddle and a baby on board!

I felt so stupid for not reviewing my medical insurance benefits.  Perhaps I did review the benefits at some point and decided that I didn’t need this cover?  After all, I didn’t plan on getting pregnant again did I!

Whilst the known maternity costs are shocking, it’s the unknown costs that gave me sleepless nights. What about if the baby comes early?  I knew of someone who had to fork out S$42,000 in expenses due to her baby coming 6 weeks early.  What about if I have other complications that add to the cost?  What if something else goes wrong?

Fortunately some of this worry has been taken away via a health policy that will cover the baby and the complications of pregnancy, which covers most of the unknown costs if they occur.  Despite being pregnant already.  It also provides comprehensive global cover which means that I can cancel my old policy.

So here I am, Trimester 3.  A fair few stops away from “Smug Parentville” and surprisingly I am absolutely delighted to be waiting for the number 3 to enjoy the next leg of my family’s journey. 

I feel like a huge weight has been lifted, but we better keep that a secret, just in case the karma gods are listening!

 

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