19 Weeks

When I first learned I was preg­nant, my first thought was “me, a mother, seri­ously?” It was quickly fol­lowed by “oh my God, I’m going to have to sell my body on Ottawa’s cold­est streets to pay for one­sies and Win­nie the Pooh toys!”

I’m happy to report that despite hav­ing no good insur­ance, I did not become a sex worker—not that there is any­thing wrong with that (except for the fact that it must be really cold pac­ing the side­walk in Canada). Mark hasn’t bank­rupted us so far. In fact, so far, I find rais­ing a kid is less expen­sive than I had thought.

We are both self-employed free­lancers. As such, we do not have ben­e­fits and I was not eli­gi­ble for mater­nity leave or Employ­ment Insur­ance (EI). On the plus side, we do not have any debts: I com­pleted uni­ver­sity in France where edu­ca­tion is free and I paid for the classes I took at the Uni­ver­sity of Ottawa a few years ago out of my pocket. I have been work­ing full-time since I’m 20 years old and Feng and I aren’t big spenders—hon­estly, we are fairly good with money and “doing more with less”. Con­sumerism is a North Amer­i­can trend I haven’t really adopted.

I’m also grate­ful for the Cana­dian health­care sys­tem. As an Ontario res­i­dent, I’m cov­ered by OHIP and I didn’t have to spend a dime for the med­ical care I received dur­ing the preg­nancy (rou­tine ultra­sounds and tests were all cov­ered) and for Mark’s birth at the hos­pi­tal. And I have recently dis­cov­ered we were eli­gi­ble for some ben­e­fits, such as the Uni­ver­sal Child Care Ben­e­fit. It’s not a lot of money but it does help a bit.

Yet, our finan­cial sit­u­a­tion wor­ried me all along my preg­nancy. Would I be able to work with a baby? Would I have any work, period? Free­lanc­ing is not like hav­ing a per­ma­nent job—it does offer some free­dom and flex­i­bil­ity but my work­load slows down and picks up just like that, and the mar­ket isn’t great right now.

We didn’t spend a lot of money prepar­ing for Mark’s grand arrival into the world. We bought a few basic items and a gen­er­ous friend lent me a car seat and a stroller. I dis­cov­ered that peo­ple enjoy buy­ing baby clothes—we received so many out­fits from fam­ily, friends and even my clients that I barely had to buy anything!

I stopped breast­feed­ing after a month and we switched to for­mula. Yep, that shit is expensive—about $25 for a large can of pow­dered milk. For­tu­nately, we got a bunch of coupons at first (best way to get con­sumer hooked to a brand, I know!) and we check fly­ers to see when it’s on sale—and when it is, we stock up.

I remem­bered dia­pers being very expen­sive in France but I find them more afford­able in Canada. Pam­pers and Hug­gies, the two lead­ing brands, offer huge boxes of 200+ diapers—these are usu­ally the best deal. We also use wipes—bad for the envi­ron­ment but oh-so-convenient!—and it’s about $25 for a huge box of 700+ wipes. We are still using the ones we bought before Mark was born, so that was a good investment.

For both for­mula and dia­pers, the price range for the exact same prod­uct from one store to another is quite impres­sive. Places like Babies’R’Us or Loblaws have the high­est price tag while there are often good deals at Wal­mart or Shop­pers Drug Mart. It pays to shop around and to know the “real” price of such prod­ucts so that you don’t get ripped off.

I also dis­cov­ered a huge range of prices in baby clothes. In some stores, you can find super cute out­fits for a high price tag—I’m talk­ing $40 for a t-shirt! I have even seen a 0–3 month sweater for $100—no kid­ding. Do peo­ple real­ize it’s going to be spit on? While it’s okay to splurge once in a while, the more expen­sive isn’t the bet­ter when it comes to baby clothes. I focus on buy­ing cot­ton clothes (eas­ier on the skin) and I find great deals at Win­ners, Wal­mart, Old Navy, etc. I’m sorry but I’m not spend­ing $50 in an out­fit he will out­grow in two months. Mark will ask for brand names soon enough!

We are also start­ing to buy toys since Mark can play a bit (he kind of dis­cov­ered he has two hands and can grab objects—yay!). I found quite a few things at Win­ners, such as rat­tles and soft balls. Chap­ters also has very cute baby toys—they are on the expen­sive side but there are sales often enough.

I was expect­ing our hydro and water bills to sky­rocket but the slight increase has been rea­son­able. Yes, our util­ity bills are higher than usual (more loads of laun­dry and we plug in a small heater in Mark’s room when it’s cold) but hydro and water aren’t too expen­sive in Canada to start with and we have a very small house.

So far, we are doing okay. Thanks to the help of friends (hur­rah for second-hand baby gear!), some com­mon sense and shop­ping around, we manage—at least financially.

Related arti­cles:

1. Baby Money and Social Benefits
2. Dear Canada, Thank you For Your Health Care System
3. 10 Signs You Are the Mother of a Baby
4. Then and Now (Or Five Months of Devel­op­ing Mother Instinct)
5. 10 Perks of Being Pregnant
6. Baby Shop­ping: From “Aww So Cute” To “What On Earth Is That?”