can we afford a baby??

[MindUtopia]

Assuming you can pay the extra for health insurance, I'd say you're fine. We're in the UK, so it's different (nearly a year paid maternity and free health care). But my husband is self-employed and I'm a PhD student and we have nothing left over month to month and we're doing fine. Again, it helps knowing we won't have any surprise medical expenses, but we're pretty broke by most people's standards but we do fine. It will get a bit more tricky once our daughter needs to be in childcare (after the first year, for now since I'm a student, I just work on my doctoral research when she sleeps or is hanging with daddy). But we're hoping my husband's business growth will cover that when the time comes. Really, you don't have to be rich to have a baby. It's as expensive as you make it. They don't need much at all. You don't need fancy toys or expensive furniture. They just need food (free if you are BF), to be changed, love and a safe place to sleep (which can include your bed, don't even need a crib to start) and that's pretty cheap relative to other expenses in life. You can make it work if you want to, so try not to worry.