Often you will have the luxury of deciding you want to have a baby before actually falling pregnant. In many cases, the luxury of deciding pre-empts many months, sometimes years, of fertility treatments. And in possibly even more instances there is no luxury of deciding at all. In my case, the lethal combination of love, lust and unemployment resulted in a rather surprising discovery that I was pregnant when I was already three months in. This meant I had to swiftly take on a new role and start project managing my life. I had been actively looking for work since returning from the UK a few months previously and now figured that I was probably out of the running for any job once my pregnancy was showing. So I called and brought forward all job interviews. There was the last of the unpacking to be done to allow for an adequate amount of nesting time, and several essential purchases to be made, namely appliances and a mattress. And there were hospitals to be called, prices to get and medical aid to buy. I also had to scour the papers for a pedigree dog.

With skills and experience, I managed the process well. The packing was completed and the home decorated and equipped. The interviews were conducted while I could still fit into my pinstriped pants (self-sabotage, rather than lack of planning, can be blamed for not actually landing a job in time). A 10-week old pedigree Rhodesian Ridgeback was purchased and puppy school begun. But everyone knows to never be caught out with a pre-existing condition when purchasing medical aid. I knew this. I didn’t, however, make the connection between pregnancy and a ‘condition’, let alone a pre-existing one. If not for a very fortuitous collision of my shrewd broker with a policy change, I would have been returning the appliances, sleeping on the floor and flogging the puppy (by flogging, I mean selling, not beating).

The point I am trying to make here is when you have that luxury, do your homework before you climb in the sack.