There we were—biting our nails, excited, but more than a little anxious—as we tried to map out some sort of plan to make the whole thing work. My wife and I had just learned we were expecting our first child.
We lived in an apartment that, with only the two of us, seemed about the size of a phone booth. The neighborhood? A sometimes dicey, often colorful, always noisy area on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Was this the right place to start a family? The question was pointless. Whether we liked it or not, moving was not an option.
To be honest, we weren't sure how we were going to afford this baby. My wife had been working in an office for a few years, and we agreed that she would work up to the due date, but not go back after the baby arrived. I would keep working, of course. But I was in the middle of a career change, in the process of becoming self-employed. And I'd been advised that the ramp-up to full speed in this new line of work would be long and gradual. To top it all off, we'd set aside next to nothing in savings.
