And have cash to pay for convinence.

Don’t buy anything (clothing, Furniture) new except of course toiletries and diapers - that’ll save you 3k or so that you can invest in eating take out. I’m serious ;-)

Uber eats is your go to baby gift to ask for!

Cruise at work as much as possible - avoid getting promoted. Avoid trying to improve things or caring too much. Just do your job well based on what they expect.

Take it in turns to get a good night sleep. The couch will be the 5 star hotel!

Finally it’s hard to do but relax. Don’t read too many baby books you’ll probably learn enough from prenatal classes. Just know the medical stuff, when to go to the doctor etc.

And find time to go out and have fun. Once a month for a couple of drinks should be possible.

If you don’t have much money all this is going to be really hard and I am not sure what to advice there. Get as much help from friends as possible. You might want to move to where they mostly are.

C sections are horrible. Some OBs love em though. So get multiple opinions and decide yourself. Sometimes unavoidable of course but question a planned one. Don’t believe the 6 week recovery driving again bull shit. Be prepared for 6 months of pain.

Finally my pay has increased at the highest rate since having kids. Part of that is software eating the world, mixed with the lack of the luxury to accept low paying but interesting jobs. I’m not coding Haskell, but hey Typescript is still pretty nice!