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OK, I know you are all going to say "how long is a piece of string" but we have been shown three situations so far and in each case there have been living expenses for the expectant mother, and we are not sure how typical these are, as they are kind of stretching our budget.
In two cases the expectant mother was quite early in pregnancy (one case first trimester) and the expense breakdown included rent, utilities etc. for all of pregnancy. I guess we were surprised because we had assumed that living expenses were for the period when the expectant mother cannot work, or has to reduce her hours at work or something. We also got an estimate for a situation where the mother is 6 weeks away from delivering and living expenses were about half those for the mother who is in her first trimester, so we were kind of wondering whether they had been backdated to before she contacted the agency?
Is this common, or should this not happen - should expenses only be for the period between contacting the agency and delivery?
I hate to sound petty but we have soooo many other expenses including some extra legal expenses, we are just wondering if we are going to miss out by asking our agency to hold off on higher priced situations? Plus husband says, well yes we are happy to help out if she cannot work due to pregnancy, but paying for several months when she can work, does it not look like we are "buying" the baby?
The situation with 6 weeks to due date is near the high end of the agency's suggested average range (the situation in the first trimester was over this range), but of course you never know whether the average range includes "very rare low cost" or just "fairly average low cost".
I really hate having to ask these questions, I feel bad even thinking them!