How Pregnancy, Loss & Motherhood Loudly Changed Our Finances

Last summer, on July 25, 2025, my husband and I stood in our bathroom staring at a pregnancy test as the word positive slowly appeared.

We smiled. We hugged. And then I cried.

I truly was excited. But almost immediately, excitement was replaced with panic.

This was our second pregnancy. We already had a two-and-a-half-year-old still in diapers. We were paying for a nanny who would soon be caring for two children. I had just started a new job and willingly took a pay cut in exchange for better work-life balance. Before we even had time to celebrate, my brain was running numbers.

How were we going to afford this? Would we be okay?

Within seconds, every responsibility came rushing over me.

My husband grabbed my face, smiled, and said “It’ll be okay. We’ll figure it out together.”

Looking back now, I realize that was the beginning of a year that would challenge me to live out the very lessons I teach as a family financial coach.

Because pregnancy, loss, and motherhood changed every part of how money flowed through our lives.

Pregnancy Changed More Than Our Budget

I had already been feeling sick before I even took the pregnancy test, but the weeks that followed were unlike anything I experienced during my first pregnancy.

The nausea was relentless.

I could barely eat, and when I could, it had to be something incredibly specific. The homemade lunches I packed every day for work suddenly became impossible to stomach. Instead, I found myself buying breakfast on the way to work, ordering lunch, grabbing whatever sounded tolerable on the drive home, and sometimes ordering dinner because I simply couldn’t imagine cooking.

Our food budget quickly grew. Which we felt but we had to adapt. 

Then my symptoms became even more severe.

I found myself spending days in bed, too weak and lightheaded to function normally. I began using PTO and sick time far faster than I expected. Thankfully, my accounting job allowed me to work remotely when I physically couldn’t make it into the office, but even then, I knew my boss wasn’t thrilled with how often I was asking.

I kept telling myself it would get better once I reached the second trimester.

That’s what everyone says, right?

The Phone Call That Changed Everything

One morning, something didn’t feel right. I can’t explain it logically. I just knew. People always talk about a mother’s intuition, and that day mine was screaming at me. I called my OB and asked if they could squeeze me in for a heartbeat check.

I’ll never forget sitting in that exam room waiting for my doctor to come back.

Or the look on her face.

“Juliana… I’m so incredibly sorry. We can’t find a heartbeat, and the baby is measuring about two weeks behind.”

There’s before a miscarriage.

And then there’s after.

I truly don’t think I’ll ever be the same.

From talking with other women who have experienced pregnancy loss, I don’t think any of us are.

Grief Doesn’t Care About Your Budget

My husband happened to be out of town for work that day. Thankfully, my mom worked near my office and came immediately.

We got into her car. Neither of us knew where to go. I was completely numb. At one point I looked over and said, “I think I should eat.”

I wasn’t hungry.

I don’t even remember if I actually ate anything. What I do remember is crying at a restaurant table, desperately wanting the pain to stop.

Looking back, I can see that was the beginning of something I didn’t recognize at the time. I wasn’t spending money because I wanted lunch. I was spending money trying to feel something other than heartbreak.

My husband came home as quickly as he could.

Because my body wasn’t naturally miscarrying, I needed surgery to remove our baby girl.

More medical bills.

More time off work.

More PTO disappearing.

We decided to keep our nanny during that time, even though we were both home. We needed the space to grieve together without also trying to explain to our toddler why Mommy and Daddy couldn’t stop crying.

For about a week and a half, we simply… existed.

We drove around Virginia. Walked through little towns. Sat at vineyards. Ordered meals we hadn’t planned to buy. Not because we suddenly stopped caring about our budget but because we were trying to survive.

At one point, my husband suggested we take a trip.

I remember saying, “Why would we spend thousands of dollars just to go cry on a beach somewhere?”

But now I understand what he was really asking. He wasn’t asking to go on vacation. He was asking, What can we do to make this hurt a little less?

And isn’t that what so many of us do after trauma? We look for anything that might soften the pain.

Whatever the cost.

The Costs We Never Planned For

When I eventually returned to work, I had no idea how to carry my grief. So I threw myself into something I could control. My business.

I hired a business coach. Ran paid ads. Invested in new branding photos. Updated my website. Attended networking events.

Looking back, I know I wasn’t simply growing my business. I was trying to outrun my grief.

Then one night, I worked until four o’clock in the morning… A few hours later, I got up, drove to work, and by that afternoon I found myself driving to the emergency room convinced I was having a heart attack.

It wasn’t a heart attack. It was my first panic attack.

Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be my last.

Over the next several months, our mailbox became a steady reminder that grief has a financial cost.

Bills from the emergency room. Bills from specialists. Bills from therapy. Bills from follow-up appointments. My nervous system had completely shut down.

I was having panic attacks while driving. At work. At home. I was constantly triggered, emotionally exhausted, and just trying to make it through each day.

At the same time, my husband and I were still raising a toddler. By the end of the day, neither of us had anything left.

Cooking dinner felt impossible. Meal planning disappeared. Takeout became normal.

Again. Not because we lacked discipline. Because we lacked capacity.

Looking back, I could beat myself up over how much we spent on convenience. But convenience wasn’t laziness. It was capacity.

We didn’t need another lecture about meal planning. We needed something that helped us make it through the day.

When Grief and Joy Learn to Coexist

Just two months after losing our daughter, we found out I was pregnant again.

People often say grief and joy can exist together.

They’re right.

But no one tells you how exhausting that feels.

As I write this today, I’m 37 weeks pregnant with our little boy. I’m in a much healthier place than I was a year ago. But this pregnancy has been incredibly hard.

Every appointment carried anxiety. Every ultrasound carried fear. Every quiet moment made me wonder if something was wrong.

Pregnancy after loss is different. You don’t get innocence back.

I finally felt a sense of peace around 30 weeks, but if I’m being honest, part of me will hold my breath until he’s safely in my arms.

This season changed our finances too.

We ordered breakfast, lunch, and dinner out more often than I’d ever like to admit.

Our immune systems took a hit, and we burned through even more PTO than we expected.

We found ourselves chasing little moments of happiness through purchases that never actually filled the hole we were trying to fill.

At work, I wasn’t myself.

My boss passed me over for a promotion I likely would have received under different circumstances. And honestly? I understood why. I was checked out. I wasn’t giving 110%. I couldn’t.

Every ounce of emotional energy I had was going toward surviving this pregnancy and perhaps the hardest thing for me to admit as someone who teaches personal finance…

My husband and I completely stopped pursuing our financial goals for almost a year.

We weren’t talking about investments or dreaming about the future. We weren’t optimizing our budget or asking, “What’s next?” We were simply trying to make it through today.

As a financial coach, I knew what we “should” have been doing.

I knew our spending had increased, that our goals had stalled, and that we weren’t operating the way we normally would.

And yet…

None of that changed the reality of what we were living through.

Money is deeply emotional. Even the most financially organized families go through seasons where survival takes precedence over optimization.

Looking Back, I Can Clearly See What Changed

When I look back over the past year, I don’t just see one big expense.

I see how one life event created ripple effects through every part of our financial life.

Medical costs became more than just prenatal appointments. There were doctor’s visits, surgery, emergency room bills, therapy, specialists, and follow-up care.

Convenience spending increased because we were physically and emotionally exhausted. We weren’t ordering takeout because we didn’t care about our budget. We were ordering it because we didn’t have the capacity to cook.

Our income changed. PTO disappeared. Sick leave disappeared. Career opportunities shifted. I missed out on a promotion because I simply didn’t have anything more to give.

Emotional spending became very real. Whether it was investing heavily in my business or buying little things that promised a moment of relief, I was searching for something that could make the pain hurt less.

Financial fog settled in. We weren’t avoiding our finances because we were irresponsible. We were grieving. Sometimes opening the budget felt like one more thing our hearts couldn’t carry.

And finally, our goals went on pause.

Not because we stopped caring about our future but because we simply didn’t have the emotional capacity to think beyond the present.

For a long time, I felt guilty about that.

Now I don’t.

Because sometimes the most financially responsible decision isn’t the cheapest one.

Sometimes it’s the decision that helps your family survive the season you’re in.

When Your Season Changes, Your Financial System Should Too

Looking back, I can see every dollar we spent that wasn’t part of “the plan.”

The medical bills.

The takeout.

The missed promotion.

The panic-driven ER visits.

The business investments.

The year we barely looked at our financial goals.

Would I choose any of it? Absolutely not. But I also refuse to look back with shame.

This past year I experienced something I carry into every conversation I have about money: our financial systems are meant to support our lives, not the other way around.

Sometimes the season calls for aggressively building wealth.

Other times, the goal is simply making it through with your marriage intact, your family supported, and enough clarity to find your footing again.

As I write this, I’m preparing to welcome our little boy into the world. My husband and I are talking about our goals again. We’re opening our budget again. We’re dreaming again.

We’re finally in a season where we have the capacity to lift our heads above the fog.

If you’re walking through a season where your finances don’t look like they used to, I hope you hear this.

You are not behind and you do not need to “catch up.”

Life changed.

And your financial plan may need to change with it.

That’s not failure.

That’s what it looks like to build a financial system that bends with the seasons of your life.

And sometimes, that’s the strongest financial decision you can make.