Is Your Estate Plan Part of Your Birth Plan?

At first I didn't think much about making a birth plan for baby number three. I had a pretty good idea of what to expect when it came to having our third child, but then we found ourselves in the middle of a pandemic. ⁠ ⁠ There were so many uncertainties.⁠ ⁠

Would the hospital be at capacity?⁠ ⁠

Would my husband be allowed in the hospital with me?

If so when would he be allowed back to the labor and delivery room?⁠ ⁠

What if I got sick? Would they take the baby away from me? ⁠ ⁠

All of these questions and many more crossed my mind. And that's not to mention dealing with the grief of lost expectations of what I thought things were going to be like. ⁠ ⁠

So what did I do about my birth plan? ⁠I made sure my estate plan was also a part of my birth plan. ⁠

⁠ 1. I made sure we had someone who was willing to watch our two other boys when we had to go to the hospital unexpectedly, and ask someone to be a back up in case our first responder was unavailable. ⁠This included talking to these people to make sure they were able to take our older two considering the things happening with the pandemic.

2. I made sure those people had the legal authority to take care of my kids just in case my husband and I were not available. ⁠ ⁠

3. I made sure ALL of my medical directives were up-to-date and copies ready to share when I registered at the hospital. ⁠ ⁠

4. I reviewed our estate plan with my husband. Thankfully, we already had one in place. However, when we reviewed it, we realized a few updates were needed, we were able to make them before the baby arrived. This gave me so much peace of mind.⁠