First, thank you all!
Yet another antenatal appointment later (which went well, thank you for asking. Only my thyroid values are still low, but have risen with higher dosage so we are going to good direction)... I am now officially far along enough to apply for this:
Government gives every expecting mother maternity grant. It's either a BIG box full of baby stuff or 140 € of money. The box contains about 270€s worth of clothes and necessities (more pictures at SII webpage: here) so any guesses which one I am taking?
This grant was initiated after WWII to support poor families, but nowadays everyone residing here gets it after 154 days of pregnancy (mine is officially 154 days on Sunday) if they have taken care of their antenatal appointments (and got tested for HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis). Many people dislike the clothes because they are so neutral... well, I like personal and colourful clothes, yes, but FREE high-quality stuff is something I won't say no to. And I can always dye those white and bland clothes anyway.
There's actually few things I have to apply for: maternity allowance (paid during maternity leave), parenting allowance (paid during parenting leave) and child allowance. So many allowances (and I still need to apply for caretaking allowance which will be paid after parenting one ends: this one is smaller, but still quite a good sum of money and I can basically stay at home three years, if our finances can stand it, that is).
First two basically mean that for the first ten(ish) months my income is only slightly lower than it is now, child allowance (appr. 100€/ mo. at the moment) is paid monthly until Baby Wonder is 17...
Sometimes I kind of like this Nordic welfare system thingy.
Less than three months from now and my maternity leave begins! Yay!
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