As our boys played at the playground, I struck up a conversation with the mother who is expecting her second child in a couple of months. We talked about to extraordinary high cost of childcare.

I was also curious to hear about how she and her husband planned to manage caring for two kids under three years old on their own.

She said they planned to “hire a village” to help them during her fourth trimester, which is the difficult three-month period after a child is born.

During the fourth trimester, mothers can suffer postpartum depression. If the birthing process was particularly difficult or if a C-section is required, a mother might be unable to move easily or carry heavy objects for at least the first month. Sleep deprivation is all but a certainty as a baby wakes up every 1-3 hours on average to feed.

The expecting mother mentioned her second pregnancy has been more difficult than her first. With one little monkey running around all day, she is worried she won’t have the necessary energy and time to take care of her toddler and a baby concurrently. Her husband works a full-time job and often only has an hour at most in the morning and two hours in the evening before and after work to help out.

When I asked her how much they planned to spend on the village, she said about $40,000. But she wasn’t certain whether she would go ahead and spend that amount since $40,000 is obviously a lot of money for childcare over just a three month period.

As I may face this dilemma one day, I thought it would be a good idea to graph out where $40,000 could get spent and whether hiring so much help during the fourth trimester is worth it.

We’ve all heard of trophy husbands and trophy wives. But what on earth is a trophy kid? Here’s how one expecting parent explained the term to me at the playground one day.

A trophy kid is what’s known as the 4th kid or greater in a family. Because raising kids is so expensive, especially in the coastal cities, having a 4th kid is one way the rich signal to society how rich they really are.

Not only do these parents have the fertility to have multiple children, but they also have the financial means to provide for additional kids. A family of six requires a bigger house, bigger travel budgets, bigger tuition budgets, hired help, and more.

As a couple who took almost three years to have one kid, I view having four or more kids as a miracle. Think about all the things that have to go right for any couple today to have four kids.

• A couple has to meet early enough in their lives to build a loving and trusting relationship. To have four children will likely take at least 10 years from the time a couple first meets.

• A couple needs to be healthy enough to conceive and birth. Things such as endometriosis, ovarian cysts, low sperm motility, irregular cycles, ectopic pregnancy, spontaneous miscarriages and more can and will affect the process of birthing a child.

• A couple needs to have a high enough level of happiness and energy after each kid to go through the process three or more times.

• A couple needs to have enough financial means to support a growing family. A recession or a layoff could easily derail the child birthing process.

• A couple will need to come to terms that an early retirement for both parents is highly unlikely.

Sure, a man can have four or more kids quicker by having multiple partners. But that doesn’t negate his responsibility of caring for each child. I’m unfamiliar with deadbeat dads.

A woman would still have to spend at minimum five years to have four children with multiple partners, unless of course she has twins or more.

IUI and IVF are not guarantees, but may help after the discovery of issues as well.

I still remember the day my son was born like it was yesterday. After only about an hour of labor he joined us in this world at 11:58 pm. It was the greatest moment of both our lives.

From that time forward, we pledged to care for him as best we could. In a big way, all the years of saving and investing and figuring out how to make some income at home were to prepare for this moment that we could both be stay at home parents.

As first-time parents, we didn’t know what to expect. So we figured having both of us care for our boy would be the optimal way to go.

Here’s my personal reflection as a stay at home dad for the past two years. I’ve sent this post to his e-mail account for him to read when he’s a little bit older.