For me, it would be worth it. You’ll have the ability to answer $60,000 in your next interview when they ask about your previous salary. Your income is low enough that getting $10 or $20 thousand more a year will be significant even if it takes a little longer and more effort to earn it.

YMMV

Oh that’s great - what a relief!

It’s not just for the maternity leave that you need the cash for. Sometimes things happen like an extended stay in nicu ir other special circumstances. It’s worth stashing up the cash. You just don’t know. Not just bed rest, sometimes we have kids who need more than the typical baby and require things like medically necessary formula. Sometimes we have kids born that need much more than just special formula. I hope everything goes really well for you and the baby. It won’t hurt to save more cash in case there are complications that you didn’t expect.

I would normally recommend getting out of debt asap, putting savings (besides 401k) on hold but now you’re expecting a significant risky life change. Pregnancy and childbirth are very common but are also very dangerous when compared to not being pregnant and delivering a baby. So, save save save.

Someone else mentioned this but do NOT buy ALL the baby things. Cannot stress that enough. Plain onesies, diapers, receiving blankets. They don’t even need a crib or changing table if you don’t get one as a gift or hand me down from a trusted source.

You could quite possibly end up on bed rest with longer unpaid maternity (you don’t have paid leave, so you?) leave than you expected - or other circumstances much more significant financial impact, we don’t need to get into details. Stack up your cash. Everything will quite likely go very smoothly, boringly smooth is what we hope for, and worse case scenario you have a bunch of cash to throw at the debt.

Good luck and congrats!