1 income family? *updated*

Dan told me last night that he finds out today if he's getting laid off. He says he found out yesterday and only because his management friend warned him. Apparently the company has a meeting at 10am and they'll know after the meeting. Today or tomorrow may be his last day and he wont get a compensation package.
I've always strongly believed that things happen for a reason. I don't know what that reason may be right now but I do have faith that we'll find our way and be ok. I was up most of the night thinking about our finances and the most important part is that my pay covers the mortgage (but not much else) so we don't have to worry about losing our house. We may live on kraft dinner and wear more sweaters for a few months but we'll be ok :)

*update* They didn't know for sure until 4:30 yesterday afternoon but they thankfully will not be laid off.

4 weeks

I did my HCG today and I can officially say I'm pregnant! My HCG level was 262 at 4 weeks 1 day (although I'm sure the doctor is going to put me back a day eventhough my cycle is 27 days instead of 28). This gives me a due date of...... August 31,2013.

I thought I'd start the weekly pregnancy questions. I'm not going to do this every week but it'll give me an idea of how much weight I've gained. Most of these questions aren't going to apply yet but I'll do the best I can.

How far along? 4 weeks
Baby's size? Poppyseed
Total Weight Gain: My weight at the moment is 138.2lbs
Bellybutton:  Obviously in
Stretchmarks: I never got rid of my stretchmarks from pregnancies 1 and 2
Maternity Clothes: No
Gender: Don't think we'll find out
Movement: No
Sleep: I've been suffering insomnia the past couple nights. I've barely slept at all the past 3 days.
Symptoms: Is it too early for morning sickness? I've been feeling nauseous most for a week now.
Food Aversions: Because of the nausea I haven't really been feeling like eating so everything.
Food Cravings: Nothing really.
Best Moments this week: Getting my BFP
What I miss: Nothing
What I am Looking forward to: Christmas!

I'm really hoping to a happy and healthy 9 months.
I forgot to update about the temp dip the other day. It went back up the next day from 96.4 to 97.5.

Drop in temp

I've been doing a lot of googling today and I figure it's time to write this post so hopefully it'll give others hope in the future.

This is the first month I've done charting. From everything I've read your temps start low and once you ovulate they increase. My chart shows I ovulated on day 14 which sounds pretty accurate based on my cycles. Then your temp is supposed to stay risen until the day or day before your period starts then it drops  below the cover line. If you're pregnant normally your temp stays high.

As you all know I took a pregnancy tests 2 days ago that game up positive. They also did yesterday so I'm not quite sure what this means. From what I've looked up online today occasionally it drops below the cover line but comes back up the next day. So I'm hoping mine will come back up tomorrow. I've decided I'm going to keep my plan and go form my HCG test on Saturday if my period doesn't start tomorrow.
I'm really regretting doing the charting now.

Pregnant?

*This was written yesterday*

I think I might be pregnant! Today is cycle day 25.  Last week I decided to give into my early testing obsession in a way that wouldn't cost us a lot of money.......ebay! I bought 25 tests for $10.25 (free shipping). I didn't really hold out much hope that these tests would ever show up positive because of Lauren's pregnancy and the lack of + urine, also they're the cheap strip tests but testing is my way of getting through the 2 week wait. I decided I was going to test Sunday (9 DPO) and every second day until my period arrived. Sunday of course was 100% negative. This morning however.....

I'm wasn't sure how much I trusted these tests so I took another later on this morning and.....

top-first morning urine, bottom taken a few hours later

It's even darker then my first morning urine! So now I'm pretty sure I am pregnant (at least for the time being). I'm still going to go for a blood HCG on Saturday if my period doesn't arrive Friday.
Of course this would be the month to get pregnant though. It's been a rough week in this house. Lauren was sick Monday/Tuesday with a really bad cold that she still hasn't completely gotten over. That means complete lack of sleep Monday night because she couldn't breathe and a few hours sleep Tuesday night. That's also around the time I started to feel nauseous after eating. I remember joking with Dan that if I turn out to be pregnant watch out because morning sickness before 4 weeks might be a sign of twins or more! I say this because with Hailey and Lauren morning sickness started around 6 weeks. I've also had a heightened sense of smell since Wednesday. I can't stand going over to my mom's because eventhough she only feeds the dog twice a day (first thing in the morning and then at dinner time) and picks up the dish when she's finished I keep smelling dog food which is driving me crazy.

I thought those symptoms were explained on Thursday when Dan came home from work in the afternoon because he wasn't feeling well. This is VERY unusual for him because he doesn't get paid sick time so he always goes to work even if he's sick (we need the money and he hates that his work doesn't pay sick time so he goes in anyway probably a little out of spite because most of his colleagues are on salary and do get sick pay). After sleeping the afternoon away  because he was feeling nauseous and dizzy he started to get diarrhea. Then at 9pm so did I. By 12am that turned into non stop vomiting for me which continued until 3pm Friday. My mum came first thing in the morning to pick Lauren up in hopes that she wouldn't get sick (and she didn't!!!!) The vomiting continued on and off the rest of the day. The only way I could keep down water was to take 2 gravel every 4 hours to knock me out then have something to drink when I started to feel drowsy. By Saturday we were both feeling better so we picked Lauren up and relaxed the rest of the weekend. The nausea after eating continued which we assumed was a prolonged effect from being sick. Now, maybe it's not but I do worry about all the stomach cramps and dehydration so early on in the pregnancy.

After taking the second test I filled out an online intake form for one midwifery group and called to make an appointment at another. Midwives are becoming popular in this area and I've heard that if you don't call them ASAP after finding out you'll be put on a waiting list and may not get to see one. I'm still waiting to hear back from the online one but I did get an appointment by calling the other office. I'm thinking I'll go with the one I have an appointment for. I'm not entirely sure how thrilled Dan is with my choice of having a midwife this time around so I think it will comfort him more knowing they also have doctor's who solely deal with pre/postnatal care and delivery.

With the holidays and because I need an afternoon appointment the earliest they could see me is Jan. 24th. This is fine with me because I'll be just shy of 9 weeks and I don't really like seeing anyone for pregnancy until after 12 weeks anyway. I have an appointment with my doctor early January (just shy of 6 weeks) for my yearly physical and while there I'm planning to ask for an early ultrasound done as close to before we leave for Australia as possible. I took a lot of comfort with Lauren knowing there was a heartbeat and she was growing well at 12 weeks and since we'll be in Australia when I turn 12 weeks this is the best I can do.

update on TTC and Lauren

It's day 15 of TTC cycle 2 and this month I thought I'd try temping. Of course when I say this I mean my version on temping because there's no way I ever get 3 hours of sleep before I wake up and also I've been on holidays this past week so I've been sleeping in too. I've never actually temp'd before and have always just assumed I ovulate on day 14 so with how I've been feeling about how long it'll take to get pregnant I figured I'd arm myself with as much knowledge as possible. I think it showed that I ovulated yesterday as expected since my temps from day 1-14 have been ranging between 96.4-96.7 and this morning was 97.2.

I'm not feeling confident about getting pregnant this cycle. We've done the every second day thing since day 11 but I just feel like this isn't our month. I don't know why but I still have this feeling that it'll take a while and I'm at peace with that. On day 1 of this cycle I was a little disappointed but I reminded myself that I'd rather it take a bunch of cycles to get pregnant if it goes on to be a healthy pregnancy for both myself and our future baby. Maybe these feelings are just a way to keep my expectations low? Next cycle is the last one we'll have a good chance to TTC because the timing will be incredibly bad for cycles 4 and 5. There's pretty much no chance of getting pregnant those months. Either way I've got a healthy child at home with me to cuddle, kiss and shower with love. If she's all we're meant to have here with us then so be it. I'm incredibly grateful for Lauren. 

Now onto Lauren! She's just turned 16 months and I don't see much baby left in her. I thought we'd be on the way to being potty trained by now but she seems to have regressed. A few months ago all she wanted to do was sit on the potty and would start to cry when you made her get off. Now it's the opposite. She still comes up and lets us know she need to go "pee pee" (we've just started getting her to say poo) but she refuses to go sit on the potty and by the time I struggle with her to get on she's already gone. The only consistent time she goes on the potty is first thing in the morning. In fact this morning her night diaper was bone dry and 10 minutes after waking up she looked at me said "pee pee" then "potty" and off we went were she peed straight away and a few minutes later pooped. I'm trying not to force this on her as I know 16 months is still very young to be potty trained so most days if she says she needs to go I'll just ask if she wants to go to the potty and if she says no I leave her for a few minutes then off we go for a change.

I can't believe how many words she knows. I started to write them all down the other day and stopped after 75. She's able to let us know if there's something she wants and is always copying us when we speak. The other day she was playing with a french/english toy and started to say words in french! It seems like every day she says a new word, like this morning while playing in the living room she could hear the birds outside and said "tweet tweet" while pointing at the window.

She's started the terrible 2's early and my patience is definitely being tested. At some point this past month she's also started to no with a lot of attitude. She wants to do everything on her own. Our biggest point of frustration is she wants to stand while going down the stairs and refuses help or even to hold my finger so she stands at the top of the stairs and getting upset because she wants to get down on her own but can't reach the banister. After about 5 minutes of this I either have to pick her up screaming and move her down 2 stairs so she can use the railing or she gives in and butt scoots down to that stair. Don't even get me started on how much fun it is to go shopping with her. Tuesday she had 3 on the floor screaming melt downs at the mall. It's not because she's frustrated and can't tell us what she wants, it's purely a power struggle. 

Now onto sleeping. Lauren's getting pretty consistent with her bed and wake up time (9:30-7:30 as well as a 2 hour nap during the day). I tried moving the bedtime up because I felt that 9:30 was a little late to go to bed but it just moves her wake up time ahead. After getting up at 6 a few mornings it's been moved back to 7:30. All in all I've excepted this because it also means Dan gets more time with her at night since he doesn't get home until 6:30/7. I'm still rocking her to sleep with a bottle mainly because within 5 minutes she's asleep and the transfer into bed is easy. Some nights she wakes up anywhere between 3-6 am and normally gets brought into our bed but she still sleeps through the night a few times a week. We're slowly going to transition away from falling asleep with the bottle to having the bottle as part of our bedtime routine before brushing her teeth. When that transition is finished we'll move to getting her to fall asleep on her own.

I spoke to a nurse from the health unit yesterday that deals mainly with dental issues in children 1-3 and we're going to transition away from the bottle. Dan and I knew this was coming for a while and I've been feeling like she's been drinking too much milk and not enough water or eating as much as she should. She's now limited to 3 bottles a day and the rest of the time is water. I've left her sippy cup filled with water on the coffee table so she can go over and have a drink whenever she likes. I've also left a bowl with raisins, cheerios and fruit next to it so she can eat as much and as often as she likes. When she comes up and asks for her bottle I've been directing her to the food and she's been eating. I'm starting to suspect she was asking for her "baba" because she was hungry. She hadn't been eating much the past couple weeks and I think it's because she fills herself up on milk. At the moment she gets a bottle when she wakes up and can have the rest of that bottle whenever she'd like throughout the rest of the morning. Once it's finished I put it out of sight and remind her that there's water. She gets her second bottle when she goes down for her nap, again if it's not finished she can continue to have it after she wakes up until it's gone then gets put out of sight. Her last bottle she falls asleep to at night. She very rarely gets a bottle in the middle of the night.

Here's some pics of Lauren

 Playing

 She decided to eat yogurt without help

 Getting our christmas tree!

 Licking the vegemite off her sandwich

She loves playing with blocks at the moment