Cycle six is now here, came on June 29th - which is great news because that means my cycles are further regulating. I was always 28 days, and slowly through the months I went from 32 day cycles to now 29. If this continues and it stays 28-29 days long each month, it means I won't have my period for our big cruise vacation AND I'll be ovulating while on it - so we can start our TTC'ing while we're on our amazing vacation and perhaps bring back a little souvenier with us. Plus, you know, I'll be able to also enjoy the beach, the pools, the hot tubs, the water rides and participate in the DisneyRun on Castaway Cay Island as well! So far, so good.
Yesterday I felt like it was coming, I was cramping badly but it wasn't happening. I wanted to make sure it wouldn't hold off for a few more days, so we went on a three mile fast paced walk. Working out usually helps to get it going, and I think it helped here too. I woke up at 8:30 and by 9, I had it. Unfortunately it meant we couldn't go on another three mile walk this morning (I LOVE that backwoods trail, I would love to walk it every day!) but I'm happy as is.
And thanks to having an amazing husband, yesterday he made sure I was well stocked with two kinds of my favorite ice cream, a 2 liter of Coke (my drink of choice for periods) and a giant Hershey's dark chocolate bar. It definitely makes dealing with cramps, bloating and uncomfortableness when I have that to fall back on!
Monday, June 29, 2015
Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Plans in Motion
All of our plans are going great. We've now found the exact apartments we're planning to move to that fit all of our needs (a main one and a back up, both close to each other and very similar), have budgeted it all out, and have an idea of when we'd like to move. We have a date that we absolutely want to be gone by (June 2017 is the latest). I've signed Katie up for Ballet, and if it goes well, I'll add acro classes too (which would be two fun classes each week to attend). Everything is going quite well...the only thing I can't plan, and what's preventing me from doing actual dates for moving, is the next pregnancy.
I absolutely do not want to move mid-pregnancy. I don't want to change doctors half way through, I don't want to be sick driving the 12 hours back and forth until we're settled, and I don't want to be packing and unpacking while sick or huge.I also don't want to move with a brand new baby, I'd like to at least wait until they're 3 months old ideally. So the date we move greatly depends on how long it'll take us to get pregnant and when the baby is due.
However, all of those dates means that 2016 would totally be out of the question to move, unless it took us more than 6 months to get pregnant (because of Katie's ballet classes, we want to stay here until June 2016 so she gets to go her recital). I'm not quite ready to say we won't move in 2016, because we've been discussing it at length as a major possibility. I'd love to have this coming winter be our last full PA winter either way. I think I'd consider moving while pregnant if I got pregnant with a winter baby, as I hate having a newborn and worrying about giving birth in the winter.
So while everything seems pretty set, the timing is so much in the air. I'm eager to see how to plays out. So far we're doing what we can daily - Bill works overtime every day so we can put money away in our emergency/moving fund and finish up paying off the few thousand we have left in student loans. I've been slowly going through everything in the attic and decluttering, selling or chucking what we don't plan to move with. We're prepping the finished two room attic to become my Father-in-Law's apartment, which will bring $500 more a month to us and help with moving all of us down South. I've been making strides to keep the grocery bill lower and make everything by hand. We eat out less to save more. I'm even keeping a close eye on lights being on to lessen the eletricity bill. Every penny counts right now, and the more frugal we can be, the faster we can make it down south - and in better shape.
We still haven't decided if we plan to get our big house right away down there (there's a few that I'd jump on RIGHT NOW if I could) or if we want to stay in something smaller for a while so we can live a few years with zero mortgage and use that time to save up to pay for a big house outright. I'm eager to get the kids into a home where we can stretch out, but the idea of having no mortgage is so enticing that I may be willing to be a bit cramped for a bit longer so we can have more money and no fear. Most likely that decision will come when we're down in North Carolina already and we're house hunting.
I absolutely do not want to move mid-pregnancy. I don't want to change doctors half way through, I don't want to be sick driving the 12 hours back and forth until we're settled, and I don't want to be packing and unpacking while sick or huge.I also don't want to move with a brand new baby, I'd like to at least wait until they're 3 months old ideally. So the date we move greatly depends on how long it'll take us to get pregnant and when the baby is due.
However, all of those dates means that 2016 would totally be out of the question to move, unless it took us more than 6 months to get pregnant (because of Katie's ballet classes, we want to stay here until June 2016 so she gets to go her recital). I'm not quite ready to say we won't move in 2016, because we've been discussing it at length as a major possibility. I'd love to have this coming winter be our last full PA winter either way. I think I'd consider moving while pregnant if I got pregnant with a winter baby, as I hate having a newborn and worrying about giving birth in the winter.
So while everything seems pretty set, the timing is so much in the air. I'm eager to see how to plays out. So far we're doing what we can daily - Bill works overtime every day so we can put money away in our emergency/moving fund and finish up paying off the few thousand we have left in student loans. I've been slowly going through everything in the attic and decluttering, selling or chucking what we don't plan to move with. We're prepping the finished two room attic to become my Father-in-Law's apartment, which will bring $500 more a month to us and help with moving all of us down South. I've been making strides to keep the grocery bill lower and make everything by hand. We eat out less to save more. I'm even keeping a close eye on lights being on to lessen the eletricity bill. Every penny counts right now, and the more frugal we can be, the faster we can make it down south - and in better shape.
We still haven't decided if we plan to get our big house right away down there (there's a few that I'd jump on RIGHT NOW if I could) or if we want to stay in something smaller for a while so we can live a few years with zero mortgage and use that time to save up to pay for a big house outright. I'm eager to get the kids into a home where we can stretch out, but the idea of having no mortgage is so enticing that I may be willing to be a bit cramped for a bit longer so we can have more money and no fear. Most likely that decision will come when we're down in North Carolina already and we're house hunting.
Monday, June 1, 2015
Just keeping track of cycles...
I've been forgetting to write down and track my cycles, so it's getting more complicated to see how things are playing out. I'm now on cycle 5, and I believe I'm pretty close to normal. I have NO idea when it happened in April, but I remember it was a little late. In May, it started on the 2nd. I started today, on June first, which means I'm on a 30 day cycle now. I was on a 35-38 day cycle for the first few months, so that means I'm continuing to regulate. The crappy part is it looks like I'll have it for mine and Katie's birthday celebrations plus Independance Day. =/ If it stays 30 days or goes back to 28, I'll be due between the 29th and 1st of July. I'm hoping the cycles shorten and stop being at the end/beginning of each month as I'd hate to have AF on our cruise, which is October 31st and the whole first week of November!
Monday, April 6, 2015
More plans and Changes
A lot has been happening lately! We've been forming multiple plans for this year and beyond that change our timelines for our future babies.
The first is that we're definitely moving to the South now. We have a main plan and a back up. Our goal is 2-3 years, and the plans are already in effect. Bill picked up an extra half a shift each work day so that we make an extra $100 a week to put towards student loans and then towards saving for the new house. I'm looking at work that I can do from home to bring a bit extra in and make things go even faster (I'm looking at things outside of what I already do, like my paid mod jobs and crocheting business). My father in law is most likely moving in with us this summer. It'll save him money in living conditions and add a few hundred dollars a month to our moving fund (he's coming with us down south, we're planning on getting an in law suite for him) so moving in benefits all of us.
I'd like to have one more baby up north and I don't want to get pregnant in the middle of our big move, so we're trying to change around dates to make that happen. At the same time, we're now going on a big Disney Cruise on Halloween. I don't want to be pregnant for that, as I can't be more than 4 months pregnant to go on and less than that I'll be terribly sick. So our new goal is to move our TTC date from June to start trying in November, have a baby sometime next year (a November conception would be an August baby). That baby will then be a year or two old during the move, and we'll hold off having #4 until we're settled in our new home.
Our original goal was to move in 5 years, but that just seemed like too long. We shortened it down to 3, and are currently hoping that we can do a little less than that (two years) depending on what happens in the next year or so. Meanwhile, we're fixing up our home (repainting and such) to get it in good condition so we can list it in a year. We're also downsizing a lot, both for when we move and to fit my FIL in our finished attic (which is set up to be two bedrooms, but currently is overflowing with all of our extra stuff). We have a lot to do, which makes it exciting to me. I love planning, making lists, and having projects to constantly work on. Each step closer to moving is a cause for celebration and the fact that we're already working through our 3 year plan each day is even more exciting. I can't wait to make our big move! If everything stays the way we plan it, we should be moving at the same time as my parents and siblings are moving too. They're headed to South Carolina, and we'll be in a state boarding them - either North or South, we're not sure yet. North Carolina is our goal and Georgia is our back up currently, even though the gorgeous homes and land in Georgia that are in our current price range does make it even more tempting, so I'm not sure if it's a back up or still as much a possibility as NC is. Both states have so many pros to them! In the end, it'll probably come down to what job is open when we're ready to go, so we're leaving it up in the air. Both places we're looking at are amazing and we love, so I don't really have a favorite or pulling for one or the other - I just know I want to be in one of them asap!
The first is that we're definitely moving to the South now. We have a main plan and a back up. Our goal is 2-3 years, and the plans are already in effect. Bill picked up an extra half a shift each work day so that we make an extra $100 a week to put towards student loans and then towards saving for the new house. I'm looking at work that I can do from home to bring a bit extra in and make things go even faster (I'm looking at things outside of what I already do, like my paid mod jobs and crocheting business). My father in law is most likely moving in with us this summer. It'll save him money in living conditions and add a few hundred dollars a month to our moving fund (he's coming with us down south, we're planning on getting an in law suite for him) so moving in benefits all of us.
I'd like to have one more baby up north and I don't want to get pregnant in the middle of our big move, so we're trying to change around dates to make that happen. At the same time, we're now going on a big Disney Cruise on Halloween. I don't want to be pregnant for that, as I can't be more than 4 months pregnant to go on and less than that I'll be terribly sick. So our new goal is to move our TTC date from June to start trying in November, have a baby sometime next year (a November conception would be an August baby). That baby will then be a year or two old during the move, and we'll hold off having #4 until we're settled in our new home.
Our original goal was to move in 5 years, but that just seemed like too long. We shortened it down to 3, and are currently hoping that we can do a little less than that (two years) depending on what happens in the next year or so. Meanwhile, we're fixing up our home (repainting and such) to get it in good condition so we can list it in a year. We're also downsizing a lot, both for when we move and to fit my FIL in our finished attic (which is set up to be two bedrooms, but currently is overflowing with all of our extra stuff). We have a lot to do, which makes it exciting to me. I love planning, making lists, and having projects to constantly work on. Each step closer to moving is a cause for celebration and the fact that we're already working through our 3 year plan each day is even more exciting. I can't wait to make our big move! If everything stays the way we plan it, we should be moving at the same time as my parents and siblings are moving too. They're headed to South Carolina, and we'll be in a state boarding them - either North or South, we're not sure yet. North Carolina is our goal and Georgia is our back up currently, even though the gorgeous homes and land in Georgia that are in our current price range does make it even more tempting, so I'm not sure if it's a back up or still as much a possibility as NC is. Both states have so many pros to them! In the end, it'll probably come down to what job is open when we're ready to go, so we're leaving it up in the air. Both places we're looking at are amazing and we love, so I don't really have a favorite or pulling for one or the other - I just know I want to be in one of them asap!
Saturday, March 21, 2015
New Goals, New Plans
I love when life shows us a new path, or when our hard times turn into something beautifully positive and meant to be.
Our baby and children plans may be changing a bit, as far as timing and such. We're hoping to have all of our children born in the next 5 years, before we make our big move.
We've been planning to move out of the area for a while now, but we weren't happy with anywhere we could find. Nothing seemed right, or where we really wanted to spend the rest of our lives. The search got put on hold though when Bill's work took him out of his old position and put him in a new place a few towns over and gave him a new job. It was hard on us - it's less money, training weeks hurt us financially and didn't allow overtime, and it was really depressing to Bill to work 6 years learning everything about his job and slowly moving up just to move to somewhere totally different.
And then on Thursday, the light shown through. Bill found out that with his new job, we can move anywhere in the country (even Hawaii!) With his old job, it was only for this one place in PA, but this new job can have him transferred anywhere. His current partner has always wanted to live in Arizona his whole life, so he asked work to transfer him there. In two months, he'll be working at the same company but in his dream place. So we thought about it, did a bunch of research, and decided to get out of here. Neither of us like living in PA. I always wanted to move out of it. We couldn't move out before because Bill has great insurance and didn't want to leave his job, but now both of those can come with us.
We looked at a map and picked out 4 states we would like to move, while doing research about weather, pricing, housing, etc of each. Our fantasy is Montana, but that one also scares me the most as it's so far away and different but the most beautiful place I've ever seen. Owning 20-40 acres there cost nothing and it's the most gorgeous place I've ever seen.
More realistically though, we'll probably end up somewhere between Georgia and North Carolina. We've already found some absolutely gorgeous places with lots of land that's in our price range - in fact, some big homes with land cost as much as what we're paying for our small row home with no land right now. We can live very comfortably in a beautiful home and lovely weather and struggle much less down south than here. The laws for homeschooling are also much better there and we'd have to worry less about the government constantly getting stricter and creating more hoops to jump through by the year.
So we're taking the next five years to pay off the rest of our student loans, pay off large sums of our mortgage, create a big nest egg, and for Bill to continue moving up in his job and gaining seniority. Idealy, I'd like to finish having our babies up here so we don't have to drag all of our baby stuff (which takes up half of our house!) down with us or need a nursery in the new house. So if possible, we'd like to try to fit the rest of our kids in the 5 year mark. What that means for our family size, I'm not sure yet. If we decide to only have 4, then two more in five years is super easy. If we want more (6) we're probably not meeting the goal of having them all here and leave on time.
Hopefully, 2020 will be an awesome year for us and bring a new home, state and place to love into our lives! It's renewed our excitement, created a goal and a new dream, and we have something real to work towards again.
Friday, March 13, 2015
Cycle #2
Cycle #2 has arrived and it's already close to normal. I definitely ovulated, I think a few days late around day 18 or so, and it was a 31 day cycle. I'm normally pretty average with an every 28 day cycle when it evens out, but for 6-8 months after I got my cycles back, they were all over the place and were anywhere from 35- 56 days long. They stayed very sporatic and unpredictable for a long time, but she was younger (10 months) when I got them back. Maybe because they were gone for so long, they're more normalized. I was pregnant again when Katie was 15 months and they had just evened out at that point. Will is going to be 15 months in two weeks.
Saturday, February 28, 2015
Not Just Me
Sounds like I'm not the only one who's getting baby fever!
Bill was telling me yesterday about how having babies is so much fun - the whole process of creating new little people and getting these bundles of joy is exciting. While he doesn't really want to TTC and try to force another to happen, he's very eager for when we stop preventing.
It's really neat to see him so happy about our kids and having more. It seems like all around me, most men have to be reluctantly and grumpily dragged into having another baby and Bill is here with me, taking my hand and just as eager as I am to start the journey again.
While I'm not yet ready to do it again (I'm still trying to control my panicky self, which is very quiet when not pregnant but flares even at the thought of pregnancy, not to mention having to be super sick all the time for a few months and super lethargic!) I'm happy that we'll both be very ready for when it is time.
Bill was telling me yesterday about how having babies is so much fun - the whole process of creating new little people and getting these bundles of joy is exciting. While he doesn't really want to TTC and try to force another to happen, he's very eager for when we stop preventing.
It's really neat to see him so happy about our kids and having more. It seems like all around me, most men have to be reluctantly and grumpily dragged into having another baby and Bill is here with me, taking my hand and just as eager as I am to start the journey again.
While I'm not yet ready to do it again (I'm still trying to control my panicky self, which is very quiet when not pregnant but flares even at the thought of pregnancy, not to mention having to be super sick all the time for a few months and super lethargic!) I'm happy that we'll both be very ready for when it is time.
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