Love my little man!

Matthew 3 weeks

Matthew 18 months

I am so excited that he is going to be a big brother! He is such a sweet, fun, and kind little boy and I know he is going to make a great brother for this little girl. We have so many changes coming up but I am not as worried about his adjusting as I thought I would be. He is so adaptable to new situations, I know it will be hard at first and he will go through some rough patches I am sure. We know he is going to do great though!

I have a baby shower this weekend and am very excited. I have a friend in Pullman who always plans the best parties and she is throwing it! I am very excited and know that it is going to be lots of fun and I am excited to celebrate this little girl!

Yup...

So baby was super quiet yesterday, all day, I can't remember feeling her at all. It was kinda nice to not be sore I just figured she was sleepy. Then when it was time for bed I laid down and tried to do a kick count. Nothing, I actually fell asleep before I even felt one movement. Telling myself it was fine she would be awake in the middle of the night like she always is after I go to the bathroom. Nothing again. I could not get her to move.. and then I was done waiting. I called my doctor, Chris got Matthew out of bed.

We went and visited the nice people at Labor and Delivery for a non-stress test.

We got there and they put her on the monitor I immediately was relieved to hear the heartbeat, 130 beats per minute. They wanted to monitor for awhile, and eventually she finally started moving, and then she kept flipping so they had to keep moving the heart rate monitor. I was relieved to say the least.

I felt silly going because I figured it was probably nothing, however she would not move or wake up or do anything for me. I was all done waiting. I decided it was better to be safe at that point and just have them check on her. 

I still feel silly, but at least I know she is healthy! Another plus it got me out of my glucose test this morning :)

Scary

So I have never been one to listen to all the birth horror stories and get scared. In fact with Matthew the only thing I was worried about was managing my pain.

This year however I know of so many people who have had really scary experiences with childbirth. Some having to be induced early, some complications during labor, some complications with recovery.

In at least three they involved emergency blood transfusions.

In another one an emergency c-section.

In one of those the baby had to be delivered 6 weeks early and was in the NICU for a couple weeks.

In most of them if the doctors/nurses had not been paying close attention someone would have died if not both mom and baby.

Knowing all of these people personally makes it all seem more real, it really does worry me. I am trying to push it all out of my mind. I am trying to remember that there once was a day when these complications would have been deadly but now they are just setbacks which tend to prolong healing time.

It is still scary, but I am very thankful that each one of them had a full recovery.

On another note happy Leap Day :)

 

Hiding Diapers

I have made a resolve to start cloth almost exclusively beginning today. So far it has gone great :) Yup I have made it a whole 5 hours!

I washed and stripped Matthews cloth diapers last night because they were stinky and it needed to be done before we started using them again.

After that was done I took one of his diaper boxes cut the front and top off to make a nice, easily accessible and organizable area just for cloth diapers. This will help a ton because all the supplies are organized and in one place right by the changing table (which is on top of our dryer so finding a place to keep them was a challenge), I will know when we are getting low and need to start laundry, Chris will always know where to find the diapers also.

Today I am going to make a washing guide for the diapers so that Chris and anyone else who decides to help me wash the diapers will know exactly what to do. Diapers are surprisingly finicky to wash right.

The last step: Hiding the disposables. Now mind you I know exactly where they are, but they are not in the bathroom, they are not in his diaper bag, they are not easily accessible. I have them when I need them because sometimes you just need disposable diapers, but they are out of sight out of mind! 

On another note: My poor boy is sick today :(

Maybe?

Here are a couple pictures of the house we are hoping to rent in Forest Grove, they were asking a little more than we could afford per month so we are in the process of seeing if the rent can be lowered any. I would love to work with the owners, they have been great in just the little bit of time we have interacted with them. They have done wonders with the house, including this nice new kitchen, new bathroom, new hardwood floors, vinyl windows, they put in forced air instead of baseboards.
This house is across the street from a brand new elementary school and a park, which would be awesome for us and the business! It is 3 bedrooms 1 and 1/2 bathrooms, and would be great for us. 

Now we wait to see if they can afford to lower the rent for us, it is only by a couple hundred but that is a lot for us, it could be a lot for them too. They are going to work out the financials and see how much they actually need to get for it per month, and if they can lower it they will for the first two years, and then the second 2 years we would pay the price they originally asked (since tuition is lower the last two years we can afford to pay a little more- which they understand). Please keep us in your prayers, or send us good thoughts, or whatever you can do :) I am really hoping this will work out for us!

Decisions

This came with Chris's admission letter to Pacific University and I thought it was pretty neat. He will think I am crazy for posting it, but then he already thinks I am crazy so why not? I am allowed to be proud of my husband and his accomplishments right?

We sent in the deposit to Pacific University yesterday, he was going to call and make sure his seat is secure before he turns down Indiana. However, it is super exciting to know where we will be moving! I am very glad I went with him for his interview so I have at least spent a weekend where we are going to be moving in just a few short months.

I am trying to get prepared for this baby girl, which is very hard to do when we are in transition. Moving right after having a baby is really no fun, we did this with Matthew too, and the timing is just not ideal. However I have made a few decisions for her. The first being that I am going to cloth diaper from the beginning. I have been going back and forth on what my plan was, mostly because I have had such a hard time getting into the habit with Matthew. I always seem to resort back to disposables for one reason or another. However budget wise I am committing to cloth. I am hoping to order some of the Thirties Duo Wrap Covers:

I will use these with some fitted diapers and prefold diapers. These should fit her from birth to about 18lbs (unless she has really chunky legs). Then we will switch to the flip system that I have been using with Matthew. I am now planning to get 6 assorted colors, 3 fitted cloth, 2 hemp prefolds, and 2 bamboo inserts for about $160.00. I will just need to either make some more fitted cloth, or buy some prefolds from Green Mountain Diapers. I know I am also getting some cloth diaper supplies from one of my friends for my baby shower, that will help a ton. It will be nice to have to buy minimal disposable diapers for this little girl. If I spend around $200.00 diapering her for the next 6-12 months that is not bad, when you consider the cost of disposable diapers. I am sure we spent way more than that diapering Matthew in his first 6 months.
Other than that we are going to have her in our room in a cradle until we move, after we move hopefully we will switch her to the crib in her own room. That will be decided depending on how well she is sleeping, and the place we end of living.
Yup that is what I know so far... we are hoping to have our housing, financial, and moving plan figured out before she comes. It is kinda tough currently. We have to wait to figure out how much financial aid we are getting from the school, and then make the rest of our plan from there. It is hard no knowing.

Student Loans

I am not writing this to complain, or to accomplish much of anything, if nothing else it is to just get it off my mind. It helps me to write things down... and this is where I do that :)
We are super excited for Chris getting into his program, now I have gotten into the nitty gritty financial calculations and let me tell you the cost of professional school is scary! Then we add in higher rent in the area, and lower excess of loans available to us. Did you know that you can only get $39,000 a year in unsubsidized federal student loans a year for a professional program? The fact that I am even saying "only" that amount scares me. However the cost of the program is higher than that for the 2nd year. The first year it will help cover a little of our living expenses (I mean a very little). We have been getting by so far on my income plus student loans supplementing what I don't make, we need more than what will be left in his loans after he pays tuition, fees, books, and instruments. On top of that he is going to do a masters in education concurrently which will add about $15,000 to the total tuition costs (that is cut in half from what it would be because it is a dual degree).
We were really hoping to get on section 8 to help ease the budget, but we can't even get on a waiting list yet, I am not sure when they start accepting applications for assistance, it seems crazy that there is sooo much need out there. But when we are looking at a minimum of $1100 a month (we currently pay $615.00) to get into a house, a little help would be nice.
I guess we are going to have to jump into the scary world of private student loans, I was hoping to never have to do that, however I think it may be the only way to survive without being a burden on our family. The good news may be that the 3rd and 4th year the tuition decreases significantly and we may be able to pay off some of the private loans with the excess federal loans... since the first two years are going to be the hardest financially. I can tell you already we will miss the grants and scholarships he received at WSU!

This is New...

So the last few days I have noticed a lot of Braxton-Hicks contractions, especially today. I never had any with Matthew, at least none that I felt or noticed. I read up on them because I didn't really know when they were suppose to start or how frequently they are suppose to happen. Apparently I am right on track for them, I am just wondering if this means I will go into labor on my own with this pregnancy, or if it is not an indicator of anything different and I can just feel them better because it is my 2nd pregnancy? I guess it is a question for my doctor at next weeks appointment :)