Living Within Your Means

Why does everyone think the military pays you awful or that you can't live on what they pay you.  We are reading Family Driven Faith right now and there is a story in it about this man who started having children when he was a captain in the military... and about how rough life was for them in the beginning because they had no money.  A captain makes about $2,000 more A MONTH than what Michael makes.  There is a commercial on tv for one of those Direct Buy showroom places with this woman who says "I know on military pay, I couldn't afford to buy top of the line..." and under her name it says "Colonel"... thats about $5,000 (probably more than that depending on how long she has been in) more A MONTH than what Michael makes.  I went to this "New Parent Support"  class (they give you a free gift bag, so I went.  lol) and they encouraged everyone that qualified to enroll in WIC (a government program for families if the woman is pregnant or if their are young children in the home, you get formula & some essential food for free because you are poor...).

Now, you're probably thinking... poor Michael and Beth... they must be so poor & she doesn't even work & they have a baby, the military is so stingy.  au contraire.  The "base pay" may not be a lot (for us that is... those people mentioned above are just being ridiculous!), but we have NO BILLS.... we get free health insurance, free housing (kind of... we just never see the money we would be getting if we didn't live on base), tax free groceries, free baby clothes (via airmans attic... LOVE IT).  This is what we spend our money on every month... groceries, car insurance, and internet.  How do we do this, you ask... well, let me tell you.  We don't use CREDIT cards, we don't take out loans for cars (and we didn't for school when we were going)... if we can't afford it with whats in the bank we don't need it (well, that would have to be something pretty expensive like a new car... which is ridiculous to buy anyways).  We hardly ever go out to eat or buy premade meals (ok, frozen pizzas I do... lol).  I can find PLENTY of great clothes at goodwill (for me at least, Michael not so much).  Maybe its because I love thriftiness so much... I think I should have lived during the depression.  

I just don't get it.... why can no one else "make it" in the military but we seem to be stockpiling money over here.   What are people spending money on?!  All the wives of Michael's superiors "have to work".  When we first got here Michael had to go to a "First Term Airman" seminar and they had a finance person come & talk to all the new airmen about saving money and went over the finances with each person... the woman told Michael she had never seen an airman with so much money saved.  SERIOUSLY?  And, that was a year ago and I don't even work!!!  

Even when I lived in Pennsylvania all alone and had to pay for my own apartment & electricity I still managed to save $2,000 by the time I came home (though I did have 2 jobs for the last few months and didn't have to pay for my health insurance).  I don't know, I guess no one is teaching good money management and is instead trying to get them to sign up for credit cards to pay off their other credit cards.  

K, thats my tangent about the military.  I imagine its much harder in the "real world".

Oh, and I would like to thank Michael for teaching me saving money with nothing in mind to spend it on is fun, because right before I met him I almost overdrew my bank account (and that wouldn't have been the first time).   Though, I think we are too stingy now and need to give some of it away. 

4 weeks old!

Well, 4 weeks tomorrow...

These are the birth announcements I made.  I'm pretty proud of myself, they cost us a grand total of $15 (plus $35 postage!!!).  We were looking at spending $100+ on the ready-made ones, but thanks to wal-mart and picnik, we didn't need to.  

I don't know why, but I am in love with this picture.  Cloth diapering is going swell.  No problems, except I have to wash everyday it seems... small price to pay.  Oh, and everything is really bulky on her (even just prefolds w/covers), so we can't button her onsies (see picture) and 98% of the time she doesn't wear pants because she only has 1 pair that look ok over her diaper, and I find it pointless having to take them off to change her anyways.  But we like the sleep sacks. 

Breastfeeding is going great too.  We never had any problems, thankfully!

ECing (I love her modesty! lol).  She has always peed as soon as we take her diaper off, so since day 1 we have made a "ssss" sound as she is going and the day she was 3 weeks I held her over the toilet like this and made the sound and she went.  I don't know what her signs of needing to go are, so right now its just timing and guessing and usually she goes.  but i have about 1-2 real "catches" (she still has clean diaper) a day.  Today has been particularly good.  I'm still not sure if she is just going because her diaper is off though.  lol

I look gigantic in this picture.   She was like 2 days old here.  We co-sleep.  Its a good time.  lol.  We had a pack n play given to us and it has a bassinet part in it, so we were going to use that as a solution to this because I wasn't sure how I would feel sleeping with her in the bed when she is so little.  But, she would wake up & cry as soon as we moved her into it (ok, we only tried it the first night she was home, but now it serves as a diaper holder).  Even in the hospital she wouldn't sleep in the plastic bassinet, so I held her all night, and then since the first night she was home she has slept in bed with us.  And, since her first night home, she has slept through the night.  Is that ridiculous?!  I have to set my cell phone alarm to go off 4x a night so I can change her & sometimes she will wake up enough to eat... sometimes not & then I'm sorry in the morning.  I wonder how long this sleeping will last.   I love being able to nurse without having to get out of bed/stay awake though.  

This thing lives up to its name.  Its called a "Sleepy Wrap", unless she is real angry she could be in it all day.  And within 10 minutes she is asleep.  The only problem is if she is awake she won't let me sit down with her in it, so I have to be walking around.  And, she likes her head to be hanging out of it, so I have to hold her head like that.  You should see the looks I get from people when I'm out with her in it... "is there a baby in there?!".  Usually her legs aren't hanging out the bottom though.

The first 2 weeks she slept like 20+ hours a day so that was so easy!  But, now she is starting to be more awake during the day.  When she is sleeping I just want to pick her up & play with her, but then when she is awake I just want her to go back to sleep.  lol  And, I always think of things I need to do when she is awake or fussy and when she is sleeping I just get on the computer.  lol

She's here!!!

Faith Adelia was born on May 14th, 2009 at 8:37pm.  7 lbs 13 oz, 20.6 inches long.  

here is what I can remember... aka the birth story aka too much information.

on the 14th my friend Katie text me (we've been BFFs since kindergarten) and says she had a dream that I had the baby today, which I thought was really funny and I told her I would try real hard to have her.  I had been doing some nipple stimulation for about an hour that morning to try to get things started.  Around 9, I felt some leaking, it wasn't much and it stopped after like 5 seconds, so I was kind of confused since it didn't continue throughout the rest of the morning.  My midwife happened to call about 30 min later to change our appointment time to an hour later since she was at the hospital with another patient, so I told her & she said it may have been my water breaking but there was no rush or concern since I wasn't even having contractions.  About 10 I decided to start timing the braxton hicks contractions since they seemed to be coming more often, they were between 7 & 10 min apart and a little bit later they started feeling more like light menstrual cramps & more pressure on my back.  Michael came home earlier than usual for his lunch because of some training thing he had to go to, so he went back to work at 11:45 (instead of 1), and I still had no idea I was having contractions since they were SO mild.  About 12:30 they were steadily 5-6 min apart, so I decided to call the midwife's office since I had an appointment for a biophysical profile and didn't think that would be necessary since I may already be in labor, but I thought I would still come in to see my midwife and have her tell me if I was really in labor or not.  So, the office person transfers me to her nurse and the nurse flips out and is like go to the hospital now.  I'm like WHY?  I'm hardly having contractions if thats what you call these!?  lol (we had wanted to stay home and labor as long as possible, so going to the hospital at such an early stage seemed ridiculous!)  She was really persistent, but since my midwife was already at the hospital it would basically be the same as going to the office, so we decided to go.  I was absolutely convinced we wouldn't be staying at the hospital and that she would just tell us to go back home,  I even told Michael we shouldn't even bring our stuff, but he thought we should just in case (he's so smart!).  So we get to the hospital and my water had broken earlier, but since her head was so low it was blocking the rest of the water & had formed a water pocket at my cervix, so she broke that too around 2:30 I think (I was still only dilated 4 cm at this point), then nurses asking me tons of questions while Michael went to go get some food.  Contractions started getting stronger around 3-3:30 about 4 min apart.  I decided I was tired of feeling water leaking out of me every contraction, so I got in the tub, thinking it was a bad idea to get in the tub so early since it can slow down labor.  It was SOOOO nice, it had jets... mmmm.  I was probably in the tub about an hour, contractions were getting a lot stronger & a lot more painful on my back.  They needed to listen to the babies heartbeat, but couldn't hear it with the waterproof doppler, so I had to get out, and decided to have her check me since I was already out of the tub and I was 7-8 cm.   I was so shocked!  I got back in the tub, this was apparently transition, but I had no idea, I just kept waiting for it to get worse & closer together, because the contractions were still 1.5-2 min apart, not right on top of each other like I expected.  I started having 'pushy' contractions soon after.  I really really loved in between the contractions-  I don't think I've ever felt so relaxed in my life!  The midwife and nurse kept laughing about the happy sighing sounds I was making between contractions.  And all I kept saying was "i just want to sleep" lol.  They checked me around 5 & I was 9 cm and having really pushy contractions so she moved the remaining cervix with a few contractions and I started really pushing at 5:30 in about every position in the book, but nothing felt very good and was a lot of pressure on my back.  2 hours later I asked how long I had been pushing... I couldn't believe how long it had been (thats how I'm estimating some of these times... I wasn't constantly checking the clock so I could write this accurately! haha).  Pushing felt a lot better than not pushing though.  Her head was out (OUCH) an hour later (after pushing for 3 hours now!), but her shoulders were stuck, which was really scary and the nurse calling for backup, but she came out.  I kept repeating "I can't believe its over" and other strange things (including 'it feels like i have cotton vag... ya know, like cotton mouth'  and 'wow my stomach is so small!' hahaha  which I find hilarious now).  I was bleeding A LOT apparently, so they ended up cutting her cord sooner than we would have liked & giving me an injection of pitocin (which I didn't realize until I saw the band aid on my hip the next day & having no idea where it came from!)  to stop the bleeding and get the placenta out.  And I had a 2nd degree tear, which isn't too bad.   So basically she was born after 5ish hours of labor.  I was expecting 12+ hours!  And, I was never begging for an epidural, and I never said "I can't do this"  (well, except when her shoulders were stuck and they were telling me to push)... which I really expected I would!  lol  Afterwards the nurse and midwife kept saying I had acted like I had an epidural!

We had to switch rooms 4 hours after she was born (at like midnight) since they were so busy on the L&D floor, so that wasn't very pleasant, but the postpartum rooms had more comfortable beds.  She stayed awake-ish until 3 am!  Sleeping that first night was awful, I hardly slept (I feel like I'm still not sleeping, but I'm not tired yet... lol).  Then I woke up about 2:30 and the clock in our room was spinning backwards- like the minute hand was spinning backwards super fast, and I woke Michael up, saying that I was hallucinating, and made him look at it but by that time it stopped on 10:00 and kept on ticking like normal the rest of our stay (which ended 24 hours after she was born).  All the nurses that came into the room were like... "Oh, your clock is wrong".  I'm like yeah... it sure was scary watching it happen!

She is so precious!!!  And has so much hair!  I still can't believe that she was inside me, she is just so big!  She makes the cutest noises too!   And, I just got peed on, she was wearing a cloth diaper, but no cover, so it leaked out the side!  awesome.  lol

 My stomach is the smallest its been since before Christmas and my boobs are 10x their normal size & feel like they are filled with rocks!  lol

Romans 10:17, 1 Corinthians 2:5, Hebrew 11:1, Isaiah 32:8 (Adelia means noble)

Still pregnant

Don't worry... I'm still pregnant!  according to my original due date, I'm 41 weeks today.  But.... since we used NFP to chart my cycles & help us get pregnant (and not get pregnant right after we got married, before mike left for basic training), I know when I ovulated... which should actually make my due date on the 8th (and I just realized the original due date was 2 days late anyways, it should have been the 3rd!!  haha).  This all occurred to me this morning.  And, first time moms are on average 8 days past their due date, so that would be the 16th... lets shoot for that.   So, hopefully I can get my midwife to change the due date because that would give me 3 extra days to go into labor on my own before they have to induce me.  Oh and last Thursday I went in to have a "biophysical profile" done, which is an ultrasound and a non-stress test (they do it between 40 & 41 weeks) and I was 3-4 cm, 80% effaced and she is at 0 station... which is great, except that I'm still not in labor, so it really doesn't matter except that when I am in labor I won't be as worried about getting to the hospital and them telling me I'm only 2 cm after 10 hours of labor.  lol But, if I do end up going 2 weeks over, she said all they would need to do is break my water and I would probably go into labor, which is good since we're trying to avoid drugs. 

I'm due TOMORROW

This was me last week... 39 weeks.  

This is just one of the maternity pictures we had taken, they were a while ago though. 

I really can't believe how close it is!  I still don't expect it to ever happen, since for the past 9 months I've been thinking about how far away May was and now its here!   I'm kind of freaking out and keep thinking of things I still need to do around the house.  But, alas, here I am, not doing any of them.  

I think she 'dropped' last week.  I have a lot more pain in my tailbone & pubic bone.   But I still sleep through the night without waking up to pee (well, last night I woke up like 5 times, it felt like she was clawing my cervix with her razor blade fingers... thanks baby!).  I get braxton hicks contractions, but my uterus has been diligently exercising itself since 24 weeks, so thats nothing new.  If I don't have the baby by Thursday then I go in for an ultrasound/non-stress test so I'm pretty excited about that even if it means I am still pregnant.  I really don't feel 'that' pregnant.  I'm not too uncomfortable, so she can stay in there as long as she wants as far as I'm concerned.   lol  Oh and... if you want to guess the birth date, weight, height-  we have a game set up at www.expectnet.com  the game name is babywhite9

We moved into our new house.  It only took a week to completely unpack all the boxes & organize everything, so I'm glad thats all done.  And they still haven't redone the counters (apparently they will be redoing the interior of the cabinets too, so we will have to take everything out of the kitchen), I call the housing company and they can't tell me anything except that they will call me when they get the shipment in.  Sure am glad we went ahead and moved in when we did instead of waiting for the cabinets to be done... we would still be in our old house right now!  I've stopped worrying about it and I will just tell them NO if they call wanting to do it anytime in the next month and a half.... its their own fault!

Well, now I've wasted an hour.  I need to go do one of those projects on my list now.  

Feminist Fantasies

from Phyllis Schlafly's book- Feminist Fantasies, in a section called "Choosing a Career"

"Marriage and motherhood have their trials and tribulations, but what lifestyle doesn't?  If you look upon your home as a cage, you will find yourself just as imprisoned in an office or a factory.  The flight from the home is a flight from self, from responsibility, from the nature of woman, in pursuit of false hopes and fading fantasies.

If you complain about servitude to a husband, servitude to a boss will be more intolerable.  Everyone in the world has a boss of some kind.  It is easier for most women to achieve a harmonious working relationship with a husband than with a foreman, supervisor, or office manager.  

That American women have always been fortunate (as opposed to oppressed as feminists would have us believe) was confirmed more than 150 years ago by the famous French commentator Alexis de Tocqueville:  "Although the women of the United States are confined within the narrow circle of domestic life, and their situation is in some respects one of extreme dependence, I have nowhere seen woman occupying a loftier position; and if I were asked, now that I am drawing to the close of this work, in which I have spoken of so many important things done by the Americans, to what singular prosperity and growing strength of that people ought mainly to be attributed, I should reply:  to the superiority of their women"

MOVING!

I have been meaning to update for a while because so many things have been going on!  And, then I come into our computer room, and the USB thing that connects the memory card for our camera to the computer has been packed!!!  grrr...  so, no pictures.  

We are moving!  One block away, literally.  The housing company on base said that our house would probably be remodeled in August.  Turns out they are ahead of schedule.  So, 2 weeks ago we got this notice saying we had 30 days to move, we go to the housing office and they say it won't actually be until late May/early June.  I'm like uhh... no!  Moving with a newborn??  I think not.  So, thankfully, there was a house available sooner and we are moving this weekend.   We got the keys today (we had already seen the inside a week and a half ago because there were no doorknobs on any of the outside doors... so we "broke" in) and the whole house must have been painted like yesterday, it smells horrible!  

I have been slowly packing our house for 2 weeks, so it hasn't been overwhelming.  I hate being pregnant and not able to lift heavy things!  Though, I have successfully disassembled a twin size fully wooden bed and our 8 foot dining room table by myself!  

The house is nice though, the master bed & basement are much bigger, it has nicer bathrooms, and a fireplace and a garage... with a garage door opener!  Oh, but we will be having to move out around the 20th of this month for a few days while they re-do the kitchen counter tops (apparently the shipment was delayed)... hmmm great.  Anyone know if I should take everything out of the cabinets while this is happening?  I don't want everything covered in dust!

I'm also excited about having a new address, people don't understand our address now which is 4518E E. streetname (thats right 2 'E's)... and then to live in a 'city' that is an acronym including the similar sounding letters of S & F.  Now we will be at 4501A W. street name... less confusing I hope.  

I'm 36 weeks now!  27 days left hopefully (and not 41 days!).  

I'll have pictures after we unpack.