So... it's been a while. A LONG WHILE. For that, I apologize. I checked out my stats from while I was "dark" and it was a pleasant surprise to see that many of my readers didn't give up on me. My page views only went down a little, and for that I would like to say thank you for sticking with me this long... even when I didn't have anything to say.
I suppose an update is in order right? Since getting laid off in July I've been focusing solely on my business and my family. I am very happy to report that all are going very very well. My business took off after I launched it! I am so proud of my little bow baby. I am happy to go to "work" every day, with coffee in hand and usually in my PJ's haha! It's really wonderful to see something that I never thought could be possible come to fruition and on top of that, find that I can actually be successful at it. We've been open since July 1st and we have already turned a profit! That's an accomplishment I'm pretty proud of, since most businesses don't do that until after their 1st year.
When I got laid off I was a little lost... I wasn't sure what to do with my time. It was my dream to be home with my daughter but after a few weeks even she was ready for a change of scenery. I developed a schedule for myself that worked out really well. After feeding her in the morning I would make all of us breakfast, then clean a room in the house (I made myself a schedule and everything), then I would work out and then I would work on orders. I really love structure so I didn't feel happy and settled into my new life until I had a schedule worked out for myself. Even if no one else knows that I'm following it, I like having a set plan for each day.
After those 1st few weeks my mother in law talked to me about watching my daughter. Basically she made it clear that she still wanted to watch her sometimes, even if I was now a stay at home mom. It ended up working out that she would take her for a few hours M-F after her nap so I could do things around the house that are difficult to do with a toddler clinging to my leg 24/7. Then my business really started taking off and I needed more time to work on orders. She now has her for a set schedule M-F so I can focus on all the orders I have coming in each week. It's amazing. I also don't feel like I'm missing anything because when I miss her, I can just walk next door and give her a hug and a kiss... I literally have the best of both worlds and I am so thankful.
I took the last few months to really focus on my marriage. When I got laid off and all the financial aspects of our new situation hit us, it was not an easy time for us. But we made a plan and we are slowly working our way out of our financial black hole. A successful business, a happy couple and a new promotion for the hubby is the recipe to success we needed. He's quietly working on other endeavors and dreams for himself but it's not the right time to share those yet... all I can say is I am so proud to see him going after the things he wants in life and being so excited about them.
I know many of you come here to read about our baby journey. I have an update for you! I have to back track a little though...
About 8 or 9 months ago we learned that our High School 10 year reunion was coming up in November. It lit a fire under me to Get Fit or Get Pregnant. I've been working on the Get Fit part, and am happy to report that I've lost 10lbs in only a few months (it took me a while to get a program that worked for me) but we weren't getting pregnant.
I am still nursing, but SO MANY people get pregnant while they're nursing that I didn't think it was hindering me in any way. Then I spoke with my Dr and after some testing we found out that I am part of a small percentage of women who's hormones work in overdrive while they are nursing. This is why I was still gaining weight and why I still hadn't had my period return (including pregnancy it's been over 2 years). Consequently, I also wasn't actually ovulating. I had been tracking it at home and even though my home test was telling me I was ovulating we still weren't pregnant. The only solution my Dr had was to stop nursing so my body could get back into it's natural cycle. Well... that wasn't going to fly with me.
Then I spent 3 days agonizing over what we should do. On one hand I had been through so much in my breast feeding journey and I wasn't ready to end it. Heck, Averie showed no signs of being ok with it! On the other hand we knew that we didn't want a huge age gap between our kids and Averie is now 20 months. I had finally decided to limit her nursing to once a day right when she wakes up. We were going to start on Monday. I wasn't super happy but at the same time I was excited.
That Sunday morning I woke up to find I had gotten my period.
So a new plan was born: I would start tracking my ovulation again and we would get back on the baby making train. For now we are tracking and trying... with Averie my ovulation tests were negative when we conceived her, so I don't put too much faith in the accuracy of those! We are having fun trying and I pray to God every night that Santa will give me a positive pregnancy test for Christmas. Hopefully we'll have exciting news in the near future but for now I'm enjoying my simply sweet life.
I'm happy. I'm blessed. I'm grateful.
