Goodness, it's been many months since I've sat down here, and what months they have been! I hit those tired days at the end of my pregnancy and pretty much went into hibernation until the baby was born. In December my husband and I had a beautiful baby boy, 7 lbs 4 oz and the picture of health. I have been off work since early December and am just returning to work on a very part time basis...but I get ahead of myself. In the last post I said I was excited to see how the Lord would work in the coming months. That was late October. Here are some highlights of the blessings of the last months:
November: baby shower- I received pretty much everything I had left on my "it would be great to have..." list. What didn't come in at the baby shower came in the form of more out of the blue gifts in December and January. We've been so blessed we were able to fill a grocery bag full of cloths for a family adopting a baby!
December: baby arrives. I was able to give birth without a cecarian though the baby was turned sunny side up and I had to push for an hour an a half. I did end up with an epidural though and had to stay in the hospital an extra day because baby had bruising and I was strep B positive. We just received all our bills and the hospital stay for me and baby, plus all the follow up appointments through January will be covered through my insurance, and what insurance won't cover will be covered through my flexible spending account at work! Yippee!!!!
January: two credit cards paid off! How this is possible when I was off work almost the entire month of December I'm not sure, but we did it. Got around $900 as my long term disability payment. It covered rent so I'm thankful.
February: filed our taxes and paid off two more credit cards with the return. So far this year we've paid down about $3,000 in credit debt not including regular monthly payments. On the downside in February my husband (who is currently without medical insurance) had to take a trip to the emergency room, racking up a $700 bill. I think I'll have a few hundred dollars left out of my FSA account to put toward this. We decided to use the tax money towards the credit debt (and towards odds and ends like an eye appointment and a chainsaw to cut wood this summer) instead of toward the hospital bill since the hospital doesn't charge interest.
I am now starting back to work at 15 hours a week. My husband recently was given a .90 cent raise at work which will go into effect soon. He is still working almost 70 hours a week. It's hard for him to be gone from his wife and son but the paychecks are sooooo helpful now! I won't be getting a paycheck for a few weeks because what money I'm making will be going back to my employer to pay for my medical insurance the past months on a pre-tax basis. It stinks not to get paid but at least I had insurance and didn't have to pay my premiums while I was on leave. They are also letting me take intermittent leave through March so I can hold on to my medical insurance another month. Because I'm back to work a bit my husband watches the baby for two hours before he goes to work then I have several friends who are tag teaming the other three to four hours. I'll watch their children in turn, and hopefully we'll be able to help each other and not have to pay for childcare.
That's the update! I'm currently looking into becoming a daily money manager or a conservator to help make some money on the side. Not sure what will come of that, so we'll see. Also desiring to start blogging here more.
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