Stress...

With Eric about to head off to Toronto to produce a movie, every day feels like another rush to get "everything" done.  Whether it be moving furniture around to convert the office into the nursery or cleaning out old files or trying to find space in the storage area for all the things we want/need to keep, but won't have room for in the house once the girls arrive -- it feels like a never ending battle.

Add to those things, the need to arrange for child care and, well, that pretty much meant that I would lose it and spend a good 30 minutes crying in bed Sunday afternoon (stupid hormones).

We looked into day care options.  Besides all charging a minimum of $300 per child per week, all have at least a one to three year waiting list which begs the question -- why offer day care service for infants at all? Plus, at that price, it just isn't affordable.  Of course, equally unaffordable would be for one of us to give up our job.

Local nanny agencies are just as expensive, if not more so with some quoting $500 - $1,000 per week depending on the age and number of children.  Egads!

How does anyone afford child care?

We've settled on getting a live in au pair.  We're using the agency my sister's family used which is far more affordable since their fees are on a per family, not per child, basis.  But even so, it's going to be extremely tight financially.

I had so hoped to be able to get money back into our savings which were severely dwindled due to the costs of the IVF attempts, but it looks like any savings I had hoped to achieve are already spent.

We're trying to figure out our financial plan for the immediate future, as well as plan for the girls' educations.  We've been meeting with an advisor at our bank and, while things seem doable, the costs of child care weren't factored into the mix.

It feels like two steps forward and one step back and it makes my brain hurt.

I'm already trying to figure out what we can do without.

Our cleaning lady?  We hired her back after the IVF was successful and I was allowed very limited activity.  And as nice as it is to come home to a clean house twice a week, she's history.  We'll keep her through the pregnancy since I don't have the energy that I used to, but once the girls are born...adios.

We're going to have to take a serious look at our budget and figure out where we can cut back.  We don't live a super extravagant lifestyle, but I'm sure there are some luxuries we can cut back on.  Going out to eat?  Yup...we'll be doing that less.  DirecTV?  I'm sure we can cut back on some of our programming.

I guess the moral of the story is priorities change and we're certainly ready for things to change.