I can say that right now I'm glad I'm not pregnant

I know everyone worries about money and when a baby is in the picture that worry tends to be exponentially greater. so right now I am so so happy I'm not pregnant.

DH I live paycheck to paycheck with a little leftover every week/month and when we build up a little in savings something inevitably happens where that money is used, either for a house project or some unknown bill. I started cracking down and tracking our payments and making a budget and we've been doing rpetty good this year. It hasn't gotten to the point where I have to say "for the next 2 days we have to use the credit cad for anything we buy cuz there is $4 i nthe checking account until pay day". We lived like that for years and I was sick of it.

when I set up said budget I used a set amount of DH's paycheck every week based on the lowest weekly pay he would probably have. and it usually works out to be in our favor cuz it's generally between $50-$80 higher every week which is awesome!

But when he's out of work for a day or 2 it can really add up and things (bill payments) need to be shifted around and the effects are usually felt through the next few weeks.

2 weeks ago he was out on friday and then the following monday and tuesday cuz his back hurt and it was radiating down into his leg. he has a rather physical job and he did go to the doctor who told him he had to stay off his feet until it was better. it could be his sciatica, or something with the nerves or a disc, it could be a lot of things. if it continued to hurt or really got bad they would start running some tests.

Well today he stayed home from work again! It really makes me sick to my stomach that we're going to be dealing with another short paycheck next week. He doesn't have any more sick time (it's sick/vacation time together and his is all used up for the year. so time off is unpaid. he works for a friend for a small company, there's not a lot of flexibility, or there was until the company started to grow and now there's an employee manual so chris doens't get any special treatment like he used to.

I don't think he's faking, I don't think he's necessarily trying to just get a day off, he knows the effect it has on our finances, but he does have a short fuse and we've been down this road before where I'm compeltely 100% upfront and honest about the state of the finances and he gets so bent out of shape about working so hard and not being able to enjoy any of the money and spending it on things other then food/bills/other necessitites and we have a million projects that have been started and are in varying degrees of being finished and I think every one of them required more money to finish them. so he sits and stews over that. and in the past it's gotten bad enough that he was so disgusted about money and his job and not making enough that he quit (I know, totally the opposite of what we needed at the time). He's matured since then and I know he wouldn't put us in that kind of bind again, but I also know that he gets in that frame of mind he'll start to despise his job (which he genereally likes) and start to bring that disgust home and he'll be miserable and I can't handle him when he's like that.

I know that we're lucky to have jobs and we make decent money but neither of us have had raises in over 3 years now and that little extra bump in the paycheck every year really helped carry us over the humps and we've been stalled out for so long the little increases in the bills over that time are catching up more and more and I'm getting scared.

I don't want to put off TTC because we're at the point now where I'm going to have to start testing. I have decent coverage (80% covered for diagnostics) and a $15 office copay, so we can afford to start the testing, but if we have to do IUI or IVF, there's no way that's happening for a long time.

This is just one of those vents that I needed to put out there. I know we're not the only ones in this position and I know we'll get things back to "right" again, but right now I just feel like crying. I don't want Chris to feel bad and go to work and hurt himself worse where he's out for weeks at a time and I'm not mad at him for being hurt. I'm just really frustrated that this is happening. And now before the holidays, I haven't been able to splurge on gifts in like 6 years, that's hard for me, I love buying gifts. I've substituded by making gifts which I love to do, but it's not always easy and my time is worth something too. it's just so damn frustrating. I just want us to be able to get off dead center.

I guess this is long enough I could go on and on, but getting this much has helped a little. I may still have to go have that secret cry though :(