Do You Have a Plan if Your House Starts on Fire?

This week my family and I were driving to my mother’s house when we saw a house that had black smoke billowing from the windows. I immediately called 911 and stopped to see if anyone was inside. Thankfully no one was inside. The firemen came with their hoses and trucks and put out the fire. No one was injured or hurt from the whole fiasco.

I couldn’t help but think about what I would do if my home were on fire. We have 5 small kids and I wondered if we could get them all out safely. We haven’t really talked about it with them, but we need to be doing drills and teaching them what to do.

I also thought about what things are most important to me, besides my family, and if they were easy to get to. When your home is on fire, it’s not really a good time to start looking for the family photos that are dispersed in 3 different rooms in the house. For me, all I could think of was my family photos. Most everything in my home can be replaced, but pictures of my babies are things that I couldn’t let go of easily.

I came up with a plan to get my family ready for the unthinkable, our home burning to the ground.

            1:Teach my kids what to do it there is a fire. What they should do if they see smoke or hear the alarms.

      2: Plan an escape route for everyone that leads to a group-meeting place that is far from the house.

            3: Have treasured items like photos backed up on discs and in a place that is easy to get to in an emergency.

Losing a home to a fire seems unimaginable, but if I had to lose mine I would hope and pray that my loved ones and my pictures were safe! Everything else in a house is just stuff. In the big scheme of things it means nothing. Sure we would miss it, but not more that our family.

I really would encourage all of you, if you don’t have a plan, to make a plan for your family. It could save a life!

Pregnancy - Week 1

I have been studying many books to find and figure out what is happening inside your body each week you are pregnant. Each book was unique but I was able to collect from all of them to tell you what is most accurately happening in the womb each week of pregnancy.

Week 1:

The very beginning of your baby's life begins. The first week of pregnancy officially begins the date that you started your last period. Your body sheds its uterine lining to prepare to make a new one.

Your body has not ovulated yet but the starting of your period starts that whole cycle rolling. Technically, you are actually two weeks pregnant before you actually conceive.

The reason why doctors count the day of your last period as the starting of our first week of pregnancy is because it is hard to tell when you exactly got pregnant. But doctors know that it is somewhere between two weeks after the day of your last period and two weeks before the start of your next period. It just gives doctors a specific date to go by. It is easier to plan that way.

Also one thing that my sister taught me is how to tell when your due date is. She has studied the reproductive system in graduate school and is now a Physical Therapist. She said that if you take the day of your last period and subtract three months and then add a week that is your "tentative" due date. When I did it I was only one day off from the doctor. Pretty exciting!

At this point, your body does not react any differently.

Some books that I studied from are:

The Pregnancy Book - Everything you need to know from America's baby experts.

By: William Sears, M.D., and Martha Sears, R.N., and Linda Holt, M.D., F.A.C.O.G.

Your Pregnancy - Week by week

By: Dr. Glade Curtis, OB/GYN and Judith Schuler, M.S.

You & Your BABY Pregnancy - Your ultimate week-by-week pregnancy guide

By: Dr. Laura Riley, OB/GYN