Mandy,
Your Router needs two pieces of wire connected to it - A Power cable to make it work and another connection carrying the internet in and out of the house. Does it have these?
If you have an Ethernet cable you should be able to use it to connect the laptop directly to the router (which will then have three wires running to it). When you have done this you can check if the internet is working - if it isn't working ring your supplier's help line.
Once working through the ethernet cable you can THEN start thinking about getting wireless communication between laptop and router.
Are there any other computers in the house connected to the internet? Are they still working?
Peccavi, December 2008