March...July...September...December

The four months in the title are the worst months of the year for me.  Not because of any adoption crap..but because they are the last months of the four Quarters that make up my job. 

We're in crunch time at work...and I am sick and tired of feeling stressed and anxious, worrying about making my goals.  I'm seriously done with being a Credit and Collections analyst.  It's no fun...at all.  I shouldn't dread walking in the door, wondering who's going to pay their damn five million dollar bill.

The thing is, I don't want to go back to my old standby of being a retail whore (no offense to any retail whores out there)...I'm just not nice enough to smile nine hours straight when really, I'd rather not be bagging up your shit and working holidays just to pay the bills.  I did that for too long and it sucked.

So what do I do?  I have to pay the bills...and while my job isn't fun, it DOES pay the bills and I can take care of my kids...with some help from my daughter's dad and my boyfriend..and to a very, very, very, very small extent, my son's father.  (Was that too snarky?  Sorry, his child support is pretty much nonexistent these days and I'm really sick of the crap.)  I want to do something worthwhile with my life while still being able to live.

Frig.My.Life.

Give Me All Your Money

When my kids were little, I was poor.  Like, we're talking scrounging-around-under-the-carseats-to-find-change-for-gas poor.  After my son was born and I'd left his father, we moved in with my amother in her one bedroom apartment.  Maddie and I shared a air mattress and Chase slept in his port-o-crib.  It was difficult...and because I didn't have a lot of money, what I had went towards food and diapers..and nothing else.  My car got repo'd during that time...and I lost 30 pounds because I was making sure the kids were eating.  Chase was still drinking formula but I only ate Maddie's leftovers.  A french fry here, a half eaten bowl of cereal there.  I made do.  It was hard though..and I hope to never experience that again...

I never begged for money though.  Not once.  Which is why I find it totally disgusting that there are potential adoptive parents out there on the internet begging for donations.  They are fundraising for a child in a faraway land...just because they want a newborn or because they want to add to their family.  It's gross.  And I cannot believe that it's allowed to continue.   My aparents probably borrowed the money for my adoption (the whopping $225.00 back in 1974) from my grandparents but I bet they paid them back as soon as possible...they may have been abusive monsters but they did have the decency to pretend that they could afford their coveted children. 

I think this quote from the Ladybug Blessings website sums all of this up nicely..

"At Ladybug Blessings we understand the expenses, the love and your longing to give a child a home and a family. We are honored to have the opportunity to be a part of your adoption fundraiser process."

I'd only be slightly sick to my stomach if the word expenses wasn't brought up as the first thing to think about in regards to the problems surrounding adoption...as it is though, I may have to spend two, three or maybe ten years sitting in front of the toilet.