Nightmare
Now on top of being broke and fighting all the time with my husband, who is treating me remarkably badly since we took our vows, I am in third trimester hell. Every pain in the ass symptom is hitting me hard. And I am not sleeping which is taking a major psychological toll.
My husband doesn’t want to be intimate with me even though I crave it so. He sure notices other women though and makes it known to me.
He also doesn’t help me around the house though I desperately need aid. If I get on his case to do something he will. Otherwise no. And he won’t make even a bowl of cereal - if I don’t cook or buy takeout we do no eat.
Him being unemployed yet spending my money liberally is a constant issue.
I pray for God’s help all the time. Things just keep getting worse. And I am 8 months pregnant and so desperate.
This has to be a nightmare.
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Couldn’t resist.
0The Wedding Night
Busy time.
My “fiance” is now my “husband”. Yesterday, the 2 year anniversary of when we began dating, we had a small wedding ceremony and reception. (Just cake.) The ceremony itself was beautiful and my favorite part; I felt so in tune and in love with him. It couldn’t have been more perfect. I wish I could say the same for the rest.
Nobody RSVP’d which is not how I was raised. A handful of people did, but I had no idea how many to plan for.
Only a few people bothered to bring us gifts at a time when we could desperately use their generosity.
We didn’t have a professional photographer, just disposable cameras on the tables to encourage people to take pictures. Some people walked off with our cameras…so much for that idea.
But the worst of it all was the behavior of the groom afterwards. His father gave us $100 cash but he knew it was coming so he opened the card without me and pocketed the money. I knew he did; when I asked him what was in the card he said a Bed Bath & Beyond gift card for $25. He just plain lied.
My family was not involved in the wedding in any way; they don’t even know about it. They’re on the other side of the country. We only had the wedding because the groom’s family generously paid for it - I have no money for anything like that.
A comment was made by someone regarding my family that (unintentionally) upset me so I excused myself (after everyone had left) and cried in the bathroom for a while. When my husband found me in there he got upset - at me - and spent the drive home berating me and berating my family, until I was so upset I was sobbing.
He unloaded me and the few gifts we got at home and left, saying he was going out for soda. But he was gone over 40 minutes and turned his phone off so I couldn’t call him. By the time he got back I was hysterical with worry because when he does this it means he has gone drinking. He’s a recovering alcoholic anyway.
Of course, he came back smelling of alcohol, but tried to convince me he’d only taken a few Xanax his father gave him. Instead of going out to eat for our wedding night, because he was drunk and I didn’t want him to drive, I had 2 day old leftover macaroni and cheese and canned peas for dinner.
I was trying hard not to be sad but it was my wedding night and you only get one of those - no do-overs. I finally went to bed by myself around 9pm. Last I saw he was shopping on eBay for things he wanted to buy with the rest of the $100 his dad gave him.
I don’t even know what to say.
It’s like a different man from the one during the ceremony.
Then suddenly this?
And I left my entire life behind for him on another coast, I’m here 7 months pregnant (and miserable at it) with his baby, and he acts like this on our wedding night. Lying, drinking, stealing money, etc.
I don’t know what to do.
I am profoundly sad. I have so few options though. I have no money left to move away from him. I’m paying all our bills and I’m behind on those, even.
I have always maintained faith that we would make it but after his behavior on our wedding night, for the first time, I can see this relationship failing.
And I’m scared to death to be on my own in this strange place, so very poor, with a baby. God, I don’t know what to do!
0The Bassinet Saga
Finally got a bassinet - as a gift, from a secondhand store down the street. It was too perfect. Great green plaid, lots of adorable ruffles, a mobile with sounds and vibration - everything I could have asked for.
And more. Because I went to do some research and discovered it was recalled in 2008 for killing 4 infants.
So, back to the store it went this morning. They were very good about refunding the money and apologizing - apparently, the bassinet had been in inventory when they purchased the store, so they didn’t realize it was recalled.
But after such a close call I’m going to buy a new (as in brand new) bassinet from Walmart online. Trouble is my budget is very, very small, and bassinets are expensive. I’ve found one that’s reasonably priced and within my budget (using the money I got from the faulty bassinet return). It has okay-to-good (not great) reviews but safety doesn’t seem to be the concern. People who give it negative reviews don’t like the color (I’m not that picky!) or don’t like how hard it is to put together (God willing we will have a few months yet to figure it out).
I like that with this new bassinet, the actual bassinet part is a detachable Moses basket. So I can take it with us when we go to visit people and want to put the baby down for naps.
We’ll be getting a convertible car seat from the hospital as a gift for taking parenting classes there - thank God for that! But because it’s a big car seat it doesn’t have the detachable portion that most infant seats do. This one will last us longer which will save us money. But getting it in and out of the truck every time we want to take the baby somewhere will be a pain. I think it’ll be pretty permanently installed in the truck and we’ll use our Snugli or wraps, or a stroller, to transport the baby once we get out of the truck (like to go into a store or something). And we can take the Moses basket with us so the baby has someplace to sleep when we go to visit folks, since the car seat won’t really be a napping option.
We were promised a crib but I’m not holding my breath. I don’t think the person who was going to buy it for us is going to come through. The bassinet will at least buy me a little time (hopefully) to sort out a more permanent bedding option - crib or pack n’ play. Ideally a crib.
Only cribs I’ve seen in resell stores have been drop side, even though they are now illegal to sell…
Apparently store owners don’t really care, though, if they are reselling recalled items and illegal items. It’s up to me to do due diligence on everything we get. It’s just a shame that resell prices are pretty much the top of our line, budget-wise!
0The Big Sale
Attended a semi-annual sale of used baby and kids stuff this morning. It’s just a big venue full of tables and racks of garage-sale quality stuff. Some is awfully dirty and overpriced. Some is actually really good deals.
I didn’t have any money to spend as I mentioned in a previous post but my fiance got some temporary work that will pay close to $400. He gave me $100 to spend at the sale, I ended up spending $74.
I didn’t get the things I had wanted - a bassinet (the ones they had were in horrible shape and overpriced), a Johnny Jump Up (the ones they had weren’t cheap enough to make it worth it - would rather pay $20 retail and get a newer/safer one), and a baby wrap - though I did get a Snugli carrier so we can “wear” the baby. I was hoping to find something like a Moby wrap, but nothing quite that nice there.
But I did come away with some things I’ll need. I got a ton of hardly-used burp cloths, cute sleepers/PJs for various sizes, a couple pairs of baby booties/slippers, a few maternity tops & a pair of petite maternity jeans (finally!), a nursing nightgown, and the best deal of the day - a Boppy nursing pillow. Those pillows cost nearly $50 new. This one was $6. It has no stains. I can buy a cover for it pretty cheap, so, I was pleased with that.
All in all I had to work hard to find the deals that I did, but I was pleased with what I got. I’m not in love with these kinds of sales. I’d rather have more money than have to scramble through dirty hand-me-downs to find the ones that are nice enough to buy. I’m afraid that’s what life will always be like for my child, and I feel like I’m letting him down already. :\
0The Poorhouse
My fiance is out visiting with friends and family, so I have the house to myself to have one long, massive panic attack that keeps feeding itself the more I think about our financial state and try to figure out what to do.
So much of my money has had to go to his needs this month, which is pretty standard. Constant gasoline for the 10-miles-per-gallon-bastard that is the truck, so he can make trips across town to see his friends, because they need him to do things for him but never give him any gas money. Cigarettes all the time. Soda. Other stuff.
I barely make any purchases for myself but I was down to $30 and it’s a week until I get paid again.
I now owe about $300 on my credit card which I was reluctant to get in the first place, but I have needed it to pay bills in between my paltry paychecks. Purchases I do put on it are things like cat food. I love my babies and I promised I’d take care of them and I always will. I don’t know how, but somehow. They are my family.
I don’t know how I’m going to pay the card off. Because I’ll get paid the end of the month and have to turn around and pay bills and rent.
I just know we are so, so screwed. Without exaggeration. I just keep crying out to God to help me, make my fiance get a job, make something happen. Please help me!
I wasn’t aware so much of my money was going out in little daily purchases because he takes my card and uses it and I never see receipts. I check my balance online all the time but Wells Fargo doesn’t show transactions sometimes for days, even up to a week at a time. So…I just had no idea how poor I really was. I knew it was bad but this is really bad.
There’s a big used children’s goods sale in town this weekend and I’ve been planning to go for months to see if there’s anything I can get cheap for the baby. I don’t have any cash to pull out of my account so I see no point in going to the sale, now.
God please help me. I just don’t know what to do. I am barely hanging on by a thread. Please, please help.
0Charley Horse from Hell
Aaaaand last night, the leg cramps began.
Like the world’s worst charley horse.
They happened twice in my left leg, both times when I was trying to get out of bed to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. Middle of the night bathroom trips are pretty much constant for me, even before I was pregnant - so now they are worse.
Everything I’ve read warned me about this but I haven’t had a charley horse since I was a kid so I thought maybe I’d be immune. Egads, pregnancy is tough.
0Shitty Shepherd’s Pie
I don’t know how anybody does it.
In order to make dinner I had to wash dishes which started my carpal tunnel screaming.
Then I had to scrub, peel and cut potatoes (to boil for mashed potatoes), by the end of which the pain was shooting up my arms.
Then I had to defrost and crumble hamburger meat to saute, which made my hands into claws.
As if that wasn’t enough, opening the can of peas with my crappy dollar store hand can opener had me literally sobbing.
Mashing the potatoes was no walk in the park, either.
After the shepherd’s pie was assembled, I had to grate cheese on top of it - as that’s how my fiance likes it. More pain. More tears.
All this just for a shitty shepherd’s pie.
I’ve never had carpal tunnel, not even in all my years working at a computer. I’ve been told it’s from the excess fluids and blood I’m holding in now that I’m pregnant, and it’s only going to get worse.
So how does anyone do it? If I can’t even make the world’s simplest dinner without crying through the whole damned thing, and I can’t afford to dine out all the time, how the hell do I do it?
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0Tears in Walmart
Just got back from Walmart. Went to buy a package of straps to keep our sheets down - not so much the sheets, but the cruddy $6 Walmart mattress pad that never quite fit our mattress. It comes up every day, which means the sheets come up every day, which means I have to haul my pregnant belly over the mattress every night to make the bed before we can sleep.
But I couldn’t quite wrap my head around how they worked. I was thinking over the top of the corners, when duh, it’s probably underneath the mattress corners and up the sides.
I didn’t have that epiphany until we were nearly at the car. My fiance informed me he figured that’s how they were used. I felt so stupid, then. I should be able to know and do these things.
I had a bit of a breakdown, then, in the parking lot. I think I started crying when I said, “I should know these things…” or… “I’m so bad at this.” I feel like the world’s worst failure as a home maker.
Guess it’s the pregnancy hormones, huh? Or maybe just a bit of everything…
0Tossing and Turning
I am so tired.
Profoundly, deeply tired.
I guess it’s hard enough being six months pregnant, but I look around and see so much that has to be done. Just seeing it is exhausting, let alone mustering the energy to actually accomplish things.
Our landlord doesn’t care about his properties and as such the place is falling apart. But it’s cheap and I can’t afford the cost of our life as it is, with my fiance being out of work, it’s all up to me. So we really need to stay in this place even if it has no heat (and winter is coming) and our landlord is a slum lord. Bona fide.
I see so much that we have to do to get the place to a state where I can really be proud of it…or maybe that state just won’t ever come. I don’t know. The landlord will knock the cost of paint and stuff off our rent if we do it but I don’t have the cash up front to buy the paint in the first place.
(I may or may not quality for Section 8 - it’s a moot point as he won’t accept it, because he would then have to bring the place up to code for inspections.)
And there’s just the day to day stuff. No dishwasher = dirty dishes piling up. It hurts my back to stand at the sink for very long and my hands are so crippled with carpal tunnel because of all the extra blood in me, and the swelling. So they don’t get done, until I break down and do them because I can’t stand looking at them anymore. I’m always careful to throw the food out and rinse them so it’s not a situation where food is laying around, they just have to be washed. I don’t have any help with this, or housework. So it has to be done around my schedule, when energy permits.
And I work to keep us in this house and give us electricity and stuff, and that is stressful too - most days I love my job but some days, not so much. I wish I could take a day off but I can’t afford it. Even when the baby comes I won’t be able to take any leave because I can’t afford not to be earning. Thankfully I have a netbook and I can work from bed if I need to.
I started with this company when they were a newbie start-up in 2007. I said I’d work for them for an hourly rate that is half what other people in my position are earning at other companies. 4 years later, I am still earning that - no raise. I can’t very well make a fuss though, and end up out of a job, pregnant, and can’t even pay my bills as it is.
Bills are so astronomical - just rent, electricity, water, gas and Internet (which I must have because of work) - I couldn’t go grocery shopping for like 4 weeks. The state turned me down for food stamps because I used to have money (but that money went to large outstanding medical bills, so now I don’t have it anymore). I guess they are punishing me for having had a little money to my name once upon a time. I do get WIC because, thank God, I get pregnancy Medicaid. WIC pays about $40 worth of groceries every month but some months we are living off just what I can make with my WIC foods. Fried eggs, whole wheat burritos, etc.
Cooking is another nightmare. I don’t hate it but I’m not a huge fan. If I don’t cook, we don’t eat, so it’s really up to me. I’m having to learn some creative recipes to stretch what we do have in the house.
This week alone we had a major pipe burst in the wall behind the shower, and the toilet sprung a leak, both requiring 2 trips from the plumber (thankfully the landlord pays those repairs!). The garage ceiling has holes in it that the workers punched into it when they were fixing the adjoining property’s roof - so now I have to call the landlord and get that fixed, as we filled about 50 gallons worth of fish tanks and drum trash cans with rain water from the leaks in a few hours yesterday. It hardly rains here but our garage always floods, now we know why.
This is definitely not the life I envisioned for myself. But I guess it’s the bed I’ve made.
Ironically, I can’t even sleep in it. I toss and turn worrying about how we’ll survive.
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I wish I could afford this for Halloween. It’s too cute! Find it here.
0If I Die in Childbirth
Sometimes I find myself thinking, “If I die in childbirth, I won’t have to live for the heartache and the struggle. I won’t have to worry about money anymore. I won’t have to be disappointed in my life or the choices I’ve made. I can finally be at rest.”
Then I think, I’ll miss my baby, who’s due in January - my first, a little boy.
And I’ll miss my 3 young kittens, whom I’ve reared since infancy, bottle feeding and all, who are now 3 and 5 months old.
And really, I’ll miss my fiance, soon to be husband, father of my child. As broken as our relationship is, I really would miss him if I didn’t see him ever again. I turned my life upside down to be with him. He’s a whole big part of my world.
There are just so many things going on right now…so many things that I am stressing over. That I’m heartbroken over. That I worry about. That make me so terribly, profoundly sad.
And sometimes I look at my life and I think death will be the only way out of this situation, if it doesn’t get any better.
What kind of thought is that for someone who is about to bring new life into the world?
I wish I could tell you my troubles, so it might make some sense. Perhaps, as time goes by, in this Tumblr, I will.
Thanks for reading, new friend.
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