Sometimes we have to ask for help
I’ve really never been at such a low point in my life besides when I lost my Mom and best friend. I am so grateful for what I do have. But sometimes we fall on hard times and things happen that are out of our control. I have exhausted every option to me to avoid needing to burden my friends and family with any help. But to keep a roof over my 3 sweet girls heads amongst other things, this is my last resort.
Many of you know that Jamey and I recently brought our 3rd baby girl into the world on 1/7/19. We should be bonding with our babies and enjoying this time with them while they are little because it goes so fast and life is so short. Instead we are stressed and worrying about how we will make it each day.
When I had Lexi we had planned for me to be out of work for 6 weeks that is the minimum for most Moms to be out and some jobs require a return to work note to return and this wasthe case for me. I should have returned to work on December 19th as the 18th was the end of those 6 weeks but unfortunately that didn’t happen. Instead I didn’t return until 1/1.
Many of you know about my struggle with postpartum depression and the trouble I had with getting the medication I needed to be better. This started when I was pregnant with Maliyah. After I had her I was delayed in going back to work because of my PPD and we fell behind on our bills at that time. I started on my Zoloft and I was back feeling normal and being happy at least but the financial stress was a huge burden. That’s when I decided to do travel nursing to get us out of the financial rut butsadly we never anticipated not being able to find a place to stay while doing that. We made it through Colorado fine and had a place to live there but we quickly ran out of money in Rhode Island due to having to pay for hotels to stay in and that was when we decided to come back to Florida and try to start over.
We lived at my Dads for a while to try to save some money to get our own place again. We got jobs in Ocala because that is where we planned to live for a while. We ended up using most of the money we made in gas getting to and from work not to mention we have just one car so we had to manage our schedules. We finally made it to a point to get our own place in August last year. Since then we have lived very minimally. We have a mattress we sleep on and Khali and Maliyah have their toddler beds. A friend at work gave us a Glider chair andthat is all of the furniture we have had since August.
Our biggest struggle has been with my Midwife. Because I didn’t have insurance the only option I had was to go to the health department. The midwife who has seen me since August there refused to see me any sooner than 12/30 and my job required a return to work note before putting me back on Payroll. The midwife also refused to submit paperwork to my short term disability for keeping me from returning to work until 12/30. So I have not had any pay since 12/16 which was $238 for disability. The midwife said that they wouldn’t give me a note because at my 2 week PP visit I had scored high on the PPD screen and she wasn’t comfortable letting me return until I was seen. The nurse at the health department told me the midwife refuses to do any paperwork for disability because she doesn’t believe anything pregnancy related is a disability.
I have 3 babies to feed all are in diapers and I can’t make enough breast milk for Lexi so I have had to supplement a lot with formula. Trying to make it on one income has been very tough. I have pleaded with our rental office, our water company and electric company for extensions but I am now at the end of all those extensions. I have taken out payday loans to try to help which has only hurt us more. I need to pay for daycare for my girls so that both Jamey and I can work full time jobs to pay our bills.
I am not able to pay my medical bills from thispregnancy and that has hurt my credit terribly. I have capped out on my student loans trying to finish graduate school. Buying our own home seems pretty much impossible at this point.
I know that there are many others out there that don’t even have what we do but I am terrified of becoming homeless with 3 baby girls. I just need some help to get us by for a couple of weeks. I am humiliated to even be in a situation like this and to need to ask for any help at all but I have to try because I don’t want my babies to not have a home. They deserve so much more than I can give them right now and Iam trying to better our situation to give them all they deserve. I started back in school to complete my Masters this week and I don’t even have a computer so I have to use the business office and my work to complete my assignments.
Please, If you can help us out at all even the smallest donation would help us tremendously, we are trying our best to figure this out and get by so please know if you can spare us a little help it would take a huge burden off of us and we will pay it forward when we are no longer in this financial mess.
Thank you isn’t enough but we are so thankful to anyone who can help even just keeping our family in your thoughts and prayers ❤️
