I'm just going to lay it out like it is, but not in the order that it happened because honestly I just need to get this off my chest.
Here we go....
My wife and I got married, we moved into a house together and we have a son. All this happened in the last 2 years.
Now to start, after moving into our new home, we planned on renting my old condo since we were not going to be able to get what I originally paid for it back in 2004. We even dropped the rental price to be less then the more expensive in the area. NO HITS. We then decided to sell it. Unfortunately we decided this just before the winter and the holiday season set in, so we got very few hits. In the mean time, I'm now paying 2 mortgages (house and condo) and assessments for the condo. And to add insult to injury the mortgage company (Ellswa Argofa) decided to raise our house mortgage payments by about 20%.
Next, my wife when she had our son was working as a High School English Teacher in Rockford IL. So her stress levels were very high. The pregnancy went through some major turbulence because we live about 15 minutes from Chicago and Rockford IL is about a 2 hour drive from our house. The spring/summer/fall portion of that period was VERY hot (check Rockford, IL weather for Summer 2013), and the school has NO central A/C and NO window units for the rooms. Now after request for A/C as a medical need was sent from the doctors and insurance companies to the school, they refused to install AC for my wife.
When my wife had our son, she only took about 2 weeks off to recover. She then started back almost immediately full time at the school. Our son had to make the treck to Rockford, IL with my wife for daycare because of our works schedules. Basically the ones closer to our home closed before either of us got home from work. Also one of us needed to be available to pick him up if there was an emergency. This was also a factor because of the financial demands above. Both paychecks were needed.
Now about 4 months into the year my wife came under the weather with Postpartum Depression. This unfortunately came about because of the High Stresses of her job, combined with taking care of our son and the long commute to and from work. Not to mention the 36 hour delivery of our son and complications that occurred there-after. I tried my best to relieve her stress levels and take some of the load off, but it wasn't going to be enough. My wife was under orders to take medical rest by her doctors and therapists, but almost all of her sick leave was used up when my son was born. In addition, her therapists requested from the school that because of her stress levels, she must be allowed to finish her day 2 hours early in order to pick up my son and have more time to handle the commute home. This would also allow us to have my son go to a local daycare, making it unnecessary to travel the 2 hrs to Rockford. Once again, the school refused. They demanded that my wife return to her full time schedule. When she refused they told her(basically) to stay home without pay. We have decided that this has been in effort to make her quit since firing her would violate the terms of her contract. She has been trying to find a new job that is closer to home and easier for her to manage, but no such luck.
Now combine all this together with our regular stresses and financial amounts and we are now up to our necks in trouble. Basically, my pay check is the only one coming in and it hasn't been enough. I have burned through almost all of my savings and we are now coming into tax season and I have the State real estate taxes due on the condo plus the 2 mortgages and all the rest of our spending. In short, with in 2 months my wife and I will be bankrupt and lose the house and condo.
So my wife will again have to start working in Rockford and my son will have to travel with her as well to daycare. We can only hope that we can sell my condo and my wife can find another job closer to home so that we can afford to keep the house and live a somewhat comfortable and economical life together.
But I think are chances are better at winning lotto, then again i've been wrong before.....so Maybe?
Update: My wife's therapist thinks that if she goes back to work in Rockford, she will slip further into her postpartum depression and things could worsen.
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