Karma??

So the house fell through, it was a big ole' mess and it just did not work out.  We went out in a last ditch effort to see what was left in the area...and found an even better house. And we put an offer in.  Now we are waiting to hear...and while we are waiting we hear from our prospective rentors...who saw our readvertisement and still haven't found some place, and still love our town house, and could postpone their move date a bit...  but we need to hear if our offer was accepted... if there ever was a time to pray and believe in things working out for good people, now would be the time I ask for your prayers, thoughts, crossed fingers and toes...  we should hear by the end of today... so much for my anxiety going away!

First a rant...

Ok so first I am going to post a bit of a rant.  I have this "friend" from way back when.  Love(d) her dearly... always been supportive (from a distance because we live 300 miles apart), total facebook friends, used to be friends in high school - had her at my kids 1st birthday party even!

At that party, she was with a guy - a great guy. Eventually she ended up pregnant - they broke up, accroding to her, him not supportive at all. Found out through another friend, SHE stopped taking the pill and never told him. Also SHE beat the crap out of awesome dude. He was hesitant to parent with her, she apparently was crazy after all, and voiced his opinion to terminate said pregnancy.  She did not and continued with the pregnancy. Totally supported her (though didn't know all the details until partly through the pregnancy, but whatev, was supportive). At the same time, when awesome dude came around he came all the way around and wanted (wants) to be part of baby dude's life.  She has made his life hell and made it difficult for him to do so.  Regardless, that's their problem. I support both of them (though not really friend with him, totally support him for joint custody). 

All that aside, she made the decision not to circumsize her son, and to exclusively breast feed.  Good for her, again I support her choices.  They are her choices to make.  She has no job - food stamps and welfare support her.  Ok fine but she just finished a surgical tech program and has a marketable skill that is easily employable.  Again, her decisions, I can deal and shut up.  Yet now I am tempted to delete her as a friend on facebook because she has now become a soap box woman.  All her activity is now centered around talking about how circumscion is abusing children and the people who choose to do so are barbarians. And that people who use formula and don;t want to breast feed in public are evil.  Her son is 12 weeks old and she has become some expert on these topics in that time.  I am all for her having her own opinion and all...and she has never and I don;t think would ever, publicly attack another woman - but I circumscized my son (well the surgeon did) and I used formula. I stopped breast feeding about 12 weeks in for a number of different reasons.  Needless to say her rants are what made mothers like me suffer for weeks with postpartum depression in order to breast feed my twins.  She is the reason people like me feel like less of a woman.  And again, I support her choices - she is free to choose whatever, but is it wrong of me to be upset that she spouts this crap? Isn't this what is wrong with the whole debate to begin with?

Ok, I think that is the end of my rant.  In other news, we are under contract on a house. Our inspection is tentatively set for tomorrow and I still have not heard if it's a final and absolute go so I am nervous. And we found a family that wants to rent our house. And my family is in the process of arriving for the kids second birthday party this weekend. And I have to sit in on interviews for a new position in my office tomorrow.  I think I might lose it at any moment... oh and I have a wicked cold!!  Should be a fun week?!

scared, nervous, excited...

It seems the planets might actually be aligning for us.  We found a house we loved...it was out of our price range.  We gave them a lowball offer.  They verbally countered with a bunch of ridiculous conditions and an amount a tad higher than we wanted to go.  Once my agent talked to theirs and their agent pounded some sense into them, the removed pretty much all their conditions when they submitted their written counter...but stayed at the same price, which when I say is a tad over our price, I mean literally...$2000 over. We can live with $2000 over, since it's still technically in our approval range.  And we still get our inspection and the ability to come back pending its results.

We are going over on Saturday to walk through again, and do a closer look...before making a final decision to accept.  OMG? Did we just get the house of our dreams?

And now we wait...

We found the perfect house.  Perfect.  It's more than enough room for my family to live in, and host holidays, and even have my parents move in, if and when they ever need to.  It would be my forever home.

We got approved for about 87% of the costs... our mortgage would cover 87%.... and my parents agreed to help us come up with the down payment...but that amount just got a bit bigger than we anticipated.... smaller than our worst fear, but bigger than what we originally thought.... so now we present the options to my parents...and we wait to find out how much they can swing.... and if it's too much, then we are done for now.  I can't take this again... we will wait at least another year to even start looking.  Part of me hopes my parents say it isn't doable for them, because they have given me everything I ever could have dreamed of in my life....and I feel like a shlub and a horrible person for even asking... and part of me prays they say yes, because it would give me a place that they could come to anytime they needed. 

So that's where we are....and now we wait.

Hope...

So after being frustrated, having a miserable week at work, and two tantrum throwing almost two-year old toddlers at home, it's nice to have something to be hopeful about. (Side note, I love my babies and count my blessings for them every day, but just because I was infertile, it's hard to deal with the screaming for 3 hours straight and can be a bit depressing).  Today I asked my parents if they would be willing to help us with a down payment on a new (to us) house.  To be fair in the interest of disclosure, we already own a three story townhome, which we bought at the tail end of the housing boom and still owe more than its worth.  We made our own down payment then... and we could wait a few years to buy a house and sell it and buy a new house, but the deals that are out there now are hard to pass up.  We are looking at basically buying the home we will live in for the rest of our lives...and since our parents are not getting any younger, the thought of needing to take care of them does play in my head, and their just is no room to do so in our current home. Plus the twins love visitng other peoples home where they have room to run - no real running room when each floor is about 6-700 square feet and a postage stamp yard.

When we bought our home, the presumption and intent was to stay there for 5-7 years and move into our "family" house - ie where we would raise our kids.  The current market makes selling our current home a far cry from reality....however, if we rent it, we can probably get a bit more than our mortgage, HOA and escrow cost.  So it wouldn't really be a loss.  And we live right near a military base where the realignment is set to ramp up numbers even more...so its not like we don't have a rental market. 

Anyway, I emailed my parents this morning, because if they are willing to help us, depending on how much they are willing could mean the diference between move in ready with all the bells and whistles to needing a lot of work!!  My mother already replied that her and my dad would discuss, but wanted some numbers to know what we were talking...so it appears they are at least willing to consider helping us.  So right now, I am going to hopeful that this might work out, and we might be able to host a Christmas or Thanksgiving without putting people in the backyard to eat!!

Frustrated

I feel like I am a hamster stuck in a wheel, running at top speed and just getting no where.  We decided we would start looking at houses, the kids need room to run and the townhouse ain't cutting it.  We found one we loved, but it was under contract in 2 days. Then we found one we really liked...but found out that because it wouldn't be our first home purchase, the money we were banking on from our tanking IRA can't be used. Adam really wants me to ask my parents, but they have done soooooo much for us, I am completely uncomfortable with this. 

When he got his new job, it was after 4 months of unemployment, which ate most of our savings, plus the salary was less than he was making.  Plus he is back in school - community college, but tuition and books cost just the same.  I get my raise in April, but it doesn't seem like it will be enough.  So now he is ready to call it all off and just wait until the kids are like in 6th grade.  Which makes me sad, because they are so happy when they have room to run around and just be kids. Now he is talking about trading back his new car to save money - which I totally disagree with. You made the purchase, I am not throwing money away because you changed your mind - in the long run it would cost less to keep the car til it dies!

It just sucks that somehow we do everything right, we follow the rules, we do the right things and somehow we are still in the hole,  - we could start to carry a balance on our credit cards to save money, but that's just giving more money away.  I don't know what to do.  Meanwhile, I watch friends and family - with the Iphones and fancy vacations who also collect food stamps, and have no visible means of support. Somehow they are able to do all the things I want to do for my family...all while I do all the right things, and am still wearing underwear from when I got married 6 years ago... it is just so frustrating!!

Additional info after this most recent post....a good friend of the family died today. It seems we will be headed to NY in the next few days for his burial.  He had stage 4 prostate cancer, and made it for 2 whole years...this morning they gave him days to live so we started trying to figure out our best plan for the inevitable...then we got the call that he had passed. So sad for his wife and daughter...at the same time glad he is now enjoying his sweet heavenly peace...I hope my Grandparents welcomed him with open arms.  What a stinky day.

IF sucks.

As we struggled with infertility for years, I never remotely thought another members of my family would endure similar issues. The fact that I am finding out now that a precious loved one is having similar issues, and just experienced a devastating loss, it kills me. It makes me hate infertility as much as I did before we overcame it, except more. 

I get that if we want another baby, we will likely have to go through all the same medications and interventions. I get that we may experience loss again. I am ok with that for me. I am not ok with it for others. I hate that couples everywhere are still struggling with this. I hate that deserving men and woman ache for a child and sometimes cannot see that dream realized. I hate that there are people so careless that they toss children aside while others ache so desparately for them. 

It's not fair. I wish I could be there for her and hug her as she cries on my shoulder. At the same time, I don't know if she even wants me to listen.  I have reached out and offered my support from someone who does understand it from the other side...I just hope she takes it.  Helping others with this is really the only way I feel like I am doing something about it.