Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

A month ago tomorrow.. my son, my love, my light was welcomed into this world. I'll be spending the day at work.

How did my first day back go, you might ask?

After doing the math on how much time I'd need with waking up Oliver, feeding him, getting a pump in, etc etc I was up at 5:30 am after about 3 hours of sleep.

Got Oliver fed, pumped some milk to give to Melissa, got us all ready and out the door. Shockingly, on time.

At Melissa's I had a tough time saying goodbye, but I had most of my composure held as I left and didn't break down until I was driving and glanced back to say something to Oliver and he wasn't there. 

At work I was actually okay, getting back into the swing of things - smile on my face and energy. Started to reorganize my thoughts for where I wanted my team to go. One of the managers was going to let me use his office to pump, schedule was all worked out. Things were okay besides the missing my baby... and then ...

I got asked to come into a meeting to sign paperwork and go over the organizational changes. I assumed this meant my promotion and $2.50 raise I was promised in the meeting I had a few days before Oliver was born. Turns out, it was to tell me that my position was being absolved by someone who was barely managing their own lead position and had to rely on her team to help her make decisions. So she gets a promotion (and raise, I assume) and I get a $0.25 we're sorry please don't leave consolation prize and do you have any questions? Oh no.. I don't have any questions. Exclamations, many, but no... no questions. Other than, as one of my should have been employees expressed "DAFUQ?!"

So I go back to work, clench my teeth, and try not to cry. Their pitiful raise gives me an extra $10 a week before taxes, where I was counting on $90. By counting on, I mean was going to be able to get caught up on my bills and now I'm not so sure. I'm already having to make these decisions like... gas for the car or diapers, how important is my car really, ramen is totally a balanced meal right...

I fail at trying not to cry and do my best to keep my mascara from running and try and hide the fact I'm crying at all. 

Then the guy who's supposed to let me use his office is all over the place and so I'm stressed about that. 

I'm trying to figure out scheduling with Melissa (Oliver's godmother) and trying to work and trying to forget how comfortable it is to be snuggled up with Oliver in my bed and trying to get some office time in to pump and trying to remember why I liked working at Linktech..but that's all gone and all of the sudden I'm eating my lunch and trying to keep tears out of my spaghetti. 

Then I have to call the lenders on my car and tell them I have no idea when I can pay them. That, surprisingly, went much better than expected.

I'm off work after what feels like years and traffic is crazy and I just want my baby. Finally I get to Josh & Melissa's get my love bug, hang out for a bit and get some milk & peanut butter & diapers and head home. Not sure how the day ended with gifts for me, but hey. 

Now I've got baby in my arms and ranting to the internet while John does the only thing he's good at these days, sleep.

Dinner, then bed, then all over again... for the rest of my life...dunno if I can do it.

indiegogo

Stephanie: You know how we were going to do a Kickstarter thing to get some baby money and that wouldn't work since they don't do 'life events' and what not but there was another site I couldn't think of? I just remembered... Indiegogo.
Johnathan: Yeah...It was more of a novelty idea and curious as to what kind of response it would get. I don't really have a compelling reason for someone to just give me money. I'm awesome?
Stephanie : Two smart kids from abusive backgrounds find each other across the cosmos and fall in love. They have ups, downs, laughs and tears and decide on an upswing to start a family. That upswing gets blown to bits and they scrape by for months with only $600 combined monthly income until they can both get jobs again but the baby's born before they're firmly back on their feet so they're back to ground zero as mom tries to heal as fast as she can and get back to work before dad's forced into male prostitution...
Johnathan: Right...But it's not something that the world would believe. I suppose we could make a "documentary" or something and we could label it something catchy/original like..."Slumdog Millionaire" or something...

Well, there are all kinds of things on Indiegogo so I decided to check it out and make a campaign. I figure, the worst that happens is no one donates, the best is that things pick up to the point we're able to get some funds to bring ourselves out of the paycheck to paycheck barely able to make it all work life we've been living. I would like to go grocery shopping and choose items based on health and flavor instead of what's the cheapest thing I can find. I would like to not have to worry about how I'm going to buy Oliver diapers or pay for his childcare or insurance.

The idea for the campaign came from us learning about the bus monitor who was made fun of by the kids on her bus, a campaign was started for her and because of internet word of mouth, she made $702,000 out of a $5,000 goal. Well, she didn't make the campaign, it was set up on her behalf...but still. Johnathan was the victim of every type of abuse you can think of growing up, and most of it too brutal to even think about writing about. I'd seen my fair share of hand-prints, flights of stairs, and ends of the barrel of a gun by the time I left home at 14. Stuff much worse than Karen the bus monitor went through (though don't get me wrong what she went through was awful). So we figured, hey, we've been through way worse than that and we're still going strong. We managed to find each other in the darkness and take our formally messed up lives and meld them into something better. We found our peace and just started getting our life on track and decided that it was a good of time as any to start a family...and then we both lost our jobs, and our optimism.

Now we've got a four week old son and we're struggling harder than we ever have had to before to make ends meet. That light at the end of the tunnel that once warmed us is now but a fading dream. There are diapers to buy, and food, and bills to pay. I'm terrified of getting that hospital bill for my delivery in the mail. We've sold so many things on Craigslist and still have more posted which doesn't seem to be going anywhere. It just never seems like enough. I'd be surprised greatly if we even raised $100. But, you never know. I'm sure when Max Sidorov created that page for Karen he never expected to make over 100 times what he set out to.

So... let's see what the internet will do.