One of the ways it's the gift that keeps on giving right now is that, 14 months after the appeals court finally ruled in our favor, we're still paying the bills. Lots and lots of bills.
Some of our debt pre-dates the adoption, but most of the debt we're carrying is from the fairly modest amount we borrowed to pay adoption agency fees and then, when C. showed up, to pay the lawyer. And then borrowed again to pay the lawyer again. And then borrowed again to pay the lawyer again. And then, finally, when she called to say the birthfather had filed an appeal, to not borrow any more because we couldn't--we were tapped out. I told the lawyer then, "I don't know how we'll pay for this, or when. But I promise we will."
We initially thought this adoption would cost about $14,000. That was revised upward by a couple thou after we paid birthmother expenses for a woman who decided to parent. And a little bit more when problems with our home study stranded me and Yehva in Illinois while we got them fixed. But still in the range of about $18,000--a lot of money, but nothing to panic about.
Until the custody fight, and the endless months of our lawyer filing papers and responding to the other side's filed papers and attending hearings.
By the time the dust settled, the adoption had cost us something close to $65,000. A number that makes me either laugh or cry every time I say it out loud. I laugh because it is so completely ridiculous and unbelievable, or I cry because the effect on our family of incurring that kind of debt could so easily have been catastrophic.
It's been hard. We have so many payments that by the time I pay the bills, and we put gas in the cars, and we buy groceries, it's pretty common for us to have almost nothing left to get through the week. I can't tell you how many times I've cried when I thought I had the pay period all figured out and then was reminded that we had a $40 prescription to refill, or opened the mail to find a bill I hadn't expected, or had a sick cat, or something broken on the car.
I never thought I'd pay my mortgage late. I can't tell you how many times I've paid my mortgage late over the last three years. A year ago, we took a forbearance for 90 days because we got behind and realized we would never be able to catch up.
I've needed a new pair of sneakers for six months, and every month I say I'm going to get them, but by the time I sort out the more urgent bills and set aside the mortgage money, there never seems to be any extra. I'm still wearing my post-surgical bras from my breast reduction last November because there are always better things to spend my cash on than new bras--though we're getting close to the crisis point, undergarment-wise, and it will have to be a priority soon enough. The kids' birthday presents come from craigslist and the local consignment shops; David and I just didn't give each other presents for birthdays or Christmas last year.
I had promised myself a new dress for Joann and Carolyn's wedding in May. Back in January, I was sure that sometime in the next three or four months, there'd be a little extra for me. But as the date approached, it became clear that there was not going to be any extra, and I would not be able to buy a dress. (Let alone the new bras, dress, slip, and shoes I had originally envisioned. What was I thinking? I pay the bills. I know where the money goes and exactly how much is left every week.)
And this is where my story turns happy. Because I e-mailed my friends Adrianne and Carla, and asked if I could root around in their closets for something to wear to the wedding. They both dress professionally for jobs, and I was sure I'd be able to put together some flowing pants and a dressy top, maybe not a perfect fit, maybe not in my colors, but nice. Good. More than good enough.
But they e-mailed me back and said they had talked it over and, while they'd be happy to let me into their closets, they wanted to buy me a dress instead.
So I had a beautiful new red dress for the wedding, because my friends bought it for me. (I wore an old bra, no slip, and old shoes...it doesn't seem to have ruined the wedding.)
Our version of broke is a pretty good one. We've never been without food, only, sometimes, without a favorite or a treat. We've more than once eaten the pantry and freezer to the bare walls while waiting for a paycheck, but we've always had the pantry and freezer to turn to. David doesn't have an Xbox 360, and I don't have an iPod Touch, and Yehva won't go to preschool this fall even though I know she would love it, and Eric doesn't get to take a summer class at the science museum this year, and Carl...well, I can't think of anything Carl wants and doesn't have right now. Carl's good.
We're all good. The stuff we do without is stuff most people do just fine without anyway.
And there's a lot of stuff we haven't had to do without, and I want to say why. It's because so many other people have been pouring money into our household. Not just the hundred dollars for a dress. The kids and I haven't missed a summer gathering, because my monthly meeting pays for the kids to go, and FGC itself gives me scholarship funds, and FLGBTQC helps out with travel funds. This winter, we were able to attend the FLGBTQC midwinter gathering because one friend just flat out wrote me a check for half the kids' cost, and the friend we traveled with paid for gas and our meals (though writing that I am reminded that I still owe her for hotels). Just last week, I got to go out for a really nice dinner with a fancy appetizer, because a friend treated me. Friends have treated me a lot. Adrianne even invited me and all three of my kids out to dinner the other week, which has got to be the very picture of generosity.
Two families in my monthly meeting, independently, were led to send us $1000 each to help with lawyer bills, "or for any need," as one put it. My monthly meeting helped us through the Fund for Sufferings, as did FLGBTQC. My parents lent us $10,000 and then forgave the debt, and then a year later sent us a check for another $10,000 when the birthfather appealed. Without my parents' generosity, I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say we would have had to choose between paying the lawyer and keeping our house.
I'm thinking of all this now, because I just asked my monthly meeting to help with travel expenses for the summer gathering. I didn't think I'd have to--between my discount for leading a workshop, and my meeting's Connecting Kids to Quakers money for Eric, Carl, and Yehva, and the gathering being only two hours from my house, I only needed to come up with $307 plus two tanks of gas. I was sure I could do this. I even have an excel spreadsheet showing that, on paper at least, that money could be squeezed out of the budget.
But it turns out that, like the money for my dress and the money for Yehva's preschool and the money for every other thing I thought we'd surely be able to pay for in another few months, that $307 doesn't exist. So somebody else is picking up the slack for me, one more time.
There is an endpoint: in June of 2011, we pay off a loan whose payment is $525 a month. And then the rest of them drop like dominoes month by month, until (knocking wood) by the end of 2011 we have somewhere between $950 and $1100 every month that we don't have right now. When I look ahead, I'm amazed by how suddenly we're free of the whole thing: a matter of a few months. Like snapping your fingers, once we get there.
And then, as I e-mailed some friends this morning, we'll be wallowing in money like pigs in shit, frolicking through meadows tossing dollar bills like rose petals, lighting our cigars with $20 bills.
I'm trying to remember why I wanted to write a blog post about this, other than to invite others to boggle at the numbers, to laugh or cry with me about it as led. Or to get my perpetual fretting about money out of my head and onto paper so I could let go of it for awhile. Or to explain to the world why I asked my Friends meeting for $200--again!--to do something as arguably self-indulgent as attend the gathering. Or to remind myself to stop complaining because we really have nothing to complain about.
Oh, I remember--I think it's worth knowing, for those of you who haven't been through anything catastrophic like this, that when push comes to shove you have a lot more to rely on than just your own resources. That people love to help. That sometimes they act like you're doing them a favor by letting them write you a check. That they can surprise you by choosing compassion over judgment. I used to hate to ask for help, and usually turned it down when it was offered. Turns out, it's not so bad, being humbled. It's been one of the unexpected gifts of the custody fight, this whole mess of help coming our way, when we asked for it and when we didn't ask for it, whether we wanted it or not.
We're so damn broke. But so much goodness came to us out of this mess that I honestly would not wish for it to be different.
I kid you not, come January 2012, I'm lighting a cigar with a $20 bill. And then we're re-starting our savings, and catching up all the deferred maintenance on the house, and giving money to charity again, and, yes, buying poor David his Xbox 360. And looking around for opportunities to pass on a little of what we've been given in such abundance.
6 comments:
This makes me wish you'd asked for help when we'd gone out to lunch. I intended to treat and then you stepped right up, pulled your credit card out, and bought your own lunch. I think that's the working class girl inside me--do not push yourself onto people, do not offer to pay for things for them that they feel like they can pay for themselves. It can be demeaning and patronizing to have that done. For me anyway. I shoulda been more pushy with you.
I share with you my own surprise at people wanting to help--when I had to have a bone marrow transplant and didn't have disability insurance, I knew I'd have to ask for help and did. I learned then many of the same lessons you did around the adoption expenses.
That said, I'm acutely aware that you're surrounded by many middle and owning class people, liberal people who love to help the "deserving" poor. As was I when I got leukemia. There are so many people who aren't surrounded by such folks and don't have even a little access to those kinds of resources. Maybe only people who are surrounded by people who have money read your blog. But I remember a time when my life wasn't like that.
And you have Yehva, without whom, well, I bet you can't even imagine life without her anymore. She's worth every penny and she won't remember any of these lean times.
Thanks for the perspective, Su. My family has less than most of our peers -- no XBox (or Wii, which would be more our speed) for us either. I'm constantly going back and forth between feeling a little deprived compared to our friends and feeling embarrassingly wealthy, even wasteful, compared to most of the world. A financial crisis would be bad for us, but I'm comforted by the fact that we have a social safety net of sorts, comprised of our family and friends, few of whom are wealthy, but all of whom would help us in whatever way they could. Jeanne is right that this safety net is a by-product of a kind of social status that has little to do with money and more to do with education level and cultural conditioning. But the fact that everyone doesn't have it, doesn't mean that no one should. Everyone should. I'm glad you do have people around you who have helped. Hang in there until 2012! :o)
I hear the PS3 is the bomb.
Oh, Su. Love you tons.
This post is just another affirmation to me that we need to hang out more. We find ourselves in a similar situation, and are buoyed by exceedingly generous f/Friends and family (like you, for instance).
My daydream date is 2014, when we both graduate from school and will then presumably earn more substantial paychecks. Til then, I find it helpful to hang out with people who are in similar straits (like our neighbors here in the Village) with whom I can discover wonderful ways to be thrifty and still meet the needs of my family while creating magical memories for my children.
So yea, we should, like, get together and stuff. ;)
Kr wrote a comment and I approved it but it disappeared somehow. Here it is:
This post is just another affirmation to me that we need to hang out
more. We find ourselves in a similar situation, and are buoyed by
exceedingly generous f/Friends and family (like you, for instance).
My daydream date is 2014, when we both graduate from school and will
then presumably earn more substantial paychecks. Til then, I find it
helpful to hang out with people who are in similar straits (like our
neighbors here in the Village) with whom I can discover wonderful ways
to be thrifty and still meet the needs of my family while creating
magical memories for my children.
So yea, we should, like, get together and stuff. ;)
Kri, I find it helps that the kids are so good at seeing things as magical--the other day, we found a colony of ants eating a dead circada on the sidewalk, and it was as good as Disneyland to them.
Post a Comment