Overwhelmed

Hello!  Thank you for taking the time to visit my page.  I have to be honest with you, I have sat staring at my screen for twenty minutes, trying to figure out what to write that will hopefully grab a readers attention or hold someones interest.  I've decided to just lay my story out here on the line so to speak and let you decide for yourself.

I am a happily married mother of three.  Like many families, we have fallen upon a rough fews years financially.  It is a struggle, it is stressful, it feels shameful in a way, if that makes any sense.  Having three children in three years has made my being a stay at home mom most cost effective for now.  My husband who is self-employed goes above and beyond trying to make up where I cannot now contribute by working 80 hour work weeks with weekends usually.

However, recently and within the three years of having our children, we accrued several medical expenses and our insurance was not so great.  When I was pregnant with our first child, I went in to pre-term labor at seven months out of state.  The only hospital close, of course, was not in our network and I had to pay with a credit card.  Due to medical reasons, all of our children were delivered c-sections and the bills for those, including the doctors fee, extended hospital stays, and anesthesiologist portions had me questioning why I even paid for health insurance after receiving final bills.  

Shortly before I found out I was pregnant with our second child, I was in an accident when a large semi-truck sized RV trailer backed into me, pinning me against a cement post dislocating and breaking different parts of my shoulder and wrist.  Luckily, that is all that was injured on me.   Our second child required surgery for ear tubes and more recently, an echo for a heart murmur.  Our third child also has a heart murmur which required an echo.  He also contracted RSV as an infant requiring yet another hospital stay for us.

Last winter, I spent over $600 in just a week in doctor visits alone, because we couldnt afford insurance with a lower deductable. Not to mention all the running of tests and prescriptions inbetween. Most recently, I had an urgent care visit which ended up costing me in the thousands for what I thought was kindey stones.  It turns out I needed my gallbladder removed and so I had to have surgery for that as well.

My point is, the last five years have been extremely weighing upon us.  On only one income and barely not making the cut for government assistance, I could not afford to make several different payment plans to multiple facilities when they were not able to work with a minimum rate I required.  I had to put all of our medical expenses on credit cards the last couple years.  Some I chose to stick my head in the sand and pray they went away only to be found by debt collectors.  They too, eventually were added to the credit card when they demanded they required the balance to be paid in full.  Only being able to pay the monthly minimums on our cards, it seems we are barely paying the collected interest every month.  Some months I don't even have enough money to even pay that.

Our oldest is a normal, rambunctious boy, who came home last week with holes in his jeans.  I cringed and felt so ashamed as a mother knowing I don't have any means to buy him new.  That was the breaking point for me.  I need to pay off these medical bills so I can afford to buy my child a pair of clearance jeans when the knees are thredbare with holes, or even be able to get a half tank of gas without feeling the guilt of knowing the amount I spend in gas could have paid for the soccer registration our son wants to play in the spring.

I do not know if my fundraiser is worthy of being posted on here.  But anything I can collect towards getting rid of this monster of medical debt would mean more than the world to me.  So, if you do decide to donate, THANK YOU SO MUCH! And if not, thank you for at least listening.