Baby Making is Expensive! Thoughts on Infertility

Why is your way to get a baby better than mine?
Now, you may ask, why would I ask such a question! Well, I know lots of women that are in the same situation I am. They cannot get pregnant without help. Well, if you didn't know, fertility treatments, In Vitro Fertilization to be exact, run in the $17,000 range in Indiana. And that's just for the first try, with a maybe 60% chance of getting pregnant.
On top of that, if we decide to adopt instead of fertility treatments, private adoption is in the $35,000 range.
So, why do women get so defensive in the way we get the money to do it?
I decided to sell Mary Kay to start earning more money to go towards this goal.
When I told one women who had done fertility treatments, "Hey, I've started selling Mary Kay to help us earn the money towards IVF!" She said,"Why don't you do a Gofundme instead?" I had another person tell me, She took out a loan at the bank to have her twins. When I told her about the Mary Kay, she refused to even answer my messages!
I feel judged. They may not be able to buy Mary Kay right now, and that's fine. But why the shadiness? Why not just say, "I'm sorry. I can't buy right now, but good luck on your journey!" I know these women did other things like, sell baked goods they personally made. (Not really legal without a "Roadside Stand Certification" in Indiana.) Yes, I didn't buy any, but I did wish them luck, and gave love and support on their journey to getting a baby.
I'm selling a legit product, legally, and working towards a goal.
I do love these women. I want them to be successful on their journeys.
I'm not going to take out a loan that I have fear of looming over our heads for years, and there's a chance that the baby won't even happen on the first try. I don't want to beg people for free money. Trust me. I have supported the women that do this by making donations. I'm not judging their ways. This just isn't the way I want to accomplish our goal.
Why do I feel I'm being judged for my choice?

Living in Poverty

When I was nine years old, my mom and my dad both got laid off from their jobs.  The company my mom worked for, now known as Phillips Magnavox, decided to move all production to Mexico.  The company my dad worked for, was loosing money and laying people off.
By the time I was eleven, our trailer had been repossessed, and my parents had filed bankruptcy.  We went from a two income household to a zero income household.  I didn't understand what was going on, besides the fact that we didn't have any money.  Nobody ever tried to explain to me what was going on.  Not one person sat me down and tried to explain what it means to be poor, or even the opposite, what it means to create a budget and save money.
Both of my parents searched and searched for jobs, but both of them being in their 50's, could not find anything permanent that made close to the amount of money they were making previously.  My mother's previous employer paid for her to attend college, since she didn't have any higher education.  She got an associates degree in business.  My parents both spent time as substitute teachers.
My dad had jobs off and on.  He got a job as a property manager at a storage unit facility.  He lost that after 2 or three months.
We moved across town into a low income housing edition.  My parents looked for jobs.  My dad started working at Carrie Home For Boys on the night shift.  After sixth grade, we moved again, into a house that we started renting.  We lived all the way through my high school years.
This post is just a short history of being poor.  Where am I going with this?
My parents NEVER talked money with me or my siblings.  We always found out about things on the downward end.  The loan that defaulted on my sister's car that she didn't even know about.  The credit card my parents were helping me pay for in college, until one day, they just stopped paying the bill, without telling me.  The loan my dad took out on my car without telling me, to fix it's transmission.  The endless trips to Walmart, K-Mart, and Meijers that we really didn't have money for, but my parents went anyway.
I'm not trying to rat out my parents, but they didn't teach me anything about money.  How to save it.  How to spend it.  How to not go in debt.  I'm not trying to blame them either.  I just had to learn for myself how to do these things.
This creates the Cycle of Poverty. My parents never gave me the education I needed to learn about money.  Maybe it's the generation they grew up in.  They are older, the age of most of my friends grandparents.  Did anyone else in my age group grow up with this problem?  Or did your parents educate you about the proper ways to earn, save, and spend money? 
My sister and I had a talk one day about the ways are parents hid whole money issues from us.  The secret loans. The trips to the stores.  When they had money, they spent it!
I remember, when my uncle died, he gave my mom a sum of money.  They bought a used car, which was needed.  Then, they proceeded to drive it across the United States. That trip was to see family, but a lot of money was spent to do it.  Maybe the rest of that money is how we were able to afford to move that year.
Now that my parents are older, they don't have the money to live off of.  I feel horrible because I can't afford to support them and get them the assistance that's needed for this time in their life.
I had a small trust fund to pay for medicine after my transplant.  I was told that to keep my insurance, I had to get rid of it.  I bought a used car.  This was to be safer driving to and from the hospital, which was a little over an hour drive each way.  When it came down to it, my social worker asked where that money was.  I explained to her that my parents told me to buy a car with it.  She shook her head at me in disapproval.  I obeyed what my parents had told me to do.
Now, I'm finally paying off the card I had charged most of my medicine on in college.
The current job I have is actually still paying me and keeping me at poverty level.  I keep working at my job, because I enjoy it most of the time, and it provides me with insurance.  I stated this before in previous blogs: Because I went to college, I have a lot of debt.
This post isn't to tear down my parents.  I apologize if it looks like I'm trying to.  I'm just trying to organize the thoughts in my head about my history with money.  I want to break away from the poverty cycle that has been created in my family.  According to other sources, it can take up to six generations to break that cycle.  I don't want to be in that situation.  I am only the second generation.  I don't want my children to live through some of the experiences I have.
So, I will keep chipping away at my debt.  I will get educated about money.  I will learn how to teach my children about money.

End of the Year Check List

At the beginning of this year, I posted some New Years Goals.  Here's my year end review of how they went!
Goal #1: Get Healthier
I worked really hard on this.  I started making smaller amounts of food, so I wouldn't have as much excess.  I started buying healthier foods.  I started a Healthy Eating Support Group on Facebook.  I still have a few things I need to focus on and work on in this category, but I've got a huge start.

Goal #2: Work on things for my choir!
My choir, the Indy Adult Show Choir has almost made it to it's fourth year in existence!  In May, we had one of our most complicated shows to date, From Africa to the Islands.  We also had a Summer Pop Show, Christmas Show, and two other Public performances! 
This year, we became an official non-profit organization, thanks to Melanie.  In the next month or two, we will become tax exempt!   It's been a big year for my choir!

Goal #3: Get my financial situation under control!
In two months, one of my credit cards, my one that has been my biggest issue and pain in my life, will be paid off!  WOOOHOOO!!!!  After that, I'll start paying down my other card.  I'm starting to get closer with the financial situation under control. 

I'm going to have too work on my New Years Goals for next year.  These three that I had for this year will keep going, but I might add too the list!

The Purpose of Blogging and Vlogging

A friend started a discussion on Facebook a few months ago by stating this in her status:
"I hate blogs!"
That was it!  That was her entire status.  People were commenting, and one guy even said something to the effect of, "I take offense to that!"
The friend that made the original post finally stated, "It seems that these people are trying to promote themselves in some way!  I don't like that!"  
In this day and age, blogs and vlogs are every where.  They are used to talk about, discuss, and explain anything and everything.  Some are funny. Some are political.  Some are very personal, like a journal or a diary.
Some people are obsessed with reading blogs.  They can have a voyeuristic feel to them. The reader gets this insight into a person's very deepest and sometimes darkest secrets.  The reader feels privy to that person's life.  Maybe the reader shares a thing or two in common with the blogger that creates a bond for them.  A bond that may be one sided, but it's there.  Maybe it's not even a deep dark secret that the reader has in common with the blogger, but things that happen in every day life.  The stay at home mommy blogger that is just trying to survive.  The blogger that has a day job, but masquerades at night as someone completely different.
I personally love reading blogs about people who have struggled and survived!  I live vicariously through that blogger's personal triumph.  And what's awesome about that is, they so wholeheartedly shared their triumph with me.  They may not even know I personally stock their blogs, are as most people call it, follow their blog.
Some people read blogs to find out what's happening with their friends and relatives.  People don't pick up the telephone or send letters as much as they used to.  Remember the old family Christmas Letter every one used to send around the Holidays?  Now, families don't do that as often, because they can just post it to their blog and anyone can read it!  They don't have to spend the money on stamps, pictures, pretty Christmas paper, because most blogs are free.  That saves a lot of families quite a some of money. 
A lot of my family members that live across the country have blogs that I follow.  A lot of them have not been updating very often, or at all lately.  I can't afford to fly across the county to visit them, but I can see pictures of my great nieces and great nephews or other family members just by reading their blogs. Not that I wouldn't love to see my family members and friends that live across the country in person, but this definitely saves me some money.  Plus, I can still feel connected to them.
There are a ton of blogs out there right now that are informative.  There are blogs for crafting, food and recipes, personal finances, to fixing objects, cleaning the house, and all sorts of other things people just want to know.  If a reader needs to fix their refrigerator, they can Google "fix refrigerator" and 100 Youtube videos and blogs will come up of how to do it.  If a person wants to crochet a sweater, again, they can Google "crochet sweater" and it will bring up numerous blogs and vlogs of how to accomplish that!  It's so handy!
I have used craft blogs a few times in my life to get things accomplished.  My biggest problem with knitting for a while was "casting off."  Well, I Googled it, found a blog that showed pictures in how to do it, and finished the blanket I was knitting.  It saved my project from being stuck on my knitting needles forever!  I use a lot of blogs for finding new recipes.  I love to cook!  If I have an idea for a recipe, but don't know how to execute it, I search for a blog on line. I could have had quite a few catastrophic dinners without some of the awesome food and recipe blogs that are out there!
Then, there are humor blogs.  If you don't know what a humor blog is, than, let me enlighten you!  I follow so many of them!  A lot of my favorites are captioned pictures, like Cakewrecks and Award Family Photos.  There are so many others!  The point of these blogs are just to make you laugh.  I can spend hours looking at Ihascheeseburger's lol cats and dogs.  Sometimes, I just need to lighten my mood, and I'll go look at a humor blog for a little bit and walk away smiling.
People or bloggers/vloggers can make money off of their writings and videos.  They include ads on the blogs and vlogs, like I do, in hopes that maybe someone will click on them and make a little money.  Some people live completely off of their blogs and vlogs.  Look at the Shaytards. They are a family that is completely out of doubt due to their vlogs on Youtube. 
There are a lot of Stay at Home Moms that write blogs and do vlogs in hopes they will make money too.  This isn't a bad thing.  It's just one way the world is changing.  People may not read as many books these days, sad as it may be, but they sure are reading things on the internet! Writing blogs and recording vlogs are ways of self publishing.  It's a huge market.  It seems right now, everyone is searching for their little corner of that market.
So, don't blame me if I want just a little piece of that corner.  If my blogs ever take off and start making a profit, it would be awesome to pay off some more debt, or even maybe someday make enough off of them to be a Stay at Home mom. 
I love supporting other bloggers and vloggers that are trying to get started.  It's a community of people that love what they are doing and keep doing what they're doing for that reason. I have friends that write blogs that are book reviews, about countries, and about music and other things.  They all are great writers, and their blog content is worth reading. Go and check them out! 

Expectations of an Adult

I don't know if it's just me or my age group, or maybe it's everyone.  I feel I have all of these expectations put on me as an adult.  Some days, I'm just in survival mode.  Can I make it through the day without hurting myself or someone else.  Other days, I feel truly successful!  I made it to work! All of the bills are paid! I have a roof over my head!
Does anyone else feel this way?  Or is it just me? 

To Go To College or Not To Go To College

When you were in high school, did you feel like you had options when you graduated?  I didn't.  I was expected to go to college.  That's just what everyone did after high school.  If you didn't, you were a failure.
Nobody explained to me at any point, as a teenager, how expensive it is to go to college. No one explained to me that "Financial Aid" really meant LOANS that will take the rest of my life to pay off!
I was at most a mediocre high school student.  I'm shocked that I graduated.  I passed most of my classes in high school, but that's about it.  I got A's in all of my music classes and drama classes, and that's probably what kept me afloat as a student.  It's probably the only reason I stayed in school, to participate in those activities. 
Even though there are hundreds upon hundreds of colleges, I only applied to one.  My drama teacher had graduated from Indiana State University.  He had taken his students there every year for their Theater and Drama Day.  That was my exposure to the school.  As soon as I found out that they had a music degree, I knew that's where I was going.  No one encouraged me to check anything else out.  Luckily, I got into the school and into the music department.  Maybe they took everyone with a pulse at that time.  All I knew I wanted to do was sing!
After my first two years of college, I realized how much debt I was getting into, but as a Dialysis patient on the transplant waiting list, I had to keep going to school.  That way, I could stay on my mom's insurance.  By the time I was in my third year of college, I figured out, I have a passion for doing hair.  I could have gone to a two year or less trade school and been licensed to do hair!
With all of my health issues, and again, the fact that I'm a mediocre student at best, it took me six and a half years to finish my course work.  With my internship, that turned it into seven years.  I got loans every single year to survive.
Right now, my college loan debt is around $48,000.  That does not include the credit cards that I charged my college books and groceries to. I am slowly working to pay off all of that debt.  In 2004, my father's reaction to my debt was, "Declare Bankruptcy!  It's the only way you are going to survive!" Well, I didn't do that.  I'm slowly working my way out of debt.  It's going to take some time, but it's happening.  
I almost feel duped as a teenager, being told, the only way to make it in life is to go to college! No one once ever said to me, "Hey, did you know there are trade schools with two year degrees?" or "Maybe you shouldn't get yourself in that much debt.  College is really expensive!"    
Would I have listened to any of these comments at the time?
These days, are teenagers told how much it costs to go to college?  Is "Financial Aid" really explained to them in a manor that says, this is more debt?