When we got married in 08, we decided to wait one year before trying to start a family. That was a long time to me; I have always wanted to be a mom and I wanted to get started right away. But I knew that waiting a year was the smart thing to do, and I like to do the smart thing, so I did.
For most of the first year of our marriage, I was working through a temp agency at an insurance company in town. I took the job because it was a nearly 50% salary increase and because it offered benefits, and my previous position (at a small non-profit) did not. I had worked in the temp position for just over three months – January 2009 – when I needed to take a trip to the emergency room.
To make a long story short, my new “insurance” that I was so happy to have through the temp agency was hardly insurance at all. They only paid $50 for my trip to the emergency room, and I quickly found myself saddled with nearly $6,000 of medical debt. Once the EOBs and bills started filling my mailbox in early Spring, I had to come to terms with the fact that we couldn’t have a baby until I got better healthcare insurance.
It made me heartsick to postpone our “trying” date, but I knew it wasn’t fair to bring a little person into the world without being able to afford it. And with the cost of labor and delivery topping $10,000, I knew we couldn’t afford it on our own.
During the calendar year of 2009, when there was no end to the waiting in sight, babies were a sore subject for me. I was dying to start a family with A, but my position in my career was holding me back. There was no concrete promise that my job would become “permanent” any time soon, and those benefits were out of my grasp until then. The uncertainty was the worst part – how long would this go on? Will it be years before we can start trying? Meanwhile, it felt like everyone I knew was pregnant. It hurt.
Just a couple of weeks ago, we got the good news: my job is permanent starting tomorrow (January 4, 2010).
And so our story begins!
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