Hurt bunny

My bunny has hurt himself or has had a stroke. We guess his age at ten because he was six when we got him and his pal that grew up with him. It's been two days of trying to nurse him to health but I am afraid that there isn't much we can do for him. He eats a little veggies and drinks water from a dropper. He can't walk. I know the right thing to do is go to the vet and let them charge me to say that there is nothing they can do. So, the second best thing is to make an appointment for him to be put to sleep. He is sleeping close to me and twice during the I had to hold him to calm him down cause he does this thing where he flips out and turns over and over. He seems most most comfortable when I hold him. I don't have the funds to do anything till maybe tomorrow or Friday at the latest. I hate making these kind of decisions. The last time I made the decision to put an animal to sleep she died as I was carrying her to the car.

I have had one other experience with a bunny hurting herself. She had a broken back and still ate but loss control of her bodily functions and only had the use of her two front feet. If we know anything about bunnies most of their strength comes from their back feet. I still have two more bunnies after him. One is just as old and the other one is pretty young. I think I am done with having bunnies.

Court

Court went well. My children's father did show up with his paychecks stubs so I took that as if he had already in his mind was at peace with it being court ordered. I didn't have to do much talking. He agreed that our son was living with me but said we were only in court cause we had an fight. He lied about paying the full amount he agreed to but I wasn't going to argue in court. I just wanted it settled for the future months. My ex did most of the talking but it worked out in my favor. Actually, I think it's best for all of us. We were fighting doing it "his" way.

The judge ordered the 28% of his income which is a total of 107 per check and that's twice a month.

Basically, it comes down to Dad paying me 53.00 a week for his share of raising two children. I am happy with this result.

I had to fill out two forms to get the support going. One of them was ever so confusing and I almost started to cry. Lawyers get paid good money but I can't afford one. Actually, the cases that were being heard in court that kept getting pushed back were the ones with lawyers. So, I guess people with money fight more.

After, I filled out the paperwork, we took it to his office where he works. Guess who I seen? His sister so I am sure he knew that I acted fast.

Hopefully, it will be in time for his next check and I think by law they have to do it.

The other day, I checked my email and I had a notice that I received a donation for MELD in the amount of 20 bucks. It made my day that out of the blue someone decided to give up some of their own money for MELD. I know people can donate directly to MELD but for me it's fun to go shopping for the baby items. I always give credit where it's due and let them know that I raise money through blogging. Maybe, it would give others ideas on how to raise money for MELD or another important organization of their choice.

Thanks again for the donation.

I go to court in just a couple days. My husband suggested that maybe I should bring my son to be near the court room just in case the judge wants to talk to him since he is 17. I am worried that his Dad may just try to insist he go back home with him to avoid paying support. He has been with me for two months and I think it would be very sad if it went down that way. Besides, I want my son with us and my sons to be together but I don't want my oldest son to think he has to move cause Dad wants to avoid paying. In reality, I believe it costs more to raise a child than he would have to pay but my ex doesn't always take care of his needs so it's possible it's cheaper for him to keep him with him. Anyone have any suggestions on if I should bring him or not? I really don't want to keep him out of school but also I hope support gets ordered and not mediation cause that is expensive.

Guest blogger

Is there anyone who would like to be a guest blogger for me? Anyone want write a post that would be sharing your story on my blog? I am open to anything adoption or if it's totally unrelated to adoption that might be cool too. I don't really have anything in mind so if your interested in writing for me on here just send me an email.

I have volunteered twice for meld since I decided to go only every other week.
Its been sooo nice. Both nights if we had a fussy baby they calmed down pretty easy.I was puked on by one toddler right when his Mom gave him to me. I said "cheetoos" and she went on to tell me he is in a new daycare and isn't sure about what they are feeding him. We still have some issues with little ones diapers soaking thru their clothes. I need to make more of a effort to check them in the beginning of the night instead of the middle.

My son's IEP meeting went pretty well. We spoke up and asked that my son not be included. I explained that We just have a hard time speaking freely in front of him. The case manager dialed the advocate that is helping me with my son. She happens to be the teacher that home schooled me. She had the flu so couldn't make it in person. I don't know what feelings would have came up had I seen her face to face after all this time. She knew me at my worst. I found her on FB and just had to go full circle with it to tell her about my reunion with my daughter.

Back to the IEP. I believe if She wasn't on the phone we would have gotten the same run around with our concerns. Not that all concerns were really answered but for the most part it was a good meeting.

I loved how she question them and got them looking for test scores and dates ect. I love how when she said why so much homework and we need to modify this and get it written in his IEP. She suggested he do 3/4 of all his classwork and homework. He get an extra day to complete his assignments. Also, we discussed out concerns over his obsession with sharpening pencils. They were calling the pencils a distraction but we told them that we felt it was more like an obsession that pencils have been a struggle with him for quite a while. We said we tried mechanical pencils but between him losing them and he obsesses on the lead that it didn't change anything.

During my rant about our stress level and how we feel stressed that he is lumped together with 6th graders but mentally doesn't act like one and how we have other issues to deal with at home and also just having family time.

The Ot brought up a Syndrome called Prader Willie's. (hope that is right) I don't have the paperwork about it in front of me. Basically, they can't feel that they are full and children will just eat and eat. Not all but a lot of the symptoms matched my son. Speech delays, learning problems, obessions and outburts.

He goes to the doc tomorrow and I plan on bringing this up and see what he has to say about it.

Hoping that having an advocate makes the rest of the year smoother because I feel like they jumped for her and not us.

I will write about my son's IEP meeting later today or tomorrow. I been in a healthy debate about child support with another reader. I say healthy because I don't think anyone is mad and agry and acting like a fool. haha

Anyone want to join in? Just wondering how others feel on this subject. The post we been writing on is down a couple posts.

When I had Izzy I was a 9th grader and had to be home schooled for six weeks to keep up with my school work. The teacher that home schooled me continued to look after me and support me as much as she could during my 9th grade year. I had Izzy in the beginning of the year so she saw me thru the hardest time.

I found her on facebook and I believed I have blogged about her. She is acting as my son's advocate for school and was suppose to be at his IEP meeting tomorrow. I was nervous and excited to see her but she called me and said that she has the flu and can only be there with a phone call. I am disappointed in not seeing her but at the same time kind of glad that I get to escape the memories that could pop back up on seeing her.

Child support follow up post

I thought I would do a follow up post on child support coming from a little bit my husband claims he has heard from men over the years.

My husband has told me that many many times he has heard men complain about paying child support to their exes. They would get angry because they are giving money to the ex and don't really think about how the money is to support the children. He has heard men complain about women (mom's) going out or if the mom's get new things.

Personally, when a Dad or Mom pays child support it's money that goes into the household. Yes. It's for the child but it's not as if someone would go to the store and buy the child his/her share of groceries ect. Or when you pay the bills to say okay this dollar amount is the child's share.

My husband and I were talking and went with the old amount of my child's Dad paying 300 a month for two kids. So, the judge is saying that it cost 600 a month to raise two kids. 300 from the Dad and 300 from the Mom. We joked about splitting up the money at the store and bill paying time but realized that after if we did that with the house payment that we couldn't even pay my children's fair share of the payment from the child support.

My husband has never been on either end of child support because his first wife and him didn't break up until after their children were grown. He told me that even though times were rough he knew he wouldn't want to pay child support and it was cheaper for his wife and him to support them together than apart.

One more week until we go to court. I have an IEP meeting tomorrow at Stephen's school, a doctor's appointment at Stephen's doctor's and Alex has a dentist appointment on Friday. I am losing two days of income to make two out of three appointments this week.

Maybe, I will see if I can get my husband to write a post for me on this subject coming from his thoughts on this coming from someone who is raising another man's children.

Alex has been living with us close to two months now. We are still adjusting to this change in our life. I have to get myself back in the thinking of taking care of two children's everyday needs and then some compared to mostly just one. Alex has been to the dentist twice since he has been with us. He goes again on Friday for more dental work. I think it's safe to say that after this Friday he will had been at the dentist more with me in the past month than his Dad took him in the past three years. I feel it's important to get things done asap because I am not sure what his insurance situation will be in the near future.
Right now my son has a friend over the the second night in a row. This isn't something we really have done is having sleepovers in our house. He had permission for one night and my husband felt put on the spot when he asked for him to stay another night.
I wish my son would take our adjustment phase into consideration when we have to ask over and over again to get something around the house done and not cause us extra stress but then again he is a teenager.

I been feeling very anxious the last week or so. I filed for custody and for child support for my two sons. I had agreed to give it a shot to keep it out of the court but all that had given me was motive to argue with my ex husband over money and responsibility and the same thing with current husband. I just figure I have enough stress that I just need things to be simple. I think my sons to get first shot at their Dad's check compared to him deciding if he can afford to support them. I hope that doesn't sound shallow. It's just that all their excuses and reasons for not paying we can say the same thing as in why we need him to pay.

I been more nervous since I learned on Friday they delivered the notice to my ex husband. So, he knows I am taking him to court and he hasn't called yelling. We are taking extra caution with making sure we bought the car away and also making sure that someone is home at all times because I wouldn't put it past his family to strike at us for making this move.

Wish me luck. We go to court on Jan 30th and one of the Mom's from my retreat has offered to go with me and take me. I will probably take her up on it because they don't know her car or where she lives. I wouldn't want to subject my best friend to coming to the court house on court day. She has enough to deal with cause her cat of ten years died last night and she is very sad.

I am happy to report that I finally got a smart phone. It's a tmobile sidekick. I love it. I call it my smartypants phone. I have only have had it for a week so I am still learning how to use it. I can do email, blog, facebook and many other features that I think are kind of cool. It's great for being on the go and taking care of the few things that require me to have internet access. It's going to be more expensive that I am used to and maybe later down in the road I will kick myself in the butt for the expensive bill.
I haven't hook it up to blogging for pictures but that's going to be the next thing I am going to try to do. I think the biggest downfall is that it's not easy to answer the phone or make a call while driving but I suppose that's a good thing.

800TH post!!

Wow! I really do blog quite a bit. I would like to use my 800TH post to give a shout out to all my readers!! I love that people are interested in things that I have to say. Things that are really important to me and also things that I just tend to write about.

A big Thank You to those that comment on my posts. It means a lot to me when I seek advice or questions and people take a little bit of there time to share stuff about their life with me.

A huge Thank you for all the bloggers who are birthmom's that speak the truth about adoption and show all sides to their feelings even if it's a good emotions or the raw emotions. I know sometimes it's hard to open your heart to blog the very sad things but I believe it's therapy to many who blog about adoption.

Two thumbs up to the adoptive parents that can see all sides of adoption and are brave enough to blog about it. When I read how your heart breaks for your child's birthparents might heart just melts. When I read your blog posts about your outings with your child's birth parents it makes me smile to see that there are adoptive parents who not only honor and respect their agreement to an open adoption but see that it's all good. Can a child have it any better than to have two sets of parents who would give the child the sun and the moon. Or throw themselves in front of a moving truck to save the life of a child.

A big thank you goes to the adoptive parents who comment on my blog here or the private one. In the years of blogging, you have helped me see adoptive parents in a different light. I used to think all mean things but now I know that yes there are bad adoptive parents but also some pretty neat ones too. I also thank the adoptive parents who list birth parent blogs on their blog. I wonder if the ones that list our blogs and comment on our blogs are the ones that get adoption isn't all sunshine and rainbows. They have opened themselves up to learning about adoption from others point of view.

A big hug goes to the adoptees who blog their stories about adoption from their heart. They are the only innocent ones who did not have a say as a baby but I love that the adoptees who blog are finding a voice to speak what's on their mind and hearts. Even though, I don't get into doing adoption reform, I love that there are adoptees who fight for the cause that they so believe in. My heart goes out to the adoptees who want to know their birthparents but are rejected by them. While, I get the shame that goes into adoption and the secrets.. I just can't imagine rejecting my child. Please know it's not you. You are beautiful in every way and they are hurting and could be afraid of losing "the baby" all over again if they let you in.

To the adoptees who are secrets in your birthparents life for that I am sorry. You all deserve to not be hidden from others. I hope I do my daughter justice but even I probably am guilty by not getting into the uncomfortable talks about my daughter especially with my Mom. One thought to consider is if the parents of the birthparents wanted "the baby" adopted out that reunion with the grandparent could be almost impossible. I still fear that my Mom could sabotage my relationship with my daughter. I have zero proof that this could happen other than the fact that she wanted my daughter gone and swept under the rug.

Lastly to the adoptees thanks a huge bunch for answering my questions about stuff wondering who my daughter might feel about this or that. It has really made a difference in the things that go through my mind.

Thanks to all my readers that have stuck with me blogging even though I don't always blog about adoption anymore.

If anyone is interested in an invite to my private blog just let me know. All I request is that you have a profile and a blogger yourself. Also, here is another blog that I write in if your ever interested in other parts of my life. Athough, I don't blog from there too often. But feel free to check it out here.

facebook

I believed I found my old childhood friend on facebook. I knew her from grade school until the tenth grade is where we lost contact when he Mom and her moved away. I often have wondered what happened to her and once in a while I do a facebook search to see if I can find her.
I told my husband how I think I found my friend and he said that's the problem with facebook that people just just leave things alone. How do you feel about facebook and people finding people from years ago? I think it's kind of cool but I know the reality of it is that our friendship was in the past and most likely nothing will really come out of it. Yet, I sent the friend request and sent her a message asking if she was from my town.

My husband

I don't give him enough credit for how great of a husband and Dad he is to me and my kids. We married quickly and things went sour with us pretty fast. He had to deal with my sadness from adoption loss and I had to deal with the fact that he was an alcoholic. We had many fights over my daughter. The adoption counselor once said Izzy was like a ghost in our house. There was so much sadness over it that it was controlling my life.
I didn't feel like he was supportive of just being there for me when I was sad. He would say and do things to imply that if Izzy knocked on our door that he would send her packing. That would have been my worst nightmare come true. It wasn't that I expected her to walk up on my door but the idea of the person who is suppose to love me most in this world would send my child away when he knew I cried tears because I didn't know her.
My husband has been sober about two and half years now and slowly our relationship has grown into a loving one again. We had so much distrust and honestly at time feelings of hate that for sure we were heading for splitting up. But he wouldn't move and I wasn't willing to walk away from my house so we stayed together.

WARNING: If you know me in real life this maybe too personal or more than you want to know about myself and my husband so READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.
I remember him giving me a hard time about me working on the scrapbook. I can't recall what he said other than it was stupid. He no longer says it's stupid and knows that it's one of my most prized items I own. He has bragged about it when I have bought family members a scrapbook and tells me to get it out so they can get ideas. He has told my sons to guard it with their life when they looked thru it. He gets how important it is to me. When I brought it out of the house to show Izzy he wrapped it in a bag to protect it. He will give me things or items that he thinks might be cool for my scrapbook. It means a lot that he gets how important it is to me.

He used to give me a hard time about blogging. I don't recall what he would say but it wasn't good. He thought it made things worse. He would say that my fellow bloggers were babies and that for every angry or sad birthmom there were happy ones that are okay with things. He wanted to me to find blogs that people wrote that didn't have sadness from adoption and see what they do right. He was sure of himself that since his ex wife had a baby and placed him for adoption and had peace with it that sure there were others like her that got it right.

He has really changed a lot. He likes that I blog. He asked to put ads on all of my blogs and brags that this one is the only one that is making money. It's not making much but people have clicked on the ads. He thinks I am a great writer because I have so many followers. I don't think he fully understands that a lot of bloggers have huge amounts of followers. He jokes about me needing to hire him to take care of my blog while I write.

I don't know what would have happened to our marriage had he not had that seizure that scary day at work and he has been sober since. I don't know what would have happened to our marriage had I not found Izzy and got to meet her and get to know her before she moved away for school. I can only hope that we still would have made it work.

Living with my husband even after he got sober has been a learning experience for me. We had get used to the fact that he was a different person. It was hard for me to know when I could trust him. I am happy to report that my husband got to meet my daughter before she moved away.

He has had to adjust to living life free of drinking. Life is different and sometimes in an ex drunk's life I am sure the sober life can seem boring. He lost all desires to be intimate with me and he also had to say anyone else cause at times I felt like it must have been me and there was someone else. I felt like it was something I done or he just wasn't turned on by me anymore.

A few months ago, I was brutally honest with my husband and told him that I had thoughts of cheating because while I loved him.. I didn't want to never be touched again. I told him I quickly shoved the thought away cause I don't want to live that kind of life. It's something that maybe has helped our sex life. I think it pushed him to be open to bringing the intimacy back into our life and it's in my opinion that while he was going thru the motions that he has started to desire it himself. It feels good to be desired again. To be told to get over being sick cause it's been too long for him. This is coming from a man that could go a month or so without it telling me being sick for a week is too long cause I was not giving him enough attention.

I just wanted to blog real quick about my oldest son. I don't want anyone getting the wrong idea that we don't waant him with us. My sons are getting along a lot better compared to when they lived apart. It's just a lot of adjustmant for all of us. We believe our problems with our older son is that his dad hasn't taught him life skills. We asked him to cook a frozen pizza and he didn't know how to do it. Today,he is going to go check at the status of his app at mcdonalds. I hope he can get to work soon. I think it will be really good for him.

My oldest son has been living with me again for over a month. I am feeling stress from it. I feel that things are running as smoothly when it comes to having enough money for groceries and bills now that we have him with us. I took him to the dentist today and he has six cavities. This is something that I don't believe would be the case had he been living with me and getting to the dentist on a regular basis. My youngest son hasn't had a cavity in over a year and half.

Now, my son has to get two root canals and some fillings and possible one tooth pulled out. I feel stressed because there are already times I miss work to make a doctor's appointment for my little guy and can't afford to do it too often. My current husband is upset that Dad and the new wife get to "party" while we do everything and foot most of the cost.

I know if my son had never moved that taking care of both of them would come natural but he hasn't been with us and hasn't been raised with our way of life. I so badly want my son to get a part time job. I so badly want him to pick up after himself and help out around the house with trash ect.

I keep struggling with do I go to court and make it final? Or do I keep letting see how things are going as in Dad supporting his two children? If I make it legal... I believe there is a good chance that as long as my son is still in school that he would have to help support him past the age of 18 and this could be important since my son doesn't seem to be working at getting a job. I really don't expect that my son turn 18 and move out right away. I can see where he could use more help learning how to cook and take care of himself but if his whole day consists of a few hours of school, movies and games then I am going to have trouble in my marriage when the Mom in me doesn't have the heart to kick him out.

Well, I just wanted to vent.

Back to MELD

I am very happy that MELD gave everyone a much needed break from group. I started back tonight and it was such a great night compared to the last ten week session. There was six children to four volunteers. Two of the volunteers were a Mom and daughter team. There was this new lady and also we were told that another Mom and daughter was planning on coming back but weren't there. When I say Mom and daughter team i just mean two people that are Mom and daughter volunteering together.

We had two new children. One was a baby about 4 weeks old and one was a walker but under one or over a little bit. The Mom's all come in at once so we don't always catch their ages. We didn't have any screaming babies. Well, some babies cried but were calmed by bottles, binkies or being held.

I will be there volunteering every other week. It's the best that I can do with my 40 hour a week job plus my Sunday babysitting for a Church. I am secretly hoping that by summer time I can get rid of at least a few of my hours because I just feel like it's too much for me. I have two days a week where I leave at 9 30 am and not home until 11:00 or later.

I haven't blogged in a while about MELD. They seemed to take a long break in between starting the next session and boy did I need the break. I will be volunteering every other monday night for babysitting. I am going to try to use the free time for a Y night with my kids.

Off the subject of MELD

My oldest son has been living with me for a month now. It's not official as we haven't been to court or anything. I want to avoid doing that but most likely I will have to use the court system to get him to pay his fair amount of child support. It's working all right so far. My husband is doing the early morning shift of making sure he gets up and out the door for school. Plus, he is home when I am working so he feels that my ex owes him money.

One of my concerns with my oldest son is that he is really lazy. It doesn't matter what it is.. he wants things done for him or he does it the easiest way possible.

I make him take the bus to school and home and what I would like to see is that he get a job. He is only is school for about five or so hours and there is plenty of time for a part time job. We need to talk to his school and see how he is doing and see if the plan is GED or go for the diploma. I would love for him to graduate with a diploma but it would be at least two more school years.

I can't guarantee that past 18 if he isn't doing more than a few hours of school and playing video games and watching movies if he will be able to continue to live with me. Some of it will have to do with just plain being able to afford to feed and cloth him. Another part of it is that for the most part he isn't doing anything around here as far as chores ect. He happens to the person with the most free time. Honestly, me personally, I am a Mom and don't think I would have the heart to kick him out but my husband might think otherwise.

It's not easy dealing with teenagers but it is easier having him here full time than just every other weekend.

I have been pretty quiet lately on blogging. The last couple of weeks have been really hard on me. Izzy was moving away and I made the best with what time we had left, but her leaving still left me feeling very sad. I had her inside my house for the first time ever a week ago Monday. She brought me a few fish she needed to find a home for and we visited for a little bit and took pictures.

About a week, before she moved, I gave her a Christmas basket for of girly stuff and showed her the scrapbook I have been making for her. I told her I wasn't ready to call it done but I wanted to give her the chance to look at it.

Within about six hours of her leaving, I came down sick with a head cold and I still haven't quite kicked it. It was pretty rough there for a while. Izzy said she was sick too and I honestly believe that we have the same thing.

She started their road trip on Friday and today she got the keys to their new place. Her parents went with them and are helping them get settled in. I couldn't have thought of a better and safer way to send Izzy and her Boyfriend off to far away land.

Tonight, I worked a little bit on her scrapbook because the next time I see her I want it to be ready. She asked me if I was done with it yet and I get the feeling she wanted to take it with her. I did end of leaving it up to her and told her I could just start with a second book but she said to go ahead and finish it. I am glad that I kept it because you never know if anything would come up missing with a move.