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I have been remiss for not blogging more frequently. I would like to thank my dad, my biggest cheerleader, for encouraging me to stick with it. I am blogging tonight because I have no other recourse and because my anxiety has been hitting all time highs.

Let me start by saying that we are not going to be able to pay the mortgage this month. We are already behind by two months. When the calendar turns over, we are in the red. The amount we are short every month is not something that can be remedied by cutting back on frivolities (we have very few as it is). We were incredibly blessed over the holiday season to receive several large financial gifts. They were instrumental in allowing us to register Jeremy and Bekah for preschool for the coming school year. Unfortunately, because we are in the red every month, it seems like the money gets tossed into a furnace to be burned upon impact. It's a shame, really. We are about to go through another medical procedure. Brian has a (benign) growth on his thyroid. It is putting pressure on his larynx and his trachea. This is not an elective procedure--his life could be in danger if he didn't have the surgery. So we are doing our best to prepare, but financially there's nothing set aside for it. We are going to be buried in an avalanche of bills after he is discharged. Mind you, every person involved in the surgery will send a separate bill. We will receive a bill from the hospital where the surgery is being performed. We will receive an obnoxious amount of mail and correspondence from everyone. They will send us a bill about every two weeks. Usually, I exaggerate. This is not one of those times. The flurry of bills and invoices and EOBs we have received over the past 4 years fills the entire bottom drawer of our filing cabinet.

When I say that we are not able to pay our mortgage, don't think that we don't have a desire to pay our mortgage. I have a strong desire, as does Brian, to meet our financial obligations. We receive phone calls daily from collection agencies asking us if we would like to pay our bills. We would (and I can't emphasize this enough) LOVE to pay our bills. Nothing would make us happier. It would thrill us to not have to just shrug as the bills come in. I received a letter today from my OB/GYN that they are dropping me as a patient because I've not paid. Probably the most humiliating thing that's happened thus far. I've never been dropped as a patient. I had to sit across the desk from the business manager of that office and explain to her that my family falls through the cracks. We don't qualify for any kind of financial assistance, we aren't eligible for any kind of government subsidies, we have no assets of value to sell to cover our expenses. She sat there, looking like I served her lemonade sans sugar, not believing that there was a person such as I. How could such an irresponsible person become pregnant? How could you think about having a child when you don't have $700 saved up and ready to hand over before your 20th week of pregnancy? How do you sleep at night knowing that you owe this office money?

The answers are, in order--at the time I became pregnant, the health insurance Brian's work offered covered more and cost less than it did just a few short months later; I just filed bankruptcy, through which I discovered I had no possessions of any value (and used the last of my retirement money to cover lawyer's fees and court costs); and I really don't sleep well at night, honestly. '

I feel judged by my mom about this whole thing. I have intimated to her that we are in arrears on our mortgage. I have told her our plan; if we are put into foreclosure, we will use the money we're not paying to Wells Fargo to pay off our van. This will give us enough money to then rent something down the road, when the sheriff comes to evict us. Her consistent comment has been, "well, you have to pay to live somewhere." Our intention is to stay in our home until the sheriff knocks on our door. If that's six months from now, eighteen months from now, whatever it is, we will be here. We will not budge. We have done nothing wrong. I hate the feeling of being judged. I hate the feeling of powerlessness I have over the entire situation.

My anxiety is high because there is an enormous amount of uncertainty about what's going to happen next. I have never been through this before. I hope and pray that someone intercedes with Wells Fargo on my family's behalf. I am not looking to live somewhere for free (as my mother seems to think); I simply think it would have been good to know that the house I bought was not worth anything near what I paid for it. I would have loved to have known that the lack of regulations on Wall Street would hit hardest those of us living on Main Street. If God wants to pay off our mortgage, he will. I know He's a God that can. I don't understand why this is happening. I feel like we've already handled more than our fair share of hardships. I don't want to leech off the system. I don't want to live in a communist state. I just want to feel like my husband's hard work actually is enough to cover the bills. I want him to have the opportunity to earn an amount of money that would cover our expenses.

This entire process is demoralizing and humiliating. If you've taken the time to read this and you're not in this situation, have empathy for those of us that are. Please don't give me platitudes and direct me to government web sites. I assure you, there is no help for families like us. I have applied for charity countless times, but even the amounts that are left over are too much for us to pay. I am finding that the food pantries are starting to feel the sustained strain of families like us visiting them every month. The best thing you can do for us is pray without ceasing. Pray for us on a daily basis, that our faith and belief would be broadened and deepened. Pray for our country's leaders, that they would allow God's wisdom to govern their decisions. Pray that God would deliver us from this hardship, if it is His will; if it's not, that He would lift us up throughout it. Pray that I will have the discipline to document this entire process, so that others can see what it's like to walk in our shoes. Pray that there is something on the other side of this that can be used for God's glory. For crying out loud, just pray.