Rebuilding after Financial Crisis and Bankruptcy in a Recession (Part 5)

This is an ongoing post in the series Surviving the Lien Years – Rebuilding after Financial Crisis and Bankruptcy in a Recession.  Risking it All is part five in the series.

In January of 1999, Lee began working on his business plan in earnest and was up and running with a new company with 2 business partners 3 months later in March.  He was literally getting up to go the office at 4:00 in the morning and coming home at night around 9:00 PM.  He put everything into the company.  By everything I mean everything.  We signed the collateral in our house as a loan for the company and the stock options I had earned from THD were put up as collateral as well.  He put all his time and energy into the company.  It paid off.  The company became successful and began growing rather quickly.

Things were going so well for the company that in July, 1999, Lee and I took our first real week long vacation.  We went to the Disney Institute, where we took several classes, visited a few parks, saw the Space Shuttle launch, and spent time at the beach.  It was wonderful, exhausting, and relaxing.

In the fall of 1999, we dumped birth control and began trying to get pregnant.  And trying. And trying.  Nothing became of these tries.  While it was disappointing that we did not get pregnant on our timeline, we just continued to work long hours, volunteer, and enjoy our life.  I was able to do the Breast Cancer 3 Day, which is a 60 mile walk over the course of 3 days for 2 years in a row.  I was also able to volunteer on President Bush’s first Presidential election and to go to Florida to help with the recount.  In January, 2001, I was able to attend the Inaugural Festivities of President George W. Bush.  Lee did not go because he was in Colorado on a business retreat.

After being married for almost 9 years, I left THD in April, 2001.  My primary motivating factor for leaving was because we had been trying to get pregnant for nearly 2 years and had been unsuccessful.  We knew something was wrong but did not know what or how long it would ultimately take to become pregnant.  What I did know was that I did not want all my (mostly male) co-workers to learn about these intimate details of my life.  We had planned our finances with the ultimate goal in mind that I could stop working to become a Stay-At-Home-Mom.  Since according to our plans, we should have already been able to allow me to quit working, we had the financial means for me to stop and the motivation as well.  Lee thought in addition to the upcoming doctor visits that it would be extremely helpful to him if I was home throughout the day.  He was working 60+ hours a week and did not have the energy or the inclination to come home to do laundry, cook, clean, etc.  It would be easier if he knew that many of these tasks were taken care of and I was ready for a break from corporate America anyway.

My grandmother’s death and Lee’s business startup prepared us for what was truly our first major life hurdle and life let down.  We had set goals and worked hard to achieve them throughout our marriage.  While my grandmother’s death was difficult for us, she was “old” and it is somewhat normal in a life cycle for grandparents to die.  So, here we were in our large house with lots of bedrooms waiting to be filled.

As we began treatments for infertility, Lee bought out one of his business partners and racked up some debt in the process.  While things on the fertility front were not very good for us, his business was doing well.  He brought on new staff to help grow the business.

The fertility treatments were nightmares.  The hormones were wreaking havoc on my body emotionally and physically.  With each passing month and negative pregnancy test results, my depression, anger, and frustration over being unable to reproduce grew.  That depression, naturally, intensified in the wake of the terror attacks on 9-11.  I seriously considered giving up on trying to conceive and instead enlisting in the military.  In the end, Lee convinced me that was not the right decision for our lives or for me physically.

As with many American businesses after the terror attacks on 9-11, Lee’s business suffered financially.  We had to reinvest money we had saved into the company to keep it afloat.  The company was not strong enough to support a week of America being shutdown.  We really never stopped to think twice about re-investing our money into the company.  The company needed it, the thousands of people he was employing in through is temporary company needed it, and it seemed like the right thing to do.  We probably should have stopped to think twice about it.  At this point, we no longer had much savings and our entire financial portfolio was tied up in 1 stream of income.

Our marriage grew stronger during this time as we had to face various medical and life decisions.  Lee was a solid rock for me during this trying period.  I could barley watch a baptism at church without falling apart emotionally but he stood by me every step of the way.  If I had to leave church or a movie or any other event early because of my emotions, he was right there helping me out the door before I broke down into tears.  I became a master at evading questions about family planning.  What business was it of other’s anyway!?  While silently and privately I was in hell, outwardly I did the best I could to keep a positive attitude.  Keeping that positive attitude and training myself to compartmentalize was preparing me for greater challenges in the years to come.

Have you been participating in 5 Minutes for Mom’s Ultimate Blog Party? I have and I have been having a blast doing it. My husband even took the children out of the house for a couple of hours yesterday so I could party hop in peace.  He is the best!  If you are participating in the UBP, feel free to leave a link to your party post in my comments. My comments are set to follow so you get linky love when you comment.

Last week, I started a new blog series called Surviving the Lien Years: Rebuilding after Financial Crisis and Bankruptcy.  I was unsure about whether to post this series or not but have decided to open up another part of my life online.  I hope you have a chance to read it.  If you do, please let me know your thoughts. I am currently on the installment Risking It All.

Now, on to the menu.

Monday Easy, Tasty Roast, carrots, potatoes, salad

Tuesday Chicken Pot Pie

Wednesday Salmon Patties, corn, broccoli

Thursday Crockpot Chicken and Corn Chowder

Friday Taco Ring, beans, salad

Saturday Leftover Buffet

Feel free to leave a comment to let me know you stopped by! As always, be sure to check out the other menu plans at OrgJunkie’s site.

As I have been party hopping with the Ultimate Blog Party, I found 1 Mom of 5‘s blog and her secondary blog 1 Mom of 5 Project 365. You have got to check out her blog.  She has some amazing photos.  (In case you do not know, Project 365 is a meme where you take a photo every single day. Click to read more about Project 365.)

I decided I am going to do that and to post 1 here every single day. This is almost laughable that I have decided to do this because I have not been very good about adding photos to my posts in general.  I have wanted to do better so hopefully this will challenge me to do better. So, here’s today’s photo:

Rebuilding after Financial Crisis and Bankruptcy in a Recession (Part 4)

This is an ongoing post in the series Surviving the Lien Years – Rebuilding after Financial Crisis and Bankruptcy in a Recession.  Life Paused is part four in the series.

For those who read Jen’s Genuine Life in their feed reader or email, I added photos to my previous 2 posts that you might want to check out. I have a goal to add more photos to all my posts in the future.

Lee and I are very goal oriented.  Now that we had truly established ourselves in our jobs (he was a Division Manager and I was a team lead) and were making a home for ourselves in our community, we were ready to move into a larger house.  Our thinking was that we would move into the house and then immediately get pregnant filling the house up with children.  I could quit my job to be a Stay-At-Home-Mom and life would be wonderful.

We did move into the larger house but we revised the goals somewhat.  Lee decided he wanted to start his own temporary staffing company.  We were willing to risk everything financially but we thought it would be better to risk this without having children.  So, we put off the children for a year or two.

In the early summer of 1998 and at 28 years of age, Lee and I moved into a roughly 6,000 square foot house.  I was embarrassed by how large it was since it was just the two of us living in it but I loved it all the same time.  We had 5 bedrooms, 3 ½ baths, nice neighborhood, the works.  Well, the works except for furniture but we knew that would come.

Within a month of moving in, Lee began working on a business plan with 2 other men.  Then my grandmother’s breast cancer returned.  While Lee continued to work on the business plans, they were slowed somewhat by my grandmother’s illness.  The only time to work on it was on weekends but we were spending almost every weekend at the hospital and then later at my parents’ house while my grandmother was in Hospice care.

My grandmother was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 1986.  She was in remission until 1996, when it came back.  It returned by metastasizing from her breast to her bones.  It was everywhere in her body: her back, her legs, her skull.   But she fought and fought it valiantly.  She had chemo.  She would have bad days when she felt sorry for herself and was angry at the hand dealt her but for the most part, she stayed positive.  In late 1997 she was doing better but in June of 1998, it was back.

She went through another dose of chemo which was brutal to her system. After a very difficult 24 hours, she decided she did not want to fight it anymore.  I was with my mother the day Nanny decided to quit the chemo.  I drove my mom to a Ryan’s Steakhouse for dinner that night to get my mom out of the hospital.  My mom was an only child and her father had died several years before.  She was so sad that night. I do not even think I knew what Hospice was before that night.  I was trying to understand what was happening next, be there for my mom, and absorb the pain of knowing my grandmother would die soon.  I have never been back to that Ryan’s Steakhouse since that night. The thought of it still makes me ill to my stomach.

My grandmother moved into my parents’ house for Hospice Care.  They lived a good hour away from Lee and me without traffic.  It took about 2 – 2 ½ hours from our house during Friday afternoon rush hour.  My sister was in college and my youngest brother was still in high school.  My mom was up all day and all night during the week taking care of my grandmother.  Lee and I stayed at my parents’ house every weekend for 8 weeks.  I thought the least I could do was to have the room monitor and take the night shift on the weekends so my mom could rest.  I also wanted to give my brother a break from my grandmother’s disease since he was in high school.

So, on Friday nights, Lee and I drove to my folks’ house.  Each time my grandmother woke in the middle of the night, I was there to help her as my mom and dad did during the week.  These were long, sleepless weekends.  I would go into work on Monday mornings at THD so tired I could hardly stand it yet somehow I made it through the day. I would leave as soon as was permissible to go home and crash. My boss and my boss’s boss were very understanding and sympathetic during this time.  It made me even more grateful to be an employee at THD and not traveling all the time.

Lee had his 10^th high school reunion on a Saturday in late October, 1998.  My mom insisted that we go to this and not stay at her house.  My grandmother died early that Sunday morning.  Lee and I went with my parents to the funeral home to make arrangements.  That was the first time I had been to a funeral home to actually make arrangements for a deceased relative.  While I was sad that my grandmother died, I was so relieved that she was out of the excruciating pain that her cancer caused.  It was a difficult funeral because my emotions were so torn between grief at my loss, concern for my mom, and gratitude that my grandmother was in a better place.

As I was still mourning my grandmother’s death, Speaker Newt Gingrich was re-elected and then a week later he resigned in November, 1998.  Pretty much this was a horrid 4 weeks for us.  Lee helped calm me.  He was a rock when I needed him and yet he showed emotion over the loss of my grandmother as well.  I knew our relationship was forever changed after that ordeal. After nursing a grandparent to her death, we were stronger as a couple than we had ever been.