u/AdvanceDifficult8513

I've had a few other somewhat related posts saying that I should post here. I agree that I need to be figuring out other people's experiences and what's normal but I don't even know what to ask first. I have hundreds of questions and concerns but obviously can't write them all down at once. My mother had been unable to hold a job for the past two years after years in proposal management for large companies. Then displayed poor judgement and got caught up in a romance scam around last June/July. I wasn't aware until September. By December her money was completely gone. She moved in with me and my husband in January to get back on her feet. It soon became apparent that she will never live independently again and we became caretakers. She has no money, no assets, no retirement and debt from taxes, car payment and I'm sure other shit chasing her down.

We don't even have a diagnosis yet beyond reoccurring TIAs (mini strokes) that most likely have caused vascular dementia. We still don't know why the TIAs are happening but they've been happening for a while and the damage is permanent already. Now we have to try and stop it. My life is full of doctors appointments, talking with doctors, dealing with insurance, and the news keeps getting worse and worse.

I'm pretty sure she is in the early stages of dementia (trying to get into a neurologist but the referral process with metacaid has been a shitshow). She is still mostly independent in our home. Yet has weird obsessive behaviors, the same conversations, speech issues, and struggling with tasks she used to know how to do.

I feel like my entire day (I work from home a lot) has now become telling what to and what not to do. She has a lot of anxious energy and behavior. It's affecting me, my husband, our pets and our lives.

She was a good mother who tried her best. She had a really terrible life from the time she was a kid and now it looks like it will be bad until her death. My heart is breaking for her. We are all scared, sad and struggling. I'm sure I will be making a lot of posts asking how people handle this and that eventually.

Yet I want to start with, what info have you found the most useful? Books, podcasts, tips and advice? Anything from when you started caretaking. I want to learn, how can I help our lives run smoother?

Currently we are going through all the doctor stuff for her. She has metacaid and snap benefits. We are starting the process for disability. We are trying to figure out POA and if that is worth it or not.

We don't have a lot of money ourselves and are recovering from a bankruptcy that was finalized in November. We also are trying to start a family. So we are trying to find as much government help as we can.

We feel beaten down and broken and we are not even that deep into it yet. I'm grieving for the mother I knew while also having anticipatory grief for how bad it will be, that I'm just going to watch it get worse and worse. I'm going to watch my mother get taken from me.

My husband (35) and I (35) were on the fence about having kids for a while until 8ish months ago when we both decided we did want to have a kid. We've had a very rough few years mentally and financially but we were finally getting everything back together and our future was looking brighter. That clock is ticking on our age and we decided with our new jobs and things looking better we should go for it before we get too old. I went off BC in November but we didn't really start TTC until January. In December we moved into a two bedroom apartment (which we wanted even before coming to the baby decision).

Then my life blew up again. Long story short my mother (59) was in another state and facing homelessness in January. To keep her out of a shelter we had her move into the spare bedroom. The plan was to get her back on her feet, help her get a job and have her move into a small studio apartment close to us. She would be with us for a few months maybe half a year. I was so sure that she would get her back on her feet again.

Between the distance and her alcohol abuse I was blindsided about her health when she moved in. Symptoms I thought were from drinking were actually symptoms from years of mini strokes. She doesn't even drink much at all anymore. Her list of medical issues gets longer every doctor visit. There are a lot of those. The strokes have caused dementia, she is not capable of holding a job and should never live alone again. All of a sudden we are caretakers of a parent. She has no retirement, no assets, and is rightfully scared. We're all so sad and scared.

I'm starting to feel like TTC is a stupid thing to do, that it would be selfish and not good for anyone involved. There is so much stress going on, trying to figure out how we would care for my mother and a newborn seems like a mountain of a task. Either of those alone feels so incredibly hard. Yet I feel like either we try now to have a baby or we don't have a baby at all. We personally do not want to have a baby in our 40s, (no judgement for those that want that! We just personally don't want to spend our later years raising kids).

This cycle I don't think I even ovulated (no discernable BBT spike and low LH peak) and I wonder if all of this stress is also going to make it harder to conceive.

I'm sad and falling apart, and to take my husband's words from last night, 'I feel like life's punching bag.'

I have a wonderful husband and my mother was a very good mother and I love her very much. She is mostly able to take care of herself still, but just needs some help making sure she keeps up hygiene/health standards. I just didn't think any of us would be in this predicament so young.

Tldr: Husband and I are trying to conceive in our mid 30s, but just ended up as caretakers for my mother who has vascular dementia. We do have limited resources. Feeling guilty.