I am posting a link here to something I wrote awhile back for the site. I ask that you read it and help me out here. This is about as blatant a request for support as I know how to make.

My son's father makes a 6-figure income, drives a Porsche, owns a home, has investments and securities and annuities.

Year before last, I had three jobs, and I grossed $27K before taxes.

I am PISSED OFF that the sperm donor has sailed through life while I have had to scrape for every infinitesimally small thing I have.

I am PISSED OFF that people continually negate my feelings surrounding the grief and depression and trauma that my "selfless" (so they say) choice has brought me.

I am PISSED OFF that people seem to expect me to be loving and honorable when I have as much right to my grief as the next person. Am I bitter? You betcha. Am I glad my son exists? Wholeheartedly. But if someone had stepped up and told me, while I was making this "choice," that it was going to completely derail the rest of my life, I would have thought twice.

Yes -- I CHOSE to have sex, with someone I loved deeply. NO -- I did not ask for an incompetent physician, who prescribed a medication, or an incompetent pharmacist, who neglected to tell me of an interaction with the prescribed medication (that the doctor should have known about), which led to the failure of my birth control method. I am thrilled my son is walking around on the planet and on his way to doing good in the world. I am thrilled he has had a spectacularly wonderful life with terrific parents, who have chosen, over the last couple of years, to share that with me. But don't think for a minute it mitigates my despair and my sense of loss.

Somebody -- anybody -- PLEASE tell me I have a right to my feelings. I would never dream of telling a parent who has lost a child to death to get over it, but I have had many of those same parents say that to me, or worse, tell me I am not a parent at all. Even people on PC have told me that. I am begging SOMEBODY HERE to stand up and validate me. Please.

Candy