Audio Clip Transcript
When we left, when they furloughed us, they paid us until May. So I started the unemployment in May. So 7:30 to 4:00 has been my schedule for at least more than 10 years, I think. My schedule was the schedule that I have fought for many years. And for so long, they've been trying to take it away from me. For the past few years, I had two babies, and every single time that I went on maternity leave, and come back, they will try to have somebody else work it. And then with my second baby, I was gonna lose the position if I didn't get back on time. So I had to return before my three months to not lose it.
Actually glad that I was furloughed, because if not, because of my son, the second grader, nobody will sit with him or do the school. So, I mean, I have to be, I sit with my seven year old the whole time from eight o'clock to 2pm. And within that, my second child has like speech services, and other therapy stuff going on. And the thing is that my seven year old with the classes, he's autistic, so we have the specialty class. The time that when my son, that got diagnosed, I saw that he was just not like saying the little words that he should have been saying. And then, um, they said, oh, we're do the testing, because we think, and then everything was confirmed. I was like, okay, so what are we doing? Like, what do I have to do to get him to the point that he needs to, so let's get the services, ADA services, oh there is a waitlist, oh no, every day I was on the phone. No, we need to get this now, I need to get him, because it was just like, I didn't know what to do. [Laughter].
I've been with early intervention for three years after that. Because they had told me we were going to do ADA services, we had to do like 32 hours at home, and do this, and I had to be there, and stuff like that. So it was just like, I cut my hours, I started to tell my manager, I told her, oh, I have to leave work early. I'll be leaving at this time, or I have to take these important calls. Cuz he was number one. I was like, I wasn't playing around. And I still don't. [Laughter].
My husband was in denial. He didn't, he said that he didn't have that. He didn't get on the phone looking for the services. He wasn't doing that. He never had the stress that I had to do. My mother, no, my mother has gone with me to all the services. We will drive for 30 minutes, 45 minutes. With him, I had a, I had to have a flexible schedule to leave at any time because moments that my mother couldn't be with him because he was just crying all the time. At that moment, I was like in a mentor program at work that trained me for a different position. Higher. I couldn't handle the stress at home to be able to do it, um, and until I, so I didn't see that I could manage it, like that was like the hardest time. So it was just like so much stress, so I let it go. So again, I just couldn't move up. I never got promoted. At the end of last year, I said I need more money. And then they told me well you need more responsibility then. Then COVID happened, so nothing happened [laughter].
He just recently had a progress report and they did state that his social skills are really, really well. And the third grade, he'll have like gym, art, computers, with integrated classes, so he'll be in the bigger classroom. And so that did give me hope.