Home Buying Hell!!!

I am proud to say that finally at the age of 33, it is time for the purchase of my first house. My first house, which I look forward to becoming a comfy home for my family for many years to come.
With that said, right now, about 7 weeks into the process, waiting on the answer to offer #2....I am beginning to wonder if we will actually ever own a home!!!!
I know home buying is HUGE!!! Which makes sense it would be a lengthy, and stressful process. Honestly though, I figured that would come more so once we were in escrow. Not from DAY ONE of the process!!!
Let's begin....
Got a referral for a local Realtor. Contacted her, only to find out, she is no longer an active Realtor. She was kind enough to refer us to someone from her old office.
Contacted him. He then gave me the information of a finance woman, so we could find out what we qualify for.
Now things get really ugly.
Ok, let me give you the basics. I have amazing credit, but no paying job. My husband has about average credit, but some ugly marks on his credit and a few outstanding debts. He is the one who makes the money. Therefore his credit is most important. We are first time home buyers, so we were looking for an FHA loan. Just my luck, the woman we are working with is basically as familiar with the FHA as I am. About 3 weeks later, we finally have a dollar amount to base our house shopping on.
Side note....I was not aware of this before going through the experience myself. I knew it to be true, but not to this extreme. Even with my husbands less than glorious credit, we qualify for MUCH more of a loan than we can afford. It became ABUNDANTLY clear to me why so many people are in trouble with their home loans. When seeing the difference in houses between what we qualify for and what we can actually afford...I could see the temptation to live above your means so to speak. I have NO idea how someone, based on our income, would give us such a large loan. The payment on it would be about 80% or more of our entire income. Being as we drive, like electricity, running water, food, cable, the Internet, and so on, spending 80% of our monthly income on only the mortgage is insanity.
Anyway...back to the "process".
We then went back to our Realtor with the dollar amount, which after 3 phone conversations and 2 business days, he told us he didn't feel he was the Realtor for us.
He then referred us to a Realtor more familiar with the area we were looking in.
My husband works long hours, and the area we are searching is about an hour and 15 minutes from where we currently live. So, house searching was going to have to be a weekend event.
After a couple of phone conversation, and a several emails back and forth and roughly 5 days, we finally had an appointment to meet the woman and go look at actual houses!!!!!

And it is now midnight.....my darling angel daughter will probably wake up rearing to go in about 6 hours.
So I am off to clean up, and turn in for the night.

I will be back soon to finish my tale...and to explain why an area with bank owned and short sales properties, is not really the dream come true for a home buyer that you think........or at least that I was led to think.......
( let me just say, I am in no way happy to benefit on someone else's loss. I am VERY sorry for the people who have lost their homes to foreclosure. Unfortunately, in the neighborhood we want to be in, it is our only option )
That said....
Good night..