Anyways, I won't get into the details, but I tried increasing my fee to the max (.00098 BTC per trans) so getting confirmed would be easier I think.
I know a fair bit about Bitcoin and this has never happened to me. I have $500 in limbo. I've repaired my MultiBit wallet about 10 times already and it currently is locking me out of my money. Very frustrating.
(1) https://blockchain.info/tx-index/1c23609d2828bb631eb0f8c2525d23dab602c0da1403eaa1d0ec4717dfabde1c
(2)https://blockchain.info/tx-index/a1a47f162981791c6365081c40f28ac4fdd2caebde3a68556e425e4e98436eee