Five Months / Moving

We’ve moved!

When we left New York in March 2011, we drove all the way to DH’s parents’ house in north county San Diego (with our dog on the back seat of the rental car). The plan was to base ourselves with his folks until we found a place to live in Los Angeles, 120 miles north.

But sometimes, as so many of you know, the best laid plans go awry…

When we got to LA we realised we weren’t really LA people. Too much traffic. Too much Hollywood bullshit. And it seemed like almost everyone we knew who lived there was really flaky, not committing to plans to see you ’til the eleventh hour in case a better social engagement came along…

So DH and I stuck around in San Diego. After five months, I remember saying to him in the car that we needed to discover our San Diego, because so far everything we’d experienced was through the prism of his family’s interests, which are quite different to ours. We discovered that San Diego has a small but well-formed art scene, great restaurants, and beautiful open spaces where you can hike with your dog. And it turns out it’s a lot more liberal than you’d think.

Meanwhile, DH had to get admitted to practice law in California (a year-long process) and I decided to take classes at my local community college and learn how to use various graphic design programs. Everything was going well, and living with family — though at times inconvenient and stressful — just made sense.

What started out as a three-month-long visit turned into a three-years-and-three-month-long extended stay. During this time, my in-laws have witnessed DH and me deal with so much: two respective career changes; unthinkable dramas with my side of the family; the physical agony and emotional anguish of miscarriage; the screams of despair about an infertility diagnosis; the death of my grandmother; the tentative steps into having a baby with another woman’s genes; the cautious optimism of seeing a positive pregnancy test; the growing hope of a progressing pregnancy; the worries about a rogue placenta; and the excitement of meeting a baby girl in November.

Knowing this then, perhaps we would have packed a little differently. Even though we got gave away or threw out half of our stuff in NYC, we would have got rid of more — the medications I packed are out of date, the tea has expired, a lot of our clothes are for cold weather. Three years later, though, has given enough distance that we’re not as sentimentally attached to stuff as we once were.

Yet I think having a miscarriage and dealing with infertility has given me a new perspective on what is actually important. And it ain’t material objects… We’re getting rid of a lot of things, and not just because we will have to acquire a lot of things for Little Miss Baby V’s arrival in (hopefully) four short months.

Still, I confess to getting very emotional when I saw my beloved piano being lifted up the steps into our new townhouse. It was the first item to be unloaded, and one of the few possessions I have a strong attachment to. It was a 21st birthday gift from my grandparents. I’m a bit rusty for not having played in several years, but I used to be quite good. It was my grandfather who loved to hear me play, and no doubt it was his idea to buy me a piano for my birthday 15 years ago. This piano is my [inanimate] baby and was their most generous gift to me — until my grandmother died and I learned they had left me enough money to cover almost all of our DEIVF expenses.

I cried because when the piano made its way across the living room, I had the two greatest gifts my grandparents ever gave me under the same roof: my inanimate baby, and my real live inside baby who kicks dozens of times a day. Call me sentimental, but I was overcome.

The first of our things to arrive in our new home ♥

This is why it’s important to pack boxes properly… So they can sustain the weight of another, possibly heavier, box on top. Movers don’t seem to read FRAGILE on a box.

My bed! Firm, but like sleeping on a cloud. Currently the only place where I can put my feet up.
My OB has banned me from moving anything that weighs more than a few pounds — a rule enforced by DH and his parents — but lemme tell you: repeatedly bending over boxes to unpack them is enough of a workout because my five-month belly gets in the way! So glad we moved this month and not next…

We’re definitely going to need more bookshelves… Yep, those boxes are all books!

So many trinkets, most of which are family heirlooms or wedding gifts. And jewellery-making supplies, I’m so excited! We’ll have to find homes for all this stuff so we can put books here instead…

Boxes, boxes everywhere… Nor any one to lift!

Getting reacquainted. We have a lot of catching up to do.

It’s weird and wonderful being in our own place again. I can walk around the house naked. It’s quiet. I can poop with the door open. I’m now a 20-minute drive from my OB, not 45 minutes. I’m 15 minutes from the hospital where Baby V will make her entrance into the world, not almost an hour. We’re two miles from the beach.I have a piano to play.

We’re two people and a dog living in a new home with a baby on the way. There is lots to be done and I am getting better at accepting help and asking for it. Life ain’t perfect, but life is good.