My husband got a new job. Which should be very exciting, and maybe a year from now it will be, actually it almost definitely will be. Until then it's a shitstorm - mostly for me but somewhat for him too. The job is back home (kinda) in Chicagoland, so we're moving back in just a couple weeks. Actually, he's moving back on April 15th! We fly up together on the 15th due to our previously planned shower on the 16th. Then I come back down here on the 25th, finish packing like crazy by myself and he'll fly back down (with two friends) to help with the loading of the truck and to get the drive back accomplished.
However, between the job being much closer to the city than I've ever lived plus the health insurance plan being ridiculously more expensive, and me moving at almost exactly 32 weeks along we're going to be completely unable to afford rent anywhere besides a studio apartment. Which is stupid to try to life in a such a fashion when we're used to being spread out in a 3 bedroom. We'd need a massive storage unit on top of paying rent for the studio.
Luckily Eric will have a job and insurance starts almost immediately, but it's significantly more expensive plus a pretty high deductible. Unlike my current play where we essentially pay nothing, we will pretty much be liable for the entire delivery cost.
We're trying to get my horse sold ASAP even though I'm heartbroken. If I can't sell her in the next 8 days, we'll have to schedule a truck and pay ~$1300 in transport to get her up north where we will then try to sell. I'll have to keep her at a stable more than an hour from our home in order to afford it and will have to drive out there several times a week if not daily to continue caring for her leg wound and keep her in shape while I'm getting her sold.
I'm emptying out my 401K from a previous job and between selling horse and 401K it won't quite cover medical expenses plus all of the moving costs (truck rental and horse transport), and that's if I manage a vaginal delivery with no NICU time.
Because we can't afford anywhere to live, we'll be moving into my sister-in-law & brother-in-law's house with them. Which is a wonderful generous offer. Don't think I'm not grateful. We have somewhere to go, and this is a great thing.
However...it will still be almost an hour commute to his job. We both have dogs and they both tend to bark at noises - especially mine when he hears other people that he can't see. With us mostly on one floor of the house and them on the other, I'm worried that Mr. Barley is going to be super-vigilant and confused by sounds.
I'm also worried about being super hot. We're taking over the top floor of the house due to spacing and parking reasons, but I am running SUPER hot right now and she runs super super cold all the time. If we cool the upper floor to my new comfy temp to sleep, either she'll freeze, or we'll jack up the electric bill to 18 bajillion dollars (or more!), or maybe both at the same time.
I'm worried that we will take over their entire lives and house. I'm very tired of being a burden on everyone else. I'm super afraid of conflict. Not because my in-laws aren't wonderful people - because they absolutely are - but because I am going to be going through the physically & emotionally roughest part of my life to date. I make a pretty terrible roommate at the best of times. Literally the only time I've had a roommate and the situation DIDN'T end terribly/stay full of fights, was the short period of time where my mom was my roommate. Now, that's not to say I don't do well living with my husband - I do well with living with a partner where we are trying to live the same life. It just falls apart when I try to coordinate overlapping lives and schedules into the same place - it's chaotic for me. So as far as just regular roommates, I've failed every time it wasn't my mom. That particular time happened to be one of the best in my life - I was planning my wedding, she was helping, I loved my job and had open access to a wonderful horse to ride and it was generally nice weather out so we were outside most of the time. Oh, and it was only for 5.5 months, and we knew the move out date before we started - there was an end goal and you could watch it get close.
Due to dumb insurance reasons and trying to exclusively breastfeed this baby until minimum 6 months old, plus not having a career that makes enough money to pay for childcare, it would be supremely unlikely that we'll be able to afford our own place for another year approximately. We need me to be able to figure out how to make a decent chunk of money or wait for my husband to get a raise/promotion. That's a long long long time.
In fact, I just realized yesterday when I was trying to figure out how to pare down my wardrobe that I don't even know how. I need clothes for every season, for every type of occasion (not sure what kind of work I might find), and for every size and shape my body has ever been in because I don't know how fast my body will bounce back after this baby - if it's ever the same. Not sure if I will need my "skinny" summer clothes or my "fat" ones or maybe only the maternity ones - even considering that I deliver early July (in theory).
That's a long long long time to depend on others. And a long long long time for me to try to be a good roommate, especially when I know I'm going to be in a really difficult place both in body and mind while trying to navigate the rest of this pregnancy and learn how to be the mom of a newborn as well. To me it sounds like taking on two very difficult full time jobs at the same time and expecting success. I'm very afraid that in doing this, we're setting ourselves (or at least me) up to fail. I am the hormonal one, I am the primary caregiver for this helpless being, I am the one with the history of depression, and I am the one that's going to feel like I'm imposing when my baby is waking up the whole household at all hours of the night. I had terrible colic as a baby and cried for the first 6 months of life straight - or so my mom and everyone else tells me. I don't want to be a terrible roommate. I will try my best. I just can't see a way that we won't accidentally take over their lives and home and turn it into a loud sleepless mess - all while I'm not helping the situation because I don't handle having to figure out how to share kitchen space & time well. Hell, I don't do well having to wear clothes inside my own home. Even that thought is icky.
Also, and this is a minor point, but I've always lived (before this move right here) in a pretty rural county. This job is much closer to the city and we're going to be living probably two counties closer to Chicago (maybe 3) than I ever have. Which will mean a much higher population density, a lack of surrounding fields and horse country, a significant increase in concrete and such around, and living much further away from my mom/aunts that I normally do (when I've lived in Illinois of course). Part of my largest complaint with being in Florida is always being surrounded by major roads with major intersections and highways and all of the freaking sprawl. I was hoping that if we went back north I could get back to my small town feel. Living in a town of 20,000 surrounded by a buffer zone of a few miles of corn & cows is much different than living in a town of 20,000 surrounded entirely by other towns that are surrounded entirely by other towns. It's just a different feel and one that makes me in general more nervous and less comfortable. It's just significantly more urban than I prefer. Oh, and that's not to even start on leaving the FREE ocean and FREE community pool here. I was super looking forward to spending the third trimester floating in a pool/ocean in order to keep the weight off my feet & back. Oh well.
I am also leaving my birth center in FL, the one that I love with the midwives I love. There is one birth center in the entire state of Illinois. I am trying to contact them to see if I can get set up with them - but they're hard to get in touch with as well as it just honestly might be too late in pregnancy to fulfill all of their requirements to qualify for a birth center birth. We'll see, but I can't depend on it. There is one other hospital nearby that has an in hospital "alternative birthing center" but it only has two actual birth center-type rooms with real beds and tubs, and it's first come first serve. Considering that they are the preferred option for much of the entire Chicago & suburban area, I can't count on that being available, and if I didn't get the room I would end up in a sterile hospital room with a midwife/doc that I don't really know or even have much time to set up a relationship with once I arrive. The only OB/midwife I know in Illinois who I am therefore already comfortable with will be about 90 minutes from the house, as will the hospital for delivery. If I go into labor during the work day I sit at home for an hour by myself until DH can get home, then we have to drive 90 more min to get to the hospital - considering that an ambulance wouldn't take me to THAT hospital and a cab fare would probably run $100. . I know the midwife there will advocate for my desire to have a non- medicated and low intervention birth as much as possible, but she already warned me that it's going to be her & I against the rest of the staff trying to advocate for me. Sigh. And it'll cost me every dollar, awesome. I worry that with my hospital apprehension just being in the hospital will hurt my chances for mentally relaxing enough for my body to actually progress through labor and delivery appropriately. Going to try, but again, I feel like I'm purposely setting myself up with many obstacles to my own success.
We definitely don't have the funds available for a doula, so while that would help me be about 18 bajillion (it's my favorite number of the week) times more confident in myself, it's just not really likely. I mean which is more important - crib & carseat or doula? Hard to say, but likely the car seat.
And ICK, why do hospitals require births that have zero complications to stick around for 2 days? No thank you. After the most draining event of my life, can't I lay on my own bed and/or couch? PLEASE?
With all of this stress and trying to get enough boxes (wow I miss the constant source of boxes that was bartending) to even get the house packed, I'm having trouble sleeping, I'm losing weight, and I've started to have braxton hicks contractions too often for my midwife to be comfortable. I've started a few supplements to help and more water - I'm trying. It's helping some, but still. In her words I now have an "irritable uterus." Lovely, something else to worry about.
When we don't know for sure when we'll be able to move out, it's hard to see the light at the end of this very very very long tunnel. It's awful to think that one year ago we had these huge plans for our future and all sorts of ideas plus zero debt and a decent amount of savings. Now we have a decent chunk of debt and no real savings. It's just all very hard to stomach.
So after all that Debbie Downer post, at least I'll mention I'm super excited to see friends and family in just over 8 days, and hoping the shower is super exciting, and I'll just keep crossing my fingers that some sort of entirely unbelievable unlikely miracle happens and we'll find our own 2 bedroom unit that we love in the right place at the right price (LOL! We'd need $500 more a month).
We are again, super grateful that we have somewhere to go, and we'll work as hard as we can to NOT be pains the ass. I really want this to work, but I'm also very afraid of it.
So this is to timing - it sucks the fun out of everything.
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