We’ve now had the keys to our new home for over two weeks, we’ve had our little girl for over a month, and Devin has had his new job here for almost three months. Time is flying, my head is starting to feel less out of the clouds from sleep deprivation (today), and I often find myself feeling overwhelmed at how good things have been here.
Devin finally has work life balance and no work to bring home! Church is within walking distance of our house. Devin has no commute, we have sidewalks all over the place, and people seem really friendly and genuinely nice here. We’ve had neighbors introduce themselves to us and keep talking to us when we see them. We’ve already had two neighbors ring our doorbell and see in me in a state of newborn throw up and bed dreads in my hair. I’m sure I haven’t been as congenial as normal, but I’m hoping when I see them again I can help them see how I normally am personality wise; let’s be honest, if they ring our doorbell, this is just the nature of how I may look at anytime now.
During this time, a huge fear that I’ve always had has also cleared up. I have spent most of my twenties with a deep fear of what I would be like as a mother. It has been baggage I’ve carried around every conversation we’ve had about the topic. I was so convinced that I would have postpartum depression that I set up appointments with all of my doctors to check on my mental health afterwords, told them my history with PTSD, and was very open about advocating for myself beforehand. You know what though? I’ve been the happiest I have ever been. Being a mother isn’t easy, but loving Evie is. Breastfeeding and nursing has been the most unnatural awful thing, but I keep doing it. I’ve wanted every bit of that loss of sleep and I absolutely love our little girl.
I can tell we’re going to be really happy here even though moving is chaotic. Moving when you’re hugely pregnant is hard… moving in with a newborn with unpacking to do is crazy. I’m not going to act like it has been completely easy, but we’ve gotten a lot of help… which is a huge act of courage for me to accept it.
More than ever, I’ve wanted familiarity in our home. Our items have been in boxes or being moved from place to place. Devin slipped a disc in his back the day before we moved in, the first night we moved in we found the dishwasher hose was leaking into our basement ceiling, and the sleep deprivation + guilt of me not being able to just focus on my baby has definitely induced tears. We’ve had three soft chairs to sit on besides our bed until two days ago and I have a third degree tear I’m still recovering from. In a moment of desperation, I went down to the basement to sleep on the bed down there while Devin was doing a colic round and the bed fell on the floor (which makes me laugh a lot now). We figured out Evie’s colic was from a milk allergy and then I was hit with the worst stomach bug.
The shiny star has been the help we’ve received from others.
We had so many people help us prepare our house to move in Georgia.
We’ve lived in our friend’s basement for the last two months until we bought our house.
My Mom cooked a holiday meal for us that I haven’t had in a long time. Her chicken and dressing is my favorite!
Devin’s Mom and Aunt painted our walls, unpacked our kitchen, and moved lots of things around since we both can’t lift much.
Our new church family, that we haven’t even been to church to attend yet, showed up in droves to help us unpack. Then they put together our ridiculous amount of IKEA furniture… and people keep bringing me soup unsolicited which is so kind.
This time has been good, laughably bad, and very new to us. I’m taking a break from unpacking and house work to rest today after my flu. The baby is sleeping, I’m pumping and writing this post, and I actually listened to part of a podcast today (gasp, I know!). I did something crazy and I deleted all the real estate apps I’ve had on my phone; I’ve had all of these apps on there since a few months after moving to Georgia. I decided this feels like home and it feels very good. I think we’re going to get the hang of this.