Go read the Disclaimer again. I am not a doctor. This is not medical advice. Seriously.
Roland hated his job. I knew this; he'd been complaining about it for years. I watch Oprah. I'm a big believer in making changes when you don't like your life. He waited until after our wedding to start looking for a new job, figuring there was enough stuff going on at once. This was was a miscalculation. Planning a wedding has absolutely nothing on pregnancy, childbirth, a newborn or even a toddler for too much stuff going on at once.
Because I was still in Oprah-land, idealistically thinking about what was best for the personal fulfillment and happiness of us adults, when Roland said he'd gotten a job offer from Cray, which has major offices in Minnesota and Seattle, I said, sure, we can move, subject to we are coming back soon, right? We both loved it in Brookline, but Cray did not want him telecommuting right from the beginning. So off to Seattle (where I had lived for over thirty years) we planned to go.
I was not as sick and exhausted during the first trimester or so as my sister, but I was miserable. I was only feeling slightly better by the time of our move. Driving across country -- he was driving a rental van, I was driving my car -- is not easy under the best of circumstances, which this was not, as we were in a hurry to get out before a snow storm came in. Roland is one of those people who feels a lot better after he's gotten the first few hundred miles done, and we left late in the day.
Characteristic of our entire time in Seattle, for a variety of reasons, my friends did not turn out in force to help us unpack. We did not bring much furniture with us, as we were planning on buying while there, some to remain in the condo, some to return to Brookline with us, and some to buy cheap, used and resell before leaving. This worked fairly well. The biggest furniture mistake lay in buying a queen sized bed. Had I really thought through co-sleeping ahead of time, I'd have bought a king sized bed and mattress.
The timing on our move made getting a quad screen -- and the results back -- tricky. In the event, I was able to have the blood draw done before I left, and my midwife on the East Coast told me the results via e-mail. I also had to find a new midwife on the West Coast. Unfortunately, I was far enough along (this was March; due in early August) that my first few choices were not taking any new clients for August. This also meant I was reluctant to switch midwives later, because I knew it would be very difficult to find another.
The wonders of the internet, particularly in Seattle, that I was able to find an apartment from Brookline and have it rented for our arrival, so we didn't have to park in a hotel room for an indefinite period of time, but could pick up the keys the day we drove in to town. We liked our building. We liked our unit. I was not sure about the neighborhood (23rd and Jackson, in the heart of the Central District, due east of Pioneer Square, thus very, very convenient to Roland's job) but willing to give it a try. I'm very glad we did.
Unfortunately, shortly after our arrival, there were changes at the company which had hired Roland. Some people were laidoff. Some projects were changed. Roland's job changed, several times. The friend who had encouraged him to come out for the job not only left the company, but moved down to Portland, OR. While the company continued to treat Roland very well, he was lonely and it wasn't what we had moved to Seattle for. He was able to make it to all the prenatal appointments with me and he worked short hours after Teddy was born, without any negative impact on performance reviews. This would have been absolutely impossible at Intel. The downside being, since he was a new employee (less than 12 months), he was not able to take FMLA.
While we liked a lot of things about Seattle (bicycling in the middle of winter), we were lonely. Again, for a variety of reasons, my friends were difficult to connect with. We were in an apartment, which meant no gardening, and we had to rely upon public spaces for Teddy outdoor-time. The city wading pool are wonderful. The zoo has a great designer playground. The aquarium was walking/bus distance and toddler friendly. The children's museum (altho I did not go to it until we were about to move out of town) is a ton of fun. There were playgrounds in pocket parks all around our complex. But public spaces have a lot of scary things that are attractive to a newly mobile baby: cigarette butts, chewing gum, spent fireworks casings, used condoms, and worse. Our memories of Brookline did not include a lot of these things, at least not on the playground. And I was relatively certain that the lack of amenities (designer playgrounds and children's museums) would be more than compensated for by easily arranged playgroups and playgrounds that had a limited number of people hanging out in them that I would get to know over time.
It was a short stay -- 18 months.
A General Discussion of Moving
Copyright 2006 by Rebecca Allen.
Created November 29, 2006 Updated February 20, 2007