A Family & Life Update from Hailey

Hello, it has been a little bit since my last posting, so I thought I would jump back in with a little life update for our family. In my previous post, I discussed some New Year’s Resolutions I had for myself and as an educator for my daughter. In that post, I also mentioned experiencing some burnout that was affecting my health and energy levels. After that post, I would love to say that things improved and we’ve made tremendous progress. Still, we unfortunately found out we had to move in a relatively short timeframe while also dealing with the emotions and stress of dealing with health issues and infertility. During this time, I was really not in the mindset to be able to talk about what was going on. Now that things are starting to get settled, I’m ready to slowly start getting back to normal.

It feels like such a short time to be talking about moving again, when we had just moved less than a year ago, but a sudden move is one of the unfortunate downsides of renting. I knew this, but it still happened sooner than I had hoped. Our landlord was planning to retire out of state and told us that she would be putting the house on the market. We spoke with her, and all agreed that we would continue to live there until an offer was accepted. She was also very supportive in trying to protect our privacy and cause as little disruption to our lives as possible during the selling process, which we appreciated immensely. Even with the high level of support, it was incredibly stressful for our family.

With the knowledge that we could be given notice to move at any time, we decided to tell Delilah what was going on right away. We wanted the stress she felt to be as minimal as possible. She handled this part surprisingly well. We answered all the questions she had as many times as she asked them. She asked the same ones quite a bit until she understood it. We also informed her about any visits to the house that were related to the sale. We did not want her to be confused or freaked because strangers were coming to the house and looking around. That part didn’t bother her too badly, but the disruption to our daily schedule because of it did bother her. It wasn’t bad at first, but after a couple of times, it added stress to all of us. I would spend all day getting the house ready, and Joshua would try to flex his work schedule when he could to be there. However, it disrupted Lilah’s school lessons, and she was also missing out on planned activities because, for some reason, the visits were always on Fridays during storytime.

The house ended up selling quicker than we expected, and we needed to move by the end of May. So, the stress of finding a new rental began. With Joshua’s work schedule, I had to take the lead on finding places and scheduling tours. We searched for rentals in 8-9 towns and cities near Joshua’s job and still struggled immensely to find a place that fit our budget and needs. After a few weeks, we found a place in Lebanon and applied. It was actually Delilah’s pick out of all the places we looked at. It had stairs, and she had never lived anywhere with stairs before; she liked that a lot.

Once we were approved, deposits were paid, and we had a move-in date, it was time to start packing in earnest. I had started a little bit, but now I had about two weeks to get it all done. Once we were packed and moving day arrived, it was time for almost five days of nonstop work. I planned our move-in date for Friday so that Joshua would only have to take one day off and then have the rest of the weekend to move everything over before he had to return to work on Monday.  Even with all the packing and planning, it was still exhausting, but we managed to get everything done and also had everything squared away with our previous rental.

I’d like to say that the stress stopped at this point, but unfortunately, it did not. Of course, throughout the days leading up to and during the move, laundry accumulated. Once I had my new laundry room put together, I wanted to get started on it right away. I started the first load, and when I came back to check on it, I found that water had leaked onto my new floor. Luckily, it wasn’t too bad, but after many hours of trying to diagnose the problem, we discovered we were better off buying a new one than trying to fix it. My machines were over a decade old and had already been repaired multiple times, so we were due for an upgrade. I just wasn’t expecting it to happen the same month we moved into a new house and had just bought new furniture. Even though it was stressful, I did find a new one that I love, which included delivery and haul-away, because the thought of having to move those machines again made me want to cry.

While all of this was going on, and for over a year before it, we had been dealing with some ongoing health issues with me. A couple of years ago, when it was time for me to replace my birth control implant, we had talked and decided that we did not want to replace it. We weren’t necessarily ready to jump right into trying, but we were open to the possibility of growing our family. I did end up getting pregnant right away after coming off birth control. Still, unfortunately, we found out about the pregnancy in the emergency room when we also learned that it was an ectopic pregnancy. All in the same day, I found I was pregnant, it was ectopic, my tube had burst, and I needed emergency surgery, all in the span of about 4-6 hours. To put it bluntly, it was devastating, and I do plan to share the story of my experience when I am ready.

After I healed and got the okay from my doctor, we moved towards trying. We were not having much luck, and I was noticing some symptoms that could be impacting my fertility, so I reached out to my doctor and started having some tests done. This led to getting diagnosed with PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome), which is a hormonal condition that can make it much harder to become pregnant. Since that diagnosis, I have been working with my doctor to improve my health and fertility, in the hopes of growing our family. In recent months, this has been increasingly hard on me as we are now approaching 2 years since we stopped birth control and then suffered an ectopic pregnancy, with no luck, and a fertility condition that makes all of this more complicated.

I know this post is long and a bit heavy, but it felt impossible to update you about our life and family without being completely honest: the past couple of months have been hard. I feel like it’s important to share because all families go through tough times, and I feel like we should be able to talk about it. Sometimes it can be really cathartic to openly admit “ Things haven’t been going great,” especially when talking to loved ones, because it can open the door for love and support. Luckily, in our situation, a good chunk of this stress was temporary, and now that the move is done and we are settled, we are on the path to a better mental place. We’re loving it here in Lebanon and exploring new parks and places to take Delilah. We’re also planning to sign up at the library here very soon. We’re excited to enjoy things even more now that we are coming into the nicer weather and are feeling really positive about the months ahead.