The One Where we Sold Our House, got Pregnant, and Moved Twice During a Pandemic

Hi,

I’ve been completely absent since 2019. Sorry. Let me explain… Oh, and buckle up, because this is a long one.

In early January of 2020 we pulled the goalie. We weren’t trying to get pregnant, we just weren’t trying not to anymore. After that I fell into a few weeks of depression mourning the fact that I wanted to get out there and build a kick ass career, and it felt like I had to continue to hold back in order to have another kid. In the midst of that, we were looking at our finances, and sandwiched between Christmas and Tax season, things weren’t looking good. We realized that we probably needed to make a big change and decided to sell our house, and use the majority proceeds from the sale to eliminate our debt while putting the rest away for a future home purchase.

At the end of January, we talked to Ryan our realtor (side note: if you are in Denver and you need a realtor, Ryan is GREAT) and decided to do some house projects and list our home the first week of March.

We spent all of February painting the baseboards and replacing the countertops in the kitchen, and putting in new carpet… You know, all the things I’d been wanting to do to the place since we moved in and “never got around to.” It sucked making everything nice for someone else…

The week my dad flew into town to help us replace the countertops in the kitchen I got a positive pregnancy test. HOLY FAST. I told the Viking that he had some olympic swimmers. I figured I had a week or two before the morning sickness would start. Nope.

We listed our house for sale the first week in March. We spent the weekend at a Hotel because it was peak buying season, and there was showing after showing and two open houses and theres no way we’re gonna try and manage a toddler who is the devil’s child if he misses a nap around all that. It was right around then that the morning sickness hit. At 5.5 weeks.

Debilitating morning sickness. Now, Im not gonna lie and say I had it as bad as some of you out there, I didn’t even throw up more than about 5 times the whole first trimester, but for me it was debilitating. Utter exhaustion to the point where putting my toddler in his carseat seemed an insurmountable amount of work (if you’ve ever put a struggling toddler in a carseat you know what I mean). I couldn’t get off the couch, and I had to eat something every 45-60 mins or suffer the wrath of nausea. I lived for nap time and bedtime (more than I already do) and found myself incredibly thankful that my toddler will sit through a whole hour of sesame street. I’d wake up every morning and think “Here we go again.” and just wait around for when I could go to bed again. Like I said, there wasn’t a ton of actual throwing up, but I would dry heave… constantly. Any sort of strong smell would set me off dry heaving. Occasionally something would set me over the edge into actual throwing up, but that thankfully wasn’t every day. This first Tri was SO much worse than the first one.

The trip to the Hotel was supposed to be a fun mini vacay while we collected offers on our house over the weekend, but instead it ended up being kind of a bummer. Our house went under contract by Saturday night, and we were home by Sunday morning, it was peak buying season, so we felt pretty good. But by Friday of that week, trips were being cancelled, Schools were considering closing, and everyone was realizing that this Covid-19 thing wasn’t just a problem for overseas travelers anymore.

By the middle of the next week our governor was considering a Stay at Home order. TBH, I was fine with it. With the first trimester sickness I didn’t want to go anywhere or do anything anyway, so being stuck at home was a total non issue for me. I think I left home once a week for a solid 5 weeks, and was in no way upset about it. It was a really strange upside to the pregnancy sickness not having to feel guilty about never wanting to leave my house or take my kid to the park, I was actually somewhat thankful for the timing.

Just before the stay at home order took effect, our home buyer lost their job and our house fell out of contract. So after congratulating ourselves heartily for going under contract in the nic of time we were now on the edge of a pandemic with no contract, and no interest from our “backup” offers. It was a scary moment. We had rented a condo and even put down a deposit on it, and when we lost the offer we backed out of it, and thankfully got our deposit back.

Exactly one showing later we were back under contract but It wasn’t quite as good of an offer, so it took us a minute to adjust to losing money we didn’t actually have yet and all of our sellers confidence was gone.

The weeks between contract and closing were really long. Between sickness and quarantine, and a stir crazy husband who was working from home against his will, and not really knowing or believing that the house was actually going to close, it was a really stressful time. Poor Ransom didn’t know what was happening, or why mom didn’t want to do anything anymore, or why dad was home ALL THE TIME.

We finally started to believe our house was going to close around a week before it closed, and at that point realized that we needed to pack. I was around 13 weeks at the time, and was starting to emerge from morning sickness haze of the first trimester, finally. Packing is the worst, especially when you only have about one hours worth of energy a day and a toddler. Ransom was really confused by all the packing and the change and was especially difficult at the time. Our neighbor Brooke came to the rescue on that one, taking him off our hands during the day sometimes so we could pack without having to hold him. (Side note: Im legitimately not sure how I would have made it through first tri/pandemic without Brooke. Find your people, Brooke is my people.)

When we backed out of the rental and got our money back, we reached out to a friend who had previously offered to share his place with us if we ever needed it. We asked him how serious he was about that offer… After falling out of contract, we were fairly hesitant to sign a lease anywhere before we actually had money in hand, so we were wondering if he was open to being invaded by roommates who also have a toddler.

We moved into “friend Neal’s” (as Ransom calls him) after we signed papers. And by “moved in”, I mean we put all our sh*t in storage, and packed a few suitcases with things we knew we’d need at friend Neal’s. (Shout out to all the people who helped us move in the middle of a pandemic.) Also, thank sweet baby Jesus for friend Neal. He has the biggest master bedroom I’ve ever seen, and he moved out of it and the walk in closet for us. This allowed us to put the pack n play (and therefore Ransom) in the closet during nap time and bedtime, and not worry about him. Neal also has a home theater in the basement and I managed to convince him and the Viking to watch Little Women with me, and I’m PRETTY SURE they both cried. Neal also always has corndogs in the freezer, which pregnant me appreciated immensely. 10/10.

We were at friend Neal’s for three weeks until we found a rental. Im not gonna lie, going from owning a house to renting isn’t a fun transition, but we found a really great 1000 square foot duplex with a yard, shed, and an absolutely massive front porch that was in our budget. Turns out its on a super quiet cul-de-sac with great neighbors, and is 11 blocks from the Viking’s work. (Second shout out to all the people who helped us move a SECOND time in a month, during a pandemic.) The new place definitely has its quirks (there are no drawers in the kitchen?) but having a 500 square foot covered front porch generally makes up for some of that. Its basically just a huge baby playpen when I put the gate up. Not to mention I scored a KILLER west elm out door sectional and propane fire pit off of FB marketplace FOR FREE DOLLARS, (Oh yes, I’m definitely still thrifting) its basically our second living room.

Meanwhile, I entered my second trimester, and discovered that this baby is going to let me drink coffee! It’s the small things, my friends. Stay tuned for more pregnancy related posts. I know you are all just dying to hear about it.

Oh, and I guess I’m blogging again.