Moving While Pregnant « Back to Group Discussions

[KM84]

It sounds like a lot of us may be moving sometime over the next 9 months, whether it's down the street or across the world. I figure we can congregate in this thread to ramble on about the fun/frustration of trying to pick up and move your whole life - or waiting to find out whether you'll have to.

We're moving one state over to be closer to our families when it's baby-time. Right now we live in NYC and the more my friends talk about life in this area with kids, the less I think it's for us. Daycare/preschool prices in this area are astronomical, just for starters.

House hunting is driving me crazy. The area with the good schools is literally twice the cost as the one with OK schools, and we're trying to figure out how to navigate that (this is our first child). I really, really don't want to have to shell out $$$ for private school, and we don't want to send our kids to parochial (Catholic) school because we'd like them to actually remain Catholic! Everyone we know who went to Catholic school came out atheist.

[janellody]

LOL KM, I am not moving but had to just laugh at your last thought about catholic school.. that is hilarious!  You know something is wrong with catholic school if everyone comes out athiest!!  My mom went to a religious school, something like catholic or christian or something and she hated it also.. that is hilarious!

[KM84]

I swear it's true. The only one of my dad's siblings (6 of them) who still goes to church is the one who didn't go to the local Catholic school! And my husband's sister went to Catholic school (he didn't), and is more or less an atheist now too. 

[maryamrose]

We're also moving, probably in November. We're just moving 65 miles south, but it's still a big deal to us. We're finalizing a home purchase and the place needs a lot of work. We're hoping to be able to coordinate all the major repairs in a few weeks, knowing that that is very optimistic. I'm actually more stressed by that part than the actual moving part. Most of our stuff is in storage anyway and we live in a temporary, unfurnished apartment right now, so the move itself shouldn't be too bad.

Luckily, most of our friends are in the area we're moving to, so that will be helpful.

KM84 - have you visited any of the schools in the districts you're considering? I went to "the best" high school in my district, and I had a really bad experience. I'd previously gone to "ok" schools and they worked so much better for me. Sometimes you just have to experience the school for yourself to decide which is best for you as parents and your kid(s).

[nukedwifey]

Once our house is finished we'll be moving too.  I'm not sure when that will be though.  I was hoping February but since they're already 2 weeks behind on the build from that stupid tropical storm and we still have winter to look forward to I have no idea what we have to look forward to now.  They only started framing today and we were told that it would be finished when we got home from vacation, which was the 12th.  :/

Just so long as we can move in before I give birth I guess.  I don't know how I feel about that actually.  I certainly don't want to be moving my whole house when I'm 9 months pregnant.  It certainly sucked moving it the first time into storage when I wasn't pregnant when our old house sold.    Now I have no idea when I'd like to move.  LOL!

[lightheartedmom]

We may or may not be moving...our whole life has been sort of in limbo for the last six months (and yes, we thought it would be great to throw a new baby in the mix while we're at it ;-)). Right now we're living in a small (one bedroom) inlaw unit that belongs to an elderly relative. While we're here; we're helping care for her - believe it or not inthe 6 months we've been living here she's broken her hand, gone practically deaf (she just needed new hearing aids) and just last week she feel and broke her elbow on the other arm (we were out of town for a few days when it happened). So it's actually worked out because she doesn't have any kids and she needs help and she loves having our girls around...but it's not a long term solution. There's only a half kitchen here (convection oven and microwave, plus my electric griddle and a hotplate) and it's one bedroom so...we're already sleeping with all four of us in there - DD2 in her porta crib and DD1 in bed with us.
So...we do sort of hope to move. I'm not planning on it only because I don't want to get too caught up in it until we know for sure. Dh is looking for a job so we may end up moving out of state (away from both our families)...we're looking at the PNW which means we sort of have to move either before winter or wait until spring - which means we'd be moving in the 3rd trimester...gah. Hate moving.
The upside is that 80% of our worldly goods that remain are already packed up in storage because we had to flee our previous apartment due to mold (cough cough slum lords cough cough). Our life story sounds WAY more trailer-parky than we actually are. :-)

Anyway. Good idea this thread. My friend who has way more experience moving than me (5 times in 5 years I think) says to just keep your life simple - accumulate as little stuff as possible and pare down to the bare essentials. Anything you're not using regularly, pack it up and store it until the move.

Good luck to all! :-)

[BubbleMa]

Originally Posted by maryamrose 

We're also moving, probably in November. We're just moving 65 miles south, but it's still a big deal to us. We're finalizing a home purchase and the place needs a lot of work. We're hoping to be able to coordinate all the major repairs in a few weeks, knowing that that is very optimistic. I'm actually more stressed by that part than the actual moving part. Most of our stuff is in storage anyway and we live in a temporary, unfurnished apartment right now, so the move itself shouldn't be too bad.

Luckily, most of our friends are in the area we're moving to, so that will be helpful.

KM84 - have you visited any of the schools in the districts you're considering? I went to "the best" high school in my district, and I had a really bad experience. I'd previously gone to "ok" schools and they worked so much better for me. Sometimes you just have to experience the school for yourself to decide which is best for you as parents and your kid(s).

This is so true.  According to greatschools.com the school DD goes to is just "okay".  However, IMO, it's awesome!  It's very diverse, ethnically and socioeconomically.  There is no majority, or minority.  The staff is very friendly, the teachers are great, parent involvement is high, etc.  To me those things are way more important than test scores.

[lindsayjean]

We also may or may not be moving.  I'm hoping YES because that would mean my husband has a job for us to move to :-)  But I also am unsure about the homebirth situation in a lot of states and I want a CPM close to me to take care of me.  So we'll see!

[KM84]

That's really encouraging to hear about schools. One of the areas we're looking at has a school that gets poor test scores, but the parents all seem to love the teachers and principal. The school pulls from a really large and diverse area, the kind of area where there are half-million dollar homes on one side and yet the police just recently broke up an open-air drug market on the other. So it's not surprising that their test scores might not be great.

It didn't occur to me to try to tour some of the public schools, I guess I thought only fancy private schools did. I'll look into it. Thanks!

[Masel]

Our plan had been to spend the winter getting the house ready and move next spring. We've moved this up a bit. I hope we can get the house on the market by the first of the year. We live in a desirable area but our house is percurlar. Almost all the rooms come off of a central dining room. We only planned to live here 5 years and it has been 15. There is just no place left to go with stuff and I have tossed and given away so much!

[BubbleMa]

Originally Posted by KM84 

That's really encouraging to hear about schools. One of the areas we're looking at has a school that gets poor test scores, but the parents all seem to love the teachers and principal. The school pulls from a really large and diverse area, the kind of area where there are half-million dollar homes on one side and yet the police just recently broke up an open-air drug market on the other. So it's not surprising that their test scores might not be great.

It didn't occur to me to try to tour some of the public schools, I guess I thought only fancy private schools did. I'll look into it. Thanks!

That's pretty much like our school.  Wealthy families, middle class families, and low-income families.  I love that.  I think it's so important for children to learn how to get along with all kinds of people, and not just different races (we have plenty of those too!).

[katroshka]

Totally agree with what the other posters said about schools. The town I grew up in had "great" schools that were absolutely NOT great... the teachers were medieval, the kids were snotty and spoiled rich kids, and I couldn't believe how much better my school experience was when I moved to the San Diego area and went to an "OK" school!

Also look into charters, if available. They are like private schools, some are great, some are fine, some are awful. My kids go to a fantastic charter, and I'm so grateful because the local schools are really not great. They can offer really unique communities and settings that you won't find in most public schools.

We may be moving during this pregnancy, I (kind of) hope so, at least. Our house is 950 sq ft, which is actually not too bad for us, except there are NO closets. And no garage. And no shed. And too small/ oddly shaped of a yard to put in a shed or garage. And of course no basement or attic, because San Diegans apparently don't believe in those!

There are already two adults, two older kids, a baby, two pitbulls, a chihuahua, and two cats living in this house, so it feels a bit crowded, haha. We have 3 bedrooms and 2 baths, and the living space is actually not bad, but the lack of storage is really killing me. So we are going to look at a house on Wednesday morning, but I'm trying not to get very excited because it probably won't work, sadly. It is a beautiful house, 1906, 2070 sq ft, bigger yard, slightly better neighborhood, but the listing agent says it has foundation problems. I guess it fell out of escrow already because of it, but we are going to look anyway. It has some other issues that would already necessitate a rehab loan, but if the foundation needs to be replaced there is no way we can afford it. Repairs may be ok. I'm keeping my fingers crossed! Houses that big (or just bigger than 1,000 sq ft, really) in the central city rarely come up for sale, or they have already been restored and cost upwards of $600K (as opposed to our roughly $250K budget).

[MommyPixie]

Count me in! I got a crazy great job offer in San Francisco and accepted it a week before I got my +. What a crazy week! I am a meticulous planner, and the news really threw me off.

So, I am uprooting my family from Seattle to drag them down there, and on top of it all I can't move a thing! Funny how every time we move, I end up conveniently pregnant, heh, this same thing happened 4 years ago when we moved to our current house. I've been recruiting friends to help already, I am so thankful for good friends.

Lightheartedmom, choose the PNW! I am heartbroken to be leaving the area, it has been so good to us. Beautiful scenery all around and such welcoming people.

[maryamrose]

Congrats MommyPixie! Let me know if you have any questions about living in/moving to the Bay Area :)

[MommyPixie]

Originally Posted by maryamrose 

Congrats MommyPixie! Let me know if you have any questions about living in/moving to the Bay Area :)

Thanks Maryam! I will! I know we picked the right month to move because the weather looks amazing compared to the rain coming in to Seattle. Hee!

[KM84]

We're putting in an offer on a house today! I'm so nervous, I could throw up.

Its out of state so we're doing everything over phone/email, which is even more nerve wracking. 

And of course my husband and I both have meetings today which are getting in the way of dealing with the offer paperwork.

[shastalily]

Oooo How exciting!  Good luck!  We just bought a house and moved last May so thankfully no moving here but we're getting ready to start painting.  Some of the rooms REALLY need it.

[KM84]

Thanks! They made a counter-offer, which was higher than we'd like, so we counter-counter offered... I wonder how many times we'll bounce back and forth? :D

The place we're hoping to get definitely needs some paint... it has that totally blah new construction feel. White walls, white carpet. And that carpet is going to be the first thing to go.

[xekomaya]

We are moving at the end of the month - as in, a week and a half from today. The house is not in the shape I'd like and causing major stress, but hopefully we can pull it off. I am glad we will bet settled well in advance of this new baby. The house will also be much better to be pregnant/have a new baby in because it has a play room, a fenced yard and not one, but TWO play structures for the kids. Hopefully some of that will make my life a little easier.
 

Originally Posted by KM84 

Thanks! They made a counter-offer, which was higher than we'd like, so we counter-counter offered... I wonder how many times we'll bounce back and forth? :D

The place we're hoping to get definitely needs some paint... it has that totally blah new construction feel. White walls, white carpet. And that carpet is going to be the first thing to go.

Cool that is exciting! Good luck.

[KM84]

Originally Posted by xekomaya 

We are moving at the end of the month - as in, a week and a half from today. The house is not in the shape I'd like and causing major stress, but hopefully we can pull it off. I am glad we will bet settled well in advance of this new baby. The house will also be much better to be pregnant/have a new baby in because it has a play room, a fenced yard and not one, but TWO play structures for the kids. Hopefully some of that will make my life a little easier. 

How exciting, and stressful. We won't be moving for another 4-6 months and I already want to get rid of everything I own in preparation.

We finally came to an agreement with the seller, so assuming all the inspections go well we have a house! We'll be in a pretty dense area of the city, so no full yard, but there's a decent sized patio and we're a few blocks from a nice park with a dog run and playground. 

Settlement isn't until mid-December, which feels like forever. We'll wait to move until things thaw out a little, if this winter is anything like the last two.