My Path to Motherhood, Part 2: The Move

In part 1, I left you in July 2019 after we had adopted our dog, Luna. 

We were living in a great apartment (finally) in Los Angeles. I was working from home as Social Impact and Sustainability Manager for an innovative, mission-based start-up. I was mostly happy, but often hit personal and professional roadblocks in this role.

Andrew was working at a start-up in Los Angeles that was overworking and underpaying him. He was stressed and unhappy, so he started looking for a new job.

Over many months, we had some tough conversations about what was next for us. Should Andrew start his own business? Should he look for work in Los Angeles? We wanted to buy a house in the next few years, but Los Angeles was expensive and never quite felt like home. Where do we go next?

What really loomed over our heads was that we were 31 years old and thought we shouldn’t delay having kids too much longer, but we lived in a one bedroom apartment and weren’t quite happy with our jobs. Was this the right time and place? 

After much deliberation, since Andrew was between jobs and my job was remote, we decided that our next step was to move back to Maryland and start a family. 

But we wouldn’t move back until we confirmed that one of us would have steady income in Maryland. I was pretty confident that my job would be fine with this move since I was already teleworking full-time and there were folks within the department living on the East Coast. I made an appointment with my OBGYN to get my IUD out in preparation for these big life changes. 

In January 2020, I met with my supervisor to officially confirm that I could continue to work my role remotely from Maryland instead of Los Angeles. Upsettingly and surprisingly, I was met with a ‘no’. I was told that the company was trying to shift away from having remote workers throughout the country. Pretty bad timing.

I wasn’t ready to look for a new job, so we decided that Andrew would look for work in Maryland. Once he secured a job, we’d move to Maryland, buy a house, and start growing our human family!

On March 11, 2020, Andrew flew back to Maryland to interview for a job. We had started hearing about the Coronavirus and were nervous about him traveling. Once he arrived at his hotel in Maryland, he got a call from his potential new employer that starting the next day, the campus was not allowing any visitors, so Andrew flew to Maryland to interview remotely from his hotel room! 

He ended up securing this job at the same time that the world was shutting down. His first day would be April 20, 2020. I was nervous about making the move across the country during the pandemic. I asked Andrew many times if he would be expected in the office once we got back to Maryland because it did not seem like a good time to move. 

He confirmed that he would be needed in person, so we got ourselves ready! I spoke with my current job and they agreed that I could continue to work remotely from Maryland in the interim because now everyone was remote anyway due to COVID-19. My job was changed to a temporary assignment with a last day of October 13, 2020. I was thankful to keep the role for a little bit longer, but the shift to temporary was demoralizing on top of the weight of the pandemic.

We secured an apartment with a 6-month lease to start May 1, 2020. We found a dog-friendly airbnb to host us for the three weeks between our arrival and our apartment lease start date. 

We booked a company to move our belongings and our car across the country, gave away our plants, and met up with our friends for socially distant goodbyes. At the last minute, we got Luna registered as an emotional support dog so that she could ride with us on the plane. 

Our friend Amy driving us to the airport.

In early April 2020, we moved out of our apartment, stayed with friends, Amy and Stan, for our last night in the city, and headed to LAX. One of the busiest airports in the country was now a ghost town. Stores were closed, lights were dim, and we hardly saw any other people.

Our flight had 11 passengers in total. Luna was a little bit restless, but ultimately did great for the 5.5 hour flight from Los Angeles to Baltimore. Andrew’s family met us at the airport with an extra car and we drove to our airbnb to get settled for a couple of weeks, as Andrew started his new job and I continued to work my job, both of us remotely. 

It was a weird time to make such a big move, to leave behind a thriving community in the midst of a global pandemic and start fresh in Maryland, but with the change of scenery and seasons, this felt like the start of a new adventure.

A painting in our airbnb that looked exactly like Luna.