My Path to Motherhood, Part 3: The House

In part 2, we had settled into our airbnb, having just moved from Los Angeles back to Maryland during the COVID-19 pandemic.

We stayed in an airbnb in a rural part of Maryland for three weeks, which was actually quite a nice respite, and our car and belongings arrived right on schedule. We moved into an apartment just outside of downtown Frederick on May 1, 2020. 

Step by step, we were making our way towards starting a family, but we decided we would still wait to start trying to conceive because we weren’t quite settled yet. We were living in a dingy one bedroom apartment, Andrew had just started a new job, and I was in a job that was going to end in October. We wanted to buy a house and get settled before having a baby, so we started the house-buying process as soon as we could. We purposefully secured a 6-month lease at our apartment with the hopes that we would find a house before the lease was up.

We set up a dog perch out of unpacked moving boxes, so Luna could look out the window.

In May 2020, we started interviewing realtors and by June, we were looking at properties. Interest rates were low and properties were flying off the shelves. We submitted a couple of offers that weren’t accepted. We kept trying to find the right place, but it was challenging. 

In August 2020, I received unwelcome news that I was being laid off from my job. Although I knew that my role was listed as a ‘temporary’ status with a last day of October 13, 2020, I had hopes that things would change to my benefit because of COVID. In January, I was told that I couldn’t work remotely from Maryland because the company was shifting away from remote, but now that COVID-19 caused almost all workers to work remotely, I thought the company would shift its priorities. It was jarring to receive this news as we were trying to buy a house and were relying on my income source.

We went out for ice cream after I found out I was being laid off.

We made the tough decision to keep looking for a house even though I was now jobless and in October, we found it! Our home is located in a beautiful neighborhood, within walking distance to an elementary school and grocery store, and spacious with a backyard and garage.  We moved in in late October 2020, just before our apartment lease ended. Perfect timing.

A picture of us in front of our house in 2020.