As many Doper Mothers can relate to, pregnancy is a very trying and anxious (and wonderful) time. Since I am about 3 months along, I’m beginning to freak out more than normal over one major dilemma - do we stay in the city (Chicago) in our apartment to raise a kid (since fiance and I are both currently employed) or uproot and move to a smaller town in Iowa where we ultimately want to be (but would have to get a place and find jobs). Would it be more wise to move now before baby or after baby? I guess my nesting instincts are taking over and I feel like I can’t do anything until this decision is made, but we are having such a hard time deciding what to do. (p.s. my fiance is a Chef, so don’t know how abundant those jobs are in smaller towns…). Any advice?
If it were me, I would start researching available jobs and places to live in the area you would like to be. Just see what some of the possibilities are and then make a decision based on that. Hopefully you’ll find out if it’s more beneficial to move now or later?
I also think that right now, you probably have a lot of other things to worry about (doctor visits, collecting baby supplies, looking for a day care center, etc.) and maybe moving wouldn’t be convenient right now. Perhaps when the baby arrives and your family is settled, then you can worry about moving.
In other words…one major life change at a time! Do you want to have a coronary?
We sort of made the opposite move. We were working as non-tenured faculty in a small Midwest college town where that was pretty much the only industry left. We moved to San Diego when my daughter was 2 months old and stayed with friends until we found jobs and an apartment.
Basically, as long as your daycare arrangement is good, the baby isn’t going to care whether you live in a house or an apartment. He or she is also not going to care whether you have a nursery all done up perfectly down to the Pooh-themed light switches or a cradle in the corner of your bedroom. Babies like being close to the people who care for them–that’s all they worry about.
As for the chef question, I can’t speak for all small towns, but he would have had a rough time finding a job where we were living. If you are in commuting distance of a city, maybe, but our town had two restaurants that rose even slightly above fast food chains or Denny’s, and both of them could easily find cheaper labor than a “chef.”
We moved when I was 5 months pregnant - just 2 miles down the road. Without even having to worry about my husband finding a new job or me finding a new doctor/hospital, it was pretty stressful. Just the packing and unpacking was extremely difficult, and we have a pretty good support system here, with a lot of friends who helped us.
You should probably go ahead and start researching the move, especially if you’re definitely going to be going there eventually, but if it were me, I’d wait until a few months after the baby’s born to actually do it. YMMV.
I recently had to move when I was about 4 1/2 months pregnant, and it was even worse than a regular move. I had been having problems with bleeding and I wasn’t supposed to lift anything. Everyone knew this, but they still acted like total asses about it. Personally, I wouldn’t move anywhere without having a job lined up first. The baby isn’t going to care about living in an apartment.
I’d wait until after the baby. If you husband is a chef (as opposed to a cook) you might want to look in the want ads before you move there. Are there a lot of nice restaurants there? The “chef” thing would probably work better in Chicago.
Funny, the new baby we’re having (due in July) is exactly the reason I went looking for work elsewhere.
So, if you haven’t been keeping up on my life (shame!), I’ll be moving in a week to a small town in southeastern OH which will be A) cheaper and B) a better place to raise kids.
I favor taking action as soon as the decision is reached. When the kid arrives you’ll find that you have astonishingly less time for planning and execution than you thought you would.
So start looking for jobs in the town you wish to inhabit (and environs) then if one comes along bug out and move!
Good luck!
JC, please make sure your wife doesn’t have to worry too much about packing/unpacking and that she doesn’t feel in any way obligated to lift even one box. My husband was really great and, like I said, we had a lot of friends help us, but it was still extremely stressful. It was difficult for me to not pitch in at my usual level and, frankly, stuff wouldn’t have gotten done if I hadn’t ended up doing way more than I should have. IME, it’s more important to women - and especially pregnant women - that their homes are just right. My husband wouldn’t be stressed at all, 13 months since, if there were still a bunch of unpacked boxes piled up. Try to make sure you pitch in until the job is done to her level of expectation and not necessarily to yours. The nesting instinct can provide some very powerful feelings that would otherwise, for a non-pregnant woman, be more compromisable (is that a word?).