In which we leave Shadow Lake

I swore up and down that I would never end up here. Yet, somehow, at the age of 32, I have become a resident in the land of my foremothers… Texas. What’s wrong with Texas, you say, that I swore I would never live there? Mostly just that it was where my mother and grandmother (and great-grandmother) all originated, and for much of my life, we had very strained relations. So why would I want to live in the place they came from? Sorry Texas, I guess I was wrong.

I was extremely nervous about the move, leaving Nebraska, my home of nearly three decades, and coming to a place that I only recently started to like. It didn’t help that my first and only visit (just a year ago) had been in the heat of summer, and it was miserably hot. I told Honey Badger that if he was trying to convince me to move down to Texas, that he failed miserably. For context, my husband’s first home in the US was in Dallas, and he’s been trying to move back to Texas for years. He only came up to Nebraska to finish his master’s degree, and then met me, started working, had a baby, and somehow just got stuck up north longer than expected.

Well. I recant my distaste for Texas. Wow. It’s so beautiful and lush where we are. I cannot fully explain how at home I feel, and how everything just feels strangely familiar. Maybe because it vaguely reminds me of central Florida? Or maybe because it’s the land my family hails from. It doesn’t hurt that we have more opportunities here, in terms of employment, housing, and home birth.

In fact, those three things are what motivated us to move, as things in Nebraska are getting worse and worse. Property taxes (if you can even afford to buy a home at this point) are soaring, and the legislature is passing more bills to add to the burden. Childcare prices are some of the highest in the country. And of course, the legislature didn’t even bother to pull the midwifery bill out of select file for debate during this session, so the bill is effectively dead, and mothers still have no freedom to hire a midwife for an out of hospital birth. It’s tragic. For a state whose slogan is “The Good Life,” I’m just not seeing it. I love Nebraska, and I will probably always see myself as a Nebraskan, so seeing the decline of my home state is heartbreaking.

Moving to Texas in the face of the decline of my home state has been a relief. I’m sure Texas is not perfect, but right now, it’s a haven from the laws that were restricting our family.

In my last post I mentioned that we had been working on a project, but I never circled back to share about it. In that time, I managed to miss wishing everyone a Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and Happy Easter. Sorry about that. I’ve been chewing on this post for a while, but with the busyness of moving and settling in, blogging has fallen to the wayside. To be honest, I’m not sure if I’ll be putting out as many posts this year, as I anticipate being very busy, very soon.

Why’s that? What is this project that kept me so preoccupied all fall? I’ll tell you. We’re having a baby! This month! I can hardly even believe that we’re nearing the finish line.

This was a major reason for our move down to Texas, as the thought of undergoing another traumatic hospital birth was not one we could reconcile ourselves with, and while we were able to find a midwife to come to our home, I could not reconcile myself with intentionally putting her into a potentially dangerous legal situation. Nebraska just loves to prosecute midwives, and they’re even taking an 80-year-old midwife to court this year, poor gal.

I’m so incredibly grateful to God and to Teresa at Sancta Familia for being the hands of God, helping us to conceive and saving our baby from a threatened miscarriage at 7 weeks. The first two trimesters were very hard physically, and I’ve never experienced morning sickness on the level or for the length of time that I did. Then the week my morning sickness finally dissipated (14 weeks), I got sick with haemophilus influenza and was sick with it for an entire month, taking two rounds of antibiotics to clear it. Poor Little Lion also came down with strep and an ear infection during that same month.

Because this is my fifth pregnancy, I was filled with a lot of fear and anxiety, especially as we approached 12 weeks on October 20th, which was the anniversary of when we lost our last baby. This baby is due on the exact same date as our last baby, so 12 weeks fell on the same date. It was a lot for me, and Teresa was so kind to provide ultrasounds and reassurance. Despite my fear and anxiety, which really didn’t dissipate until recently, this whole pregnancy has felt very poetic, like a gift of redemption from the Creator.

Thankfully, since moving down to Texas, I haven’t had any health issues. Moving down was stressful; it was a lot of work, and it happened very fast, and I didn’t really want to go, but it has turned out to be such a blessing, and this last trimester has been the best. I couldn’t have imagined this for myself just a few months ago.

So, that’s my long-awaited update. Our special project is just about ready to launch. I’ll try to get in some more updates before then, but I can’t promise anything at this point.

Best wishes,

Sierra