My husband and I decided that the American dream wasn't for us and moved to Spain when I was 7 months pregnant

25.02.2024 - 12:19 / insider.com

Our dream of moving to Spain was almost a reality. A "For Sale" sign was firmly placed in our front yard, our visa applications had been approved, and we'd announced to just about everyone that we were moving to La Rioja, Spain, about 200 miles north of Madrid. The only thing left on our to-do list was to buy our one-way tickets.

But as fate would have it, when you decide to chase your dreams, inevitably, life happens. I woke up one morning, a few months before we were scheduled to move, and something felt different. I rummaged for one of the tests I'd kept hidden under the bathroom sink. Then, after the longest two minutes of my life, a faint plus sign slowly appeared. Or was it a minus sign? It wasn't clear, so I took one more test to make sure. And just like that, we were pregnant.

Not many people from the Midwest move to Spain. So when we decided to move abroad, we knew there would be many challenges to overcome. We had to sell everything including our house and our cars. Not to mention the paperwork alone was a nightmare. I mean, who actually knows how to request an FBI background check?

And of course, saying goodbye to family and friends was also difficult. But never in a million years, did I expect one of our challenges would be giving birth and raising a kid in Spain.

Growing up in Kansas, the American dream was simple: Graduate from college, find a good job, get married, buy a house, and start a family. We had checked off every box except one: starting a family. Yet somehow, we still felt unfulfilled.

Our days were repetitive. Go to work, come home, eat dinner while watching Netflix, and do it all over again. We knew something was missing. We thought if we checked off that final box and started a family, maybe our lives would be complete. Which was odd considering all of our friends with kids seemed to be even more stressed out.

But after three years of unsuccessfully trying to have a baby, we were tired. Tired of the monthly disappointment. Tired of living for the weekend and tired of just going through the motions. We knew that we needed to make a drastic change. So we decided to put starting a family on hold and pursue our other big dream. Moving to Spain.

That's why it was such a shock to find out that I was pregnant only months before our big move abroad. Nevertheless, on September 7, 2021, I boarded a one-way flight 7 months pregnant with nothing but four suitcases, two dogs, and my husband. Chasing your dreams is never easy, but neither is living with regrets.

I went through 28 hours of labor in a foreign country where I didn't speak the language. The entire first year of our son's life we had no idea what we were doing, and our family was 3,000 miles away. I couldn't just pick up the