Back in the US

May 20, 2009

Well, a lot has happened in the last few months. We have moved back to the US as of about three weeks ago. When we originally moved to Mexico it was with the plan to stay one year. After a year and a half, we decided that we needed to move back to the US, though the decision was not an easy one to come by.

Reasons why we had to come back

1. I'm pregnant (due end of October) and we wanted to take advantage of free childcare in the form of grandparents. Plus, hubby grew up with his grandparents in another country and he was only able to see them during his visits to Europe in the summer. He wanted his kid to live closer to his grandparents and see them often so they would have a closer relationship than he had with his.
2. Because I have friends with kids in the US, I started to realize that the tests and medical care that I was receiving as a pregnant lady in Mexico were not the same as the tests and care my friends in the US were receiving and I guess I sort of panicked and wanted to be sure that everything was being checked. Also- hubby was tired of me having to translate everything the doctor said and was terrified that something would happen to me and he wouldn't be able to understand what was happening. (I had a girlfriend on standby to help with translation during labor and stuff, but he just felt more comfortable being in an English-speaking country).
   
3. Though we were able to run our business from Mexico, we were not able to make the kind of income we were making in the States and so we were not saving as much. We didn't dip into savings, but we didn't create any additional savings either. This could be because we weren't working as much (by choice) or because it's harder to land small bread and butter jobs when you can't meet with people face to face. It's odd, a company is happy to spend $40k without seeing you, but if they're going to spend $5k they want to see you 15 times.
   
4. The Swine Flu was making lots of news and though Quintana Roo claims not to have any cases of it, there are lots of Americans who contracted it on trips to QR, so someone isn't telling the truth. It's very bad for pregnant women to have any fever, let alone a severe one, and once you have symptoms they don't want to let you back in the US. We decided it would be better to have swine flu in the US.
   

So basically, it was time to leave. Our friends in Playa have bet that we will only make it one winter here, and they may be right. We certainly loved living in Mexico. I finally got fluent in Spanish and had a dream in Spanish and Hans got involved in mapping some of the cave systems. We've already decided that if they kid is an "easy" kid we'll be back some time in the near future.

I won't be updating this blog anymore, since it's about living in Mexico, not New Jersey. I haven't decided if I'll do another blog right now. I'm enjoying connecting over Facebook, which is alot easier than coming up with something interesting to write! So, thanks for reading and good luck in your travels and your life.