Omg! We’re Moving … Eventually!

I’ve been meaning to write this post since we got back from holiday, so here it is – We’re moving to Pittsburgh!

Wow, I don’t even know where to start!  It’s such a huge thing over here in Casa Soldaat, this impending move.  It’s been in the making for quite some time and while it still doesn’t feel quite real yet, it’s actually happening!  I’m not sure when, that is all down to US immigration, but it is happening.  Holy crap!

Let’s start at the beginning.  It all started a few years ago when my husband got involved in robotics.  He came across a company and was using their stuff (I’m not going to be really technical here because I simply just have no idea what it all was, his robot talk often goes in one ear and out the other! haha).  Anyway, he found some issues in their code or something and sent them what I think was a somewhat strongly worded letter about it.

I know, how does this lead to us moving, right?  Well, the guys took it quite well and started communicating back and forth with him about their products.  Fast forward a few years and he had become more and more involved, really enjoying working with their stuff, helping out on their forums and eventually doing some freelance work for them in his spare time.  Robotics was his hobby, his happy place while he wasn’t particularly happy in his current day job.  He found himself just getting through the day, looking forward to when he could go home and do what he really enjoyed.

The topic of possibly moving to be nearer to them and work for them first came up a few years ago.  The topic fizzled because we were busy with the IVF over here and with our future so up in the air we couldn’t commit to anything. Also, having him work remotely from over here just wasn’t financially viable for the company.  Another issue was that we just weren’t sure how we felt about the idea of moving to the US.  So, he continued to do his freelance work for them while we went about our business over here.

As you all know, at the end of last year we made the decision to stop the fertility treatments and move on with our lives.  It was shortly after that when my husband approached me about going to Pittsburgh to visit the guys he has been working with.  He was really keen to meet them and chat face to face after all this time.  They offered to fly us over and show us around, which I thought was really cool.

Now, in my mind, this wasn’t really a big thing.  I thought it was just a meet and greet and a chance for them all to have a real life powwow.  I’ll blame all of the hormones, by that time I’m pretty sure all of the drugs still weren’t out of my system.  So when it was time to plan the trip, I knew we were going to Canada in the fall anyway, and we decided to combine the trips.  This was in January, and we made the plans for September.

Little by little, as we were discussing it, my husband told me that he thought the purpose of the trip was to get us to move to the US.  When he’d talk about it, I’d mentally wave my hand and have a “Yeah ok, whatever…” reaction.  If you are an expat, like me, you probably also have had a number of those near misses.  You know, where this possible job opportunity or family thing pops up where you MAY move someplace, you spend a few months freaking out about it and then it turns out to be nothing.

Sound familiar?  Well, we’ve had a few of those, so I didn’t really entertain it when he brought it up to me.  Once bitten, twice shy and all of that.  Not to mention we had just spent a few years in an incredibly stressful situation as we went through the process leading up to and going through the IVF, so I just wasn’t ready to deal.  All the shits I had to give to anything were already spent on that, so I spent the first few months in a rather annoyed state of denial about the whole thing.

By the spring I started realizing that this was actually quite serious.  I’d seen a few Skype and email conversations he had with the guys on the other side, and I could see that there was definitely more to it than I had thought.  I immediately started wishing we’d arranged to fly over there sooner, because patience was not my strong suit at that point.  We had already arranged a trip to the south of France to visit his family in late spring, and my family already organized their holidays for the fall, so we were locked in.  This is when the fun began, and by fun, I mean not fun… see above about lacking patience.

I realized that they were all waiting to talk face to face and I understood why.  It was not realistic for them to discuss the situation until they got a feel for each other in real life and saw if it was as good a fit as they all imagined it would be.  That didn’t stop me though.  I wanted answers, I wanted answers NOW.  Now being in March, April, May, June, July, August and early September.  While logically I knew all of the reasons why things weren’t being sorted out and organized ahead of time, the emotional side of me just couldn’t deal.

Remember, we were fresh off the back of many years of uncertainty as we were going through the fertility treatments, and part of stopping with that was so that we could settle down and move on with our lives without that kind of uncertainty constantly hanging over our heads.  So we basically stepped right out of one uncertain situation and into another, which I found extremely difficult to cope with. Probably because I was still hadn’t fully come to terms with the previous one.  I needed some sort of certainty and solid ground but I wasn’t finding any at that point and I found it really stressful.

My husband, on the other hand, was as cool as a cucumber.  He trusted the guys that they had his back, he was confident that it was all going to work out, that he was going to love them and they would hopefully feel the same, and that the move was going to happen.  Having met the team on the other side now, I can understand why as they really are an incredible group of people and I can see why he had so much faith in them.  I just had no way of really knowing that for myself beforehand, so I worried endlessly.

September just could not get here quickly enough. I don’t think I’ve ever wished a summer away so much in my life… but it finally came.  We were on our way and I would soon have answers. Certainty. I could calm the heck down and make a plan one way or another. YES!

This is where it gets really great!  We LOVED Pittsburgh!  The city was beautiful, the people were so incredibly friendly, and best of all, the people at the company were, I think, even better that we’d hoped.  Xander already thought they were the bees knees but I think they even surpassed his expectations.  We met mostly everyone who worked there, hung out with different people every day, we got to meet the wives and families and just had such a great time.  As I was sitting at a BBQ one evening watching him chatting excitedly with the guys, as I laughed and chatted with the wives, I realized two things…

1) My husband had found his tribe.
2) This was really happening.

We spent four nights in Pittsburgh where the team went all out showing us around and successfully getting us to fall in love with the place.  We jokingly call it “The Grand Seduction” because I had just watched the movie with that title on the plane on the way over and it became a bit of a joke with us,because they really went all out.  Great movie, by the way, let’s have a look at the trailer.

A few of the guys from the company were tasked with showing us around.  They would pick us up in the morning, take us for breakfast, show us around, meet up for lunch, do a prisoner exchange, someone else would show us around for the afternoon, out for dinner, something else in the evening. We were staying in the most beautiful apartment and were only there to sleep, shower and laze around for a few hours in the morning before they picked us up.  We are such early risers and together with the jet lag, we were usually up between 4am and 5am. It really was an action packed five days and we loved it so much and really appreciated their efforts.  They made sure we got a good idea of what the city and the surroundings are like as well as spending time with them and their families to understand what they and the company are all about.

Here is the itinerary they gave us for while we were there. When I first saw it I thought “HA! Yeah, there’s no way they are fitting all of that in!” but they totally did!

Awesome, right?

It was wonderful and I will post later about the different days with photos and everything else. This post is more about the move itself and everything leading up to it, and my wigging out, of course! What would a Canadutch post be without me being a totally neurotic nutbag.

When we left Pittsburgh we had an agreement that it would all happen quite quickly.  On first glance the visa process seemed like it would be quite easy, so the plan was for us to basically come back here, sort things out and go back right away… leaving the Netherlands this month.   Great!  I had a plan. I knew what was happening, I went straight into the planning and organizing and was as happy as a lark that I knew what was what.

Only, not so much…

Turns out the visa process is going to be more complicated than we thought. The type of visa we had initially planned on isn’t possible so it’s going to be a much longer process.  So it looks like we will have at least 6 to 12 months before we are actually able to move.  It was a pity, as I’d cut my trip to Canada in half to get back here to organize everything, but in hindsight we were probably naive in thinking it was going to be that easy.

So, on the one hand it sucks, because I’d geared myself up to get up and get out of here right away, settle in Pittsburgh, spend Christmas with my family before going there, etc but on the other hand, it’s a relief to have the extra time.  To think that if our initial plan had gone through, we’d already be out of here, whew… that would have been cutting it tight.  Now we can get things sorted in the house to get it on the market, we have time to get to some of the places in Europe we planned to see, and a lot of other things.

It does add more uncertainty, like when will we be moving? When should we put the house on the market? Were do we go if it sells? Will we be moving in the spring, in the fall?  What if neither of those work out and we’re here for ages?   So many unanswered questions, which I still don’t deal with that well, but it’s not as bad as the time running up to our trip.  I think mainly because, like Xander, I now have total faith in the guys in Pittsburgh and that helps puts my mind at ease.  They have been amazing through this whole process and have reassured us that the visa hiccup isn’t going to change anything.  They are in it for the long haul just like we are and it will all work out in the end.

He started officially working for them on December 1st and will work remotely from here until our visa goes through.  We renovated our spare room into an office for him (a post on that will come at some point too) and he is all set up to work in there.  I have never seen him so happy.  He is doing what he loves as a job now and the change in his general mood has been drastic.  Rather than doing what he knows how to do to pay the bills, he’s doing what he LOVES, for a company he loves and feels invested in.  The difference that has made in him is already noticeable and it makes me incredibly happy too.

That’s where things stand now.  My husband is working remotely from home, we are fixing up a few things in our flat to get it on the market in the new year, we’re planning a few trips to places we really want to see before we go and waiting to see what happens with the visa process.

Earlier I mentioned that early on when the move was first brought up we weren’t sure how we felt about moving to the US. Well, that’s still a bit of a concern, if I’m honest.  I think mostly because of a fear of the unknown.  When most of the info you get is from the news, Facebook and stuff like that, there’s a definite fear in regards to the health care situation, crime and other things you hear about happening in the US.  I won’t lie, when I first started thinking about it I had all these (irrational?) fears about things like needing an operation and going bankrupt, going to the mall and getting shot, getting sued over some stupid thing I didn’t even know I could get sued for.  I admit, having only ever lived in Canada and Europe, these were the things that first came to mind when I thought about moving to the US.  I realize that it’s the same as someone thinking that moving to the Netherlands means you are going to smoke pot and bang hookers every day, so I remind myself that not all is as it seems in the media.

There was one funny morning where I decided to start reading Pittsburgh news and the top three headlines were about shootings. So I stopped doing that.

In the end we had to make a choice.  Is moving to the US risky?  ANY move is risky.  There is always the chance that something unforeseen is going to happen, that you won’t like the place you move to (HELLO, first five years I was in the Netherlands!), or whatever… but we can’t let that stand in our way.  Even though I hated the Netherlands with the fire of a thousand suns for the first few years I lived here, I don’t regret coming here for a second.  I saw amazing places, met amazing people, and I grew a lot as a person. It changed who I was dramatically and caused me to have a more open mind and see the world through a broader scope.  How could I regret that?

We are still young and when we made the choice to stop the IVF a part of that was so that we could move on with our lives and have adventures with just the two of us.  What is a bigger adventure than changing careers and moving to a new country?   We would be insane to pass up this chance.

Plus, I haven’t even gotten into the topic of living life in English again and how great it will be to get the subtleties of life back.  In all honesty, I won’t miss the Dutch language for a second. Not a single second.  I will miss the Netherlands, for sure.  I already get pangs when I look around me and realize I will be leaving this amazing city I live in, but the language?  Oh hell, no!

Well, that’s the big news.  You probably read it on Facebook already but one of my overly wordy overshare posts was in order for this, I think.   Now, we wait!  In the meantime I will try to get back with some posts with photos from the trip, because it was awesome.

OMG, I am leaving the Netherlands, can you believe it?!!  It still doesn’t seem real.

Also?  I think I may need to rename my blog.