Half a Home

So there we were, 5 months pregnant, broke as a joke, with no clue as to what we were doing.  We were learning how to be a married couple, and at the same dealing with the stress of a lawsuit, a baby on the way, and my obsession with the need to buy a house before I went in to labor.  That summer, we took a trip with my family to the Dominican Republic where I discovered the meaning of pregnancy brain.  I managed to lose a $100 bill, and later in the week, an entire bag of souvenirs that I had purchased earlier in the day.  (Both were eventually recovered).     

When we returned from our trip, we hit the ground running with house hunting and decided pretty quickly that we really couldn't afford anything decent inside the city limits.  We looked at 3 or 4 houses before we finally found a brand new construction waaaaay outside the city limits.  It was situated on a lot that was basically forgotten about, so the builder decided to squeeze a house in there.  It made for a humorous address:  934 1/2 Jordan Circle.  Yep, we were 1/2 of a home (literally - the space was 990 square feet), but boy did I fall in love with it, despite Matt's 45 minute commute to work.  There's just something about your first home and the place where you bring your first child home. 

We moved in to our new digs in the heat of August, less than 2 months before my due date.  The day before we moved, I was out on our apartment deck spray painting a bathroom wall shelf when I unknowingly disturbed a nest of wasps (note: wasps do NOT like spray paint).  Painful experience and did not help my already paralyzing fear of all flying insects.  That night, Matt and I decided to spend the first night in our new house on the floor (since the actual move wasn't until the next day).  That was a fun evening!  Matt hung curtains while I forced him to listen to Nick Lachey's new album (I think he secretly liked it), and I learned just how hard our new floor was.  The next day was grueling.  Lots of sweat in the 100 degree August weather, but we got all of our stuff into that tiny house even though it left us barely enough room to walk.  At least we had our bed put together though!  I'll never forget how good our bed felt as we climbed in to it that night.  We said goodnight, turned out the lights, and as we drifted off to sleep, everything came crashing down.  Literally.  Our bed collapsed.  Apparently the movers failed to put all of the support rails in place.  Either that, or I was just entirely too pregnant.   

We decorated Braxton's room in a couple of different shades of blue with a chair rail and our wedding-gift crib.  It was beautiful.  I remember sitting in the rocking chair in his nursery while he was still in my belly, listening to the quiet and longing to hold him in my arms.  And swelling.  Ooooh, the swelling.  If I had only known then what I know now, I would have done a LOT more sleeping during those last few weeks of pregnancy.  I had no idea what awaited me...