I bought my first house when I was 24. My father is a REALTOR and encouraged me to buy an affordable house instead of renting (we have very affordable, beautiful homes here in Western NY. (Yes, that is a plug. We’re one of the best kept secrets in the country). I was in a serious relationship with my now husband, and we had decided to move in together. We knew we would get married, but I bought the house and put it in my name. We both agreed that was the best thing to do. It was an exciting venture- house hunting. We looked for about a month, and one day on a whim decided to go to an open house. We hadn’t planned on looking in that neighborhood and the house needed a little sprucing up on the outside, but we said, what the heck and went in. Upon walking in the front door, each of us looked right and then left and then at each other; we knew we had found our first home.

We were very excited. I have always been into decorating and design, and this was my first opportunity to really get creative. I had an entire house! It took us three months to close so I had a lot of time to plan and shop. I was living with my parents and saving money. The house was great but it had been a bachelor pad for 20+ years. The walls were all white and I could not wait to paint and decorate. It was a 2 bedroom cape that had the best floor plan. We had a lot of wonderful parties and get-togethers there. We got engaged in the foyer and after our wedding we held a brunch in the back yard. When we decided to try having kids, I got the itch to find a new house. I mentioned it to AJ but wasn’t actively looking. I happened to show my clients a house about a mile away and thought it was worth bringing AJ through. It had 4 bedrooms and a big yard and it was a nice center entrance colonial. It needed ALOT of work, but it was affordable for us. We decided to put in an offer; it went through, and we sold our little cape. We were moving on to a new part of our lives together. We were planning to have a family, and it was a great house for that. All of the bedrooms were a good size. It had a really nice rec room. And the yard was big and private.

Shortly after purchasing the second home we found out I had PCOS. The entire time we lived in the colonial we were going through infertility. Often times that house felt like a prison, and I longed for my little cape cod where life was simpler. We felt cheated because if we had known that we wouldn’t conceive or have a family when we wanted, we would never have moved. It turned out that the house, for all its perks, did not suit many of our needs and so we often talked (and argued) of moving again. Two years of owning the home and going through IF, we found a house for sale in a great neighborhood that was an Estate Sale. It was huge and had a pool and was near my family. We made a purchase offer subject to the sale of our colonial. Well, that was a fiasco. Our colonial didn’t sell after 3 months and we pulled out of the deal. It was just another disappointment in our lives. It was another thing that made us feel like failures. It was another thing we wanted to do but were unable to accomplish.

Another two years go by and we were in the midst of waiting for our son to come home. Finally one of the bedrooms was a baby’s room The irony is that while we were waiting for our son to come home we heard of a house that would be coming up for sale that had potential to be exactly what we were looking for. We wanted a 1920’s colonial (which are prevalent in our suburb) on a nice sized lot for a certain amount of money. This house fit the bill. It was amazing. It was a little smaller than we had anticipated, but it had natural gumwood trim and 10 foot ceilings and a phenomenal 1.3 acre lot, which is hard to come by in our town under a certain price range. It was the perfect house for us. It turns out that the sellers of the house had a 3 year old they adopted from China. It was a strange coincidence and encouraging for us to see their family as we waited for the call from our adoption agency.

Our house sold and the deal went through; all of this happened before Luv Bug came home. His arrival was 2 months later than expected. It was tough waiting ,but it worked out because I got to pack up most of the house before he came so I could focus on him when he arrived. Luv Bug only lived in that house 6 weeks, and when we moved, we painted is room exactly the same. We felt good about the move because our son would grow up in this new (and final) house; it was where we would become a family. It was a busy summer, but after the new house was cleaned and almost unpacked, I could easily say it felt more like a home than the second house ever did. It was thrilling.

It became clear that things had fallen into place for us. Dreams and goals had been realized. We were in a little bit of shock after all that we had been through. The funny thing is that from our house we can see that big house with the pool that we tried to purchase 2 years earlier. We can see it from our front living room window. We are so glad that house didn’t work out, and we found a house in the same neighborhood for ALOT less money!

The second house holds a lot of tough memories for me. It felt like cleansing my soul to be out of there and starting over. We had a great new house, our dream yard, and a beautiful son to fill the rooms. Finally things had come together. I truly learned to stop questioning things and know that everything happens for a reason.