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Ellie’s Pregnancy Journey Part 5: Moving-In Together

ellies pregnancy journey moving in together

In my previous post, I wrote about juggling life as a pregnant woman and my studies. In January this year, me and my partner decided to move-in together. We both thought that it would probably be best for us to live in London, as both of us were studying in the capital at the time. Plus, my partner also worked in London, so it would be easier for everyone if we both lived there.

This especially helped me with university, as I was a lot closer to the campus. It still took me roughly an hour to get to there, but it was so much cheaper, because the place that we live at is in a London zone, therefore you aren’t charged as much for travelling in the subway between the zones. This was great help since we were trying to save money before the little one arrived. It was also good for my studies because I wasn’t greatly limited with regards to the amount of hours I could stay at the university. Before, I frequently had trouble with cancelled trains, so I’d end up leaving university earlier to avoid getting stuck coming home. It helped a lot with my stress levels as well, because of that extra study time and not having to worry about getting stuck in London.

This was the first time I had ever moved in my entire life.  I didn’t even move to university before, partially because I didn’t want to leave my mom at home alone and partially because I didn’t want to be in as much debt when finishing university. However, my grandparents now live in the same area as my mother, so this changed things a lot, as I knew that she’d have more family close by. I also knew that I wasn’t able to stay there anymore, especially with a baby on the way, and I was very excited about moving-in with my partner.

My mom also told me that it is always best to move-in as soon as we can before the baby arrives. She told me about her story of when she was pregnant with me. She only moved-in with my father two weeks before her due date, and she said it did work out, but not as much as she would have liked it to. Plus, she felt like there was too much stress moving-in together just before having a baby, as you don’t know each other as well. Therefore, she told me the best thing to do was to move-in together as soon as we could.

When me and my partner were looking for an apartment, we decided to look for a two-bedroom place because, naturally, we’d need a room for the baby. We looked at a couple of places and decided on the one we liked the best. Both of our families helped us get a few bits and bobs for the flat, so we didn’t have to fork out as much.

There wasn’t actually too much stress when we moved in-together. I think this was more because we didn’t have too much to move, as we rented our apartment already furnished. The only thing I couldn’t do was bring all of my belongings with me, because there wasn’t and still isn’t enough room in the apartment for all of my things.

We coped okay with moving-in together quite quickly, but we did have a few bumps along the way, like most couples. This was mainly because of my pregnancy hormones, which can be out of control at times. I could either cry at anything or just get frustrated for no reason at all. I remember one night especially because I actually started crying over meatballs and spaghetti! I honestly do not know why I did, but I can safely say I have never quite felt as silly as I did then. My pregnancy hormones also made me awfully cranky half of the time, which was not fun for me or my partner. It’s safe to say he had to put up with a lot of attitude from me throughout my pregnancy but, thankfully, he understood what I was going through. It was really nice to feel that I had someone who understood what my body was going through.

As my partner’s mother and brother also lived in London, they decided a few weeks after we had moved-in that they would like to move close to us. So, a couple of months passed and they now live just down the road from us. My partner’s mom wanted to be closer to us, so she can see her grandchild more, and she wanted to be there to help us out with the baby after he/she was born.

Read how the story continues here.

Ellie Style
Ellie-Louise Style has just finished her Master's degree in Broadcast Journalism at City, University of London. She is a new mum to her three-week-old daughter. She currently lives in London with her fiancé, and enjoys writing about her pregnancy and parenting experiences.

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