Our Lives are Changing Yet Again

So I haven't been on in a while. Since my last posting, we are selling our home, moving out of state, and oh yeah, I may not be able to have more children.

What have you been up to?

I wish I was joking about all of that, but alas, this is the reality of the Ritchies. Where to start? Okay, how about with putting our house up for sale - the same house we bought 7 months ago. We really thought this was it - our first house and our last. We moved up here with all intentions of living quietly and normally, making pencil marks on the doorframe to measure Charlie's growth.

Well, turns out that's not going to happen. Before we left San Diego last year, Jason started up a business. I know - who starts a business and then moves out of state? Jason does!

We moved to San Diego to help Jason's parents find housing after Jason's dad had a stroke that left him paralyzed on his left side. One day, Jason's dad was a successful practicing criminal defense attorney, the next he was crippled and forced into retirement. He was 63. So his parents decided to move out of cold Michigan, away from all the memories and the what-could-have-beens, and move to a place where Jason's mom always wanted to live - sunny California. A much-needed fresh start. Jason got a teaching job at a community college down there, so the timing was perfect. Our editing jobs allow us to live anywhere we want, so we packed it all up and moved to San Diego.

We got there a few months before Andie and Clyde, which allowed us to find a ground floor condominium located on a golf course. But it wasn't handicapped-accessible. So Jason spent hours researching the equipment his father would need and went through the phone book to find people to install it. The entire time, he kept saying, "I wish we could hire people to do this for us."

Once his parents were settled and the waves of the crisis stilled, Jason thought about that question, and figured, "Well, I could be that person."

Jason now manages renovation projects for clients and their family members who need an universally-accessible home. There's a lot to what he does, and I won't get into it here, but the gist is, he determines what people need, hires the right contractors to do the job, and monitors it so it gets done right. The contractors generally do quality work, because if they don't, Jase won't work with them again. It's simple yet brilliant.

So he sort of started the business up, and then left town. He really didn't know if it would fly or not, and we wanted to get back to Seattle. He didn't have any idea what he created. The calls kept coming. And coming. And now his phone is constantly ringing and he's in Southern California at least once a week. It doesn't make sense to stay - not if we're going to give this a shot.

We tried to get a similar deal going in Seattle, but no one called us back. I'm not sure if they don't get what he does or what - but we sent out the same exact letters and brochures to the same type of client sources and you could hear the crickets chirping. I don't get it, but we can't afford to stay around and figure it out.

So yesterday, our house went on the market. Here's the listing. We've been busting to try to get it in shape. We had all the cabinets and bathrooms painted. We've replaced fixtures. We even installed a new kitchen floor - just me and Jason. And we ain't handy. But it turned out nice - we impressed ourselves. All the HGTV I watch is finally going to some good use.

Selling a home is stressful, even if you don't technically have to move. It was listed at 1pm yesterday and at 3pm I was talking to a very enthusiastic buyers agent telling me that this house was perfect for his clients and how would I like a quick sale? That was over 24 hours ago and we haven't heard from him, even though he and his clients were in our house for almost an hour looking at it. I feel like I was set up with a blind date, we had a great phone conversation, but when it came time to pick me up, he never showed. I'll have to check my cable bill for suspicious pay-per-view charges cuz if they aren't making an offer, they must have been watching free porn. God I hope they didn't go through my underwear drawer. Ew.

It's a total drag having to keep your house in magazine-shoot conditions at all hours of the day in case a buyer calls. Try doing that with a 2 and 1/2 year old. I'm a wreck. I follow Charlie around with a Clorox Santizing Wipe ready to erase any traces he leaves behind.

We're considering hightailing it out of here for a few weeks while the selling process goes on, staying instead at Jason's parents house. It'll be cozy, but Charlie loves it, as do I - Jason's mom captures all of Charlie's attention and vice versa, leaving me free to read Perez Hilton all day. And Jase will be able to get some work done without squeezing 20 appointments into one day, like he did today. He just landed - it's 10:46pm. He left the house at 5am. It's insanity.

So yeah, while this was going on, I got the results from the last miscarriage I had - lucky number 3 - and found out that I am a mutant. Well, I carry mutant genes - Factor V Leiden and MTHFR. Basically, my blood clots more than the average breeder and not enough blood gets to the fetus, leading to miscarriage. Oh, and I don't absorb folic acid and the other vitamin Bs. Did you know folic acid was in the vitamin B family? Oh, you did? Well science was never my forte.

How I ever even had Charlie is a huge mystery. Here's the real kicker about having these gene mutations - if I do get pregnant, the fetus could die at any time in the process - not just those magical first 12 weeks. So I'll spend those forty weeks in a quiet panic while I self-monitor every bump, kick, and nudge. Sign me up!

And the cherry on top? My big irrational fear, deep vein thrombosis, that I would joke about and obsess over every time I took a flight - not so irrational, turns out. Awesome.

I could try again - first by just taking baby aspirin and extra folic acid. Then when I have my next miscarriage (number 4!) they will bump me up to daily shots of this stuff and hope for the best. I can't think about any of it so all babymaking is on indefinite pause.

The whole thing has been devastating.

This year, I am moving, twice, across state lines. I've had two miscarriages. I found out I may never give Charlie a little brother or sister. But I've also helped start a successful business with my favorite person in the whole world. And I've kept my awesome job that allows me to be with Charlie all day long. So maybe it all balances out.

All I want is some peace. Maybe, once we sell this house (if we sell this house) and we settle in Southern California, I will be able to sit in the sunshine and feel stillness.

That's my hope, anyway.