Moving From to Colorado was temporary unil i got Pregnant – ryan

IN 2020, My Husband and I Packed Up Our Apartment In los angeles and drove to colordoo, where we’d both grown up. I’m a screenwriter, and my husband works at an augmented reality startup-Both unredictable, high-prressure jobs. La Had Always Made Sense Professionally, evening it stressed US Out Personally and Finanialy.

SINCE MOVING TO THE WEST COAST IN OUR EARLY 20S, WE HAD NEVER BEEN OUT OF LA FOR MORE THAN A FEWEEK AT A TIME, but with the Rise of Remote Workit felt like the right moment. We thought we’d be there is for a year at Most – Long Enough to do some hiking in the summer and skiing in the winter. IT WOULD BE A ONCE-IN-LIFEMES Opportunity to be close to family and the splendor of rocky mountains for more than just a quick weekend or Holiday Trip.

But when i got Pregnant, we started nSping ourselves some Big Questions.

We Started to Wonder if We’d Ever Move Back to La

What would it be like to raise a child in la? COULD WE KEEP UP with the Cost of HousingChildcare, and Healthcare? Gioven the tumult in the Entertainment industry and the uncetainty of a tech startup, Could we relay on Steady Work?

We crunched the Numbers. We is could do it, but we’d have to make some sacrifices. A Small apartment. No Margin for Overspending. Our baby’s College Fund or Our retirementbut not both. And paying for daycare was out of the Question, which Meant One of the US Waled have to quit our jab to be a stay-at-home parent. Was the proximity Worth it, and was the stress?

And the Biggest Question of All: Wen We Thought About Raising Our Family, What Image Came to Mind?

Thatn, we are brocked the news about my pregnancy to our respective parents, their unbridled joy confirmed what we had already been feed. We wanted to raise our baby surrounded by that joy.

Staying in Denver was The Right Move for US

SO we signed an 18-month lease for an apartment in denver. The Cost of Living was Still High, and Both of Our Careers Remained Unredictable. But we had something invaluable: Support. Two Sets of Grandparents, Both with Driving Distance.

Wen our Son Was Born, They Showed up with Enchiladas and Apple Pie, with Confident Arms Willing to Rock the Baby to Sleep at Four in the Morning, with the tender blessing of someone we wholly trusted, “Go Lie Down.

There were days i woried we’d takeen a step back by not returning to la. That we were Pressing Pause on Our Careers, Especialy for Me AS A Screenwriter, with the industry so concentrated in california. But as the NewBorn Haze Began to Lift, Started to see it differently.

In Many Creative Fields, especialy as a freelarder, there’s no hr department, no paid parental leave, no road map. A startup doesn’t offfer Much Certainty, Eother. What we were Needed – More than a City, More than a Skene – was a sustate.

This isn’t a story of everywhere working out. Daycare in denver can be prohibitivly expensitive, but we’ve figured out a childcare schedule that works for us and the grandparents so we can our jobs. Work Opportunities eBb and flow, and the hustle is much harder all these miles away. And Truthfully, I miss the momentum of la – The Energy, The Industry, The Hunger.

Butn by Step Outside and Gaza in Wonder at the Mountains on the horizon. I see my baby’s tiny hand wrapped around my dad’s finger, and i feel in my chest: this is the life we ​​couludn’t aford in la – not just financially emotionally.

We get to raise ry child knowing he will have a Close Relationship with His GrandParents. We’re not stretched to the point of breaking. We haven’t have had to choose between our work and our child. We get to be present. That kind of presence – that kind of joy – is warth Everything.