Changes and Adaptation

There are always occasions when your life and lifestyle change. When you go from a regular easy pattern into something different. For instance, when you go from being a student to working full-time permanently for the first time, your life changes. You have more money coming in, but also more responsibility to others. When you go from being single to having a serious partner, you life changes. You probably do a lot of the same things you did whilst single, but with a partner there, your behaviour or frequency of attending might change.

This is one reason I think that moving to England just before having the baby is actually a good thing. Once the baby is born, life will change again. And from all accounts, this is a BIG CHANGE. Of course I realise this, but from everyone I talk to, it seems that it catches you by surprise none the less. Moving from Germany to England will be a big change too. But with both happening at once, I think that it will require less adapting than if they happened separately.

Let's look at some of the factors.

• I won't be working, at the very least for a few months. That would happen whether I was in England or Germany. It's less adjustment than would be required if we moved over when I wasn't pregnant.
• There will be a baby. Again, whether we live in Germany or England, that will require new behaviour and adaptation. I think it's better that we only have to settle into one routine, not first here in Germany and then a new one in England.
• We won't know many people when we first move to England. Well, most of our friends here in Munich live a pretty single lifestyle. Of course we do have friends with families here, but the majority are single or if partnered, childless. So once baby is here, we would probably be a bit isolated from our friends here too, needing to make more friends with families. So although this will be more extreme in England, it would affect us in Germany too. Maybe moving to England and not always being confronted with singleton friends doing things that aren't so easy to manage anymore will be a relief.

These are some of the things I've thought about and how we'll get by dealing with them. I hope that I'm looking at it fairly objectively, but it's hard to say right now. I guess it's just a post to let you know we have been thinking about it.