Building our first home pt. 2
If you’re new here, I’m putting together a 4-part series on our build journey! Click here if you want to check out part one before you dive into this one.
So, we left off with us putting the sold sticker over our lot sign and just feeling incredibly blessed. After that day [Sept. 17, 2021], we had quite a bit of paperwork to read, sign, and submit so that part wasn’t the most fun. However, we were doing that work for such an exciting reason that it made it all worth it! My husband worked full time outside of the house at the time, and when I say full time… I mean everyday between his regular teaching job, rehearsals, gigs, church, etc. I was fortunate to mostly be home since all of my work is right on my computer, so I took on most of the paperwork responsibilities. When he was off and at home… I wanted all of his time lol.
It was really overwhelming and I didn’t realize it until I started experiencing burnout. We only had about 2 weeks to wrap up all of our work, get all of these things signed, and pack before going on a 2-week Europe trip for my 30th birthday. Needless to say, it all got done, but I was exhausted! Right before our trip, we found out I was pregnant and that was a total surprise. This is something I’ll hopefully be able to talk about more in the future, but in the second week of November, we found out that we lost the baby. It was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced in my entire life; I honestly don’t think anything worse has ever happened to me and it makes me sad that the majority of women have either experienced loss or will at some point.
As we were grieving our tremendous loss, we got a sliver of good news: they broke ground and started on our house. It was honestly the first time I left my bedroom and had the willpower to do anything other than lay down, so the update came right on time. Needless to say, it was very hard but it did give us a sense of hope for a new beginning and we’re so grateful for that. We weren’t scheduled for groundbreaking until the end of December because of how long permits were taking, so the fact that we were about 45 days ahead was such a blessing. If you’ve gone through the build process, then you know it can be lengthy!
I know this may not look like much, but it was enough to get us excited for the future of our family. We walked around, prayed, and talked about all of the things we were going to do here. One of the things I prayed for was the ability to grow our family and we’re so grateful our prayer was answered.
We decided to spend Thanksgiving in town and went to Universal for the day to get our minds off of things. The original plan was to do a gender reveal for the family on Thanksgiving day, so still being present in the festivities was too difficult and we thought it was best not to. Of course, every choice you make is always faced with criticism and sometimes it seems impossible to escape that, even when you’re in the most difficult season of your life… but that’s what makes life what it is. Let’s just say, this was a great decision. Micah had an amazing time at the park and we ate dinner at my best friend’s grandmother’s house which happens to be right by our new house!
You already know we had to stop in and check on our lot. We were so happy to see more progress! One thing about the construction workers and their managers… they were NOT playing around with the timeline. Unless there was a delay that was out of their hands, they were working! Yes, even on Thanksgiving day lol.
By December 3, our foundation was prepped and by December 16, our foundation was poured! It’s crazy to be sitting in my office now and looking at this picture. We were told that until drywall went up, the house would seem tiny and they weren’t lying lol. I was having a hard time seeing how this slab was our entire house and now it takes me forever just to clean the downstairs floors!
We ended 2021 on such a high note when we stopped by the house and saw that the blocks were done! The picture below was taken on December 29, 2021. We did a whole lot of praying over this house and it was truly a gift from God. The opportunities put in front of us at the right time were 100% part of God’s plan for our lives and we are forever grateful. We experienced two very necessary rejections from the homes we thought were meant for us and what we received instead is beyond what we could’ve asked for or imagined.
I’ll end part 2 with this:
Whenever you think (or others tell you) that something isn’t for you or you don’t deserve something of a certain magnitude, ask God first. What He says you deserve, you will absolutely receive. He will let you know and will show you His plan for you. It may not happen in the most obvious way or in the timeframe we’d like it to, but trust me when I say that when you align your heart with His, it’ll happen.
