Expect the unexpected

I have kind of adopted this as the Snow family motto.  It seems we have gone through quite a few significant life changes in the last two or three years, some of them not exactly what we had planned.

First we left everything behind- our house, friends, job, income- to go back to school.  Yeah, we planned that one, but it was scary nonetheless.  It turned out to be one of the best decisions we've made, so that worked out well.

Then came Rebecca.  We were sort of half-a$$ed trying to get pregnant at the time, but totally weren't expecting it to work as quickly as it did after struggling for nearly two years to have Sadie.  We were pretty stunned to be having another baby only 20 months after Sades, but of course now we wouldn't have it any other way.  Becca is the cutest, sweetest little girl and was definitely meant to be in our family.

When Paul started B-school, he wasn't completely sure what he wanted to do afterwards.  He originally thought that he'd like to go back into consulting, but after his first semester of school he pretty much decided that wasn't the path for him.  It took a long time for him to really pin down what he wanted, but eventually he decided to focus on the technology sector.  Unfortunately for us, that meant a much more non-traditional recruiting process.  While most of his classmates were accepting their full-time offers in the fall and early winter/spring of 2010, Paul continued to interview until the bitter end.  It wasn't until about a month before graduation that we finally had his offer letter in hand and knew where we would be moving to once school was over.  It was a pretty tense time, and I was nervous about the future.  But Paul refused to compromise and eventually landed his dream job at his dream company.  And that meant a move to California- a place I never in a million years expected to end up.

So we packed up and made the looooong drive from New Hampshire to San Francisco in June of last year.  We really loved it there.  The city is amazing; it has such a great vibe, great places to visit, great restaurants, beautiful scenery, you name it.  We made great friends, Ethan started kindergarten and was thriving, Paul was excelling at work.  Until one day he came home and told me that his current position was being eliminated.  He still had a job, but he would have to find a new project, either within YouTube or over at Google.  A couple days later, he told me about an opportunity he had to join a new, up-and-coming YouTube team down in Los Angeles that would work on film and television partnerships.  He was really excited about it, but I was not.  I didn't want to leave SF; frankly, I've never been a huge fan of Southern California and was worried about finding a good place to live with good schools, etc.  I prayed and prayed about what to do.  Eventually I just came to the conclusion that I wanted to be where Paul was, that I would follow him to the ends of the earth because we belong together.  He really wanted this LA job, so we took the plunge.  Five months later, I still miss San Francisco.  But we are together and making the best of it; life goes on.

Which brings me to now.  Expect the unexpected once again.

Yes, that is an ultrasound picture of our fourth child, who is due at the end of November.  Never in my wildest dreams could I have predicted this.  There is most definitely divine intervention involved; I can't explain this child any other way.  We were not planning this.  We weren't even sure if we wanted another child, especially given the fact that it will mean my fourth c-section.  But apparently the choice was not ours to make, and here we are once again.  My heart is full of gratitude for this opportunity to bring life into the world one last time, to complete our family.

Who knows what other twists and turns await us, but we're looking forward to the ride!