Anyone who knows anything about Jesse or me knows that 2014 was a crazy year for us. We found out we were pregnant and due September 6th, I finally graduated with my RN and passed my boards, Jesse finished school, we had a baby and moved right after, Jesse started a new job, we sold our house in Sheldon and bought an acreage in Marshalltown. Craziness. Like all the life changes that people go through over the years, we did in one year. Jesse had started applying for jobs in March and we had hoped to move after I graduated in May. He applied for several different positions but nothing had panned out. When June rolled around we decided to put it on hold until the spring and just focus our efforts on fixing up our house and having a baby. At the end of July, he got a phone call from DuPont in Nevada wanting to set up an interview. He wasn’t super excited about the idea of changing jobs so close to my due date but I told him that it could be an amazing opportunity for us and a chance for us to move closer to family. Even after he interview, things we still kind of up in the air. We didn’t know what the pay or the benefits would be like and they wanted to hire him as an operator and, at the time, that was a step back for him. By the time he heard back at the end of August, we barely had enough time to give a 2 weeks notice. They wanted him to start September 15thand they would pay him more than what he was making with AGP. He accepted the position and the next couple weeks flew by. My due date came and went and I was induced Tuesday the 9th. I had Evelyn at 10:20 on Wednesday the 10th, she was life-flighted to the NICU in Sioux Falls, SD, we spent 5 days with her there, came home Sunday and moved Monday. Jesse left for his first day of work at like 4 AM that morning and I was on my own packing up the few things we would need for the next week or so, the dogs, the baby, the kennels, and the bedside dresser with our gun safe. What would normally be a 4-4.5 hour drive ended up being closer to 6 or 7 hours by the time we stopped to eat and let the dogs out to go potty and I almost ran out of gas. Then once we got there, all the cooking, cleaning, nighttime feedings and diaper changes, unpacking and organizing all fell on me because Jesse had just started a new job. The bedroom had enough room but it was a lot like living in a one-bedroom apartment with no furniture. As if on cue, every time I tried to start dinner, Evelyn would decide it was time for her to eat too and Jesse would come home from a long day frustrated that dinner wasn’t ready. We’ve never really been able to have a routine with his schedule and mine and adding a baby to that mix was a hot mess. Plus, I couldn’t take my ADHD meds, I left the house a lot to go visit family and friends (since they couldn’t really come visit me), and I just had a hard time getting into the swing of things.
At the beginning of my pregnancy with Ian, I was most looking forward to things being different this time around. We would have our own space, he wouldn’t be just starting a new job so we would have time at home together, our families and friends would be able to come visit us in the hospital since we wouldn’t be so far away. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have counted my chickens before they hatched.
Jesse has been actively looking for a new job for about a year now and they’ve either turned him down or not been able to pay him enough o make it worth leaving DuPont. He’s applied for a promotion 3 times and DuPont has turned him down. The plant is 2 years behind production and about double over their budget. They have until the end of the year to prove that they are capable of producing ethanol or the plant will shut down. There’s a lot of political drama and favoritism type things happening to the point that he hates his job. The schedule has been pretty hard on us too, especially lately. As much as Jesse never cared for having company over before, it’s even worse now. His time off is so precious to him and he’s either stressed about trying to complete projects at home or stressed about spending quality time with Evelyn while she’s still an only child. With living close to the friends he grew up with and his family, he’s not at all interested in making new friends, especially not with anyone from church. That was the one thing that was nice about when we were in Sheldon – at least we had the Keiths that both of us could be friends with. We have a couple friends that are couples that we are both friends with but they don’t really live close enough for us to hang out with them regularly and, because of his schedule, it’s hard for us to make time to see them.
I want him to be happy. I want him to have a job that he likes where he feels appreciated and valued and we haven’t been able to find anything. I’ve been praying that he would be able to find something, but after this last job interview didn’t work out, I wondered if I had been praying for the wrong thing. I wondered if this is a learning experience for him to be able to be patient with people he doesn’t like or if there was something else out there that we just needed to wait for it to come to us. I changed my prayer that I would be able to know what to pray for. Not long after, he told me he was thinking about changing careers – looking for a position in safety instead of in operations. I felt really good about this. I felt like that could be my answer. He started looking for positions but he hasn’t found any postings or the ones that are posted require a bachelor’s degree.
Last week out of the blue, he got an email from a company called ICM wanting to know if he was interested in one of the positions they had open. They have the technology that DuPont is trying to patent. They develop ethanol and several other types of processing plants, get them up and running and then sell the technology. Jesse is really excited about the opportunity but his only concern is the location. Their pilot plant that they have the openings at is in St. Joseph, Missouri. It’s 3.5 hours away.
I have such mixed feelings about this. This could be a really great opportunity for us! The church is stronger there, the closest temple is only an hour away (versus the 3 hours it is now), we would both have to start over which means we might have a better chance of making mutual friends together, and he’d have more opportunities to grow within this company, the benefits are way better (which means we would have less health care costs), and their plant is already up and running so he wouldn’t have the stress of potentially losing his job. On the same hand, we JUST moved back closer to family, I have a job I LOVE, I’m making friends, Evie loves her daycare, I’m finally comfortable in my own skin, and I really do not want to move right before or right after having a baby AGAIN, and trying to manage two kids (including a brand new baby) plus all the moving/unpacking/organizing by myself. I’ve been praying that if this is the right thing for us that things will fall into place and that I will be able to be at peace either way. I just feel so unsettled! I know that everything will work out the way it’s supposed to but I just can’t seem to settle my thoughts.
