I think we can all agree, the last two years have been weird as heck. Isolating at home for so much of the time was less than ideal… UNLESS you were a newlywed.

My husband and I have had nothing but quality time together since the start of the pandemic. You’d think that would be a breeding ground for conflict, but I don’t think we’ve ever had a particularly serious argument. (To be fair, he does have Mennonite background, and Mennonites are known for their pacifism, so peacemaking is in his blood).

Instead I feel like we’ve grown so close and enjoyed a lot of shared activities together. During the thick of the pandemic, we were going on tons of walks and finding new parks and hikes whenever we were able. Eventually when things were settling down a bit that first summer, we started going to the gym together, (and let me tell you that is NOT something I would be doing had I been on my own). We would bake together, do puzzles together, go for long drives together, binge watch dozens of Netflix shows together. The first year of Covid will always be associated with the excitement of being married and living with my husband for the first time.

It feels crazy to say I feel nostalgic for that time. I mean, certainly to some degree I am looking through rose-coloured glasses. For starters, a ridiculous amount of our time during the early period was spent putting together our application for Canadian permanent residence for my husband. We were also initially living in a tiny, illegal one-room basement suite with almost no sunlight in it. We weren’t able to spend time with friends often, and when we did it was socially distanced in a parking lot where we would all sit in the back of our cars. We were far from family on both sides, and not encouraged to travel outside our community for non-essential purposes. Our honeymoon (which may have been taken in slight defiance of public guidelines… please don’t cancel me) was to the Rocky Mountains, which was BEAUTIFUL – except when we weren’t in our cabin, we couldn’t really do much, because the national parks were all shut down which meant we couldn’t really get out of our car other than to stop for fast food, groceries, or a bathroom break.

And yet, at the end of the day, we were happy. We were young and healthy, we were financially stable as I continued to be able to work from home. Sure, Pete couldn’t work, but he spent his time going mountain biking, cooking, and creating woodworking projects and building beautiful furniture for our home. Honestly, it was a simple and beautiful season.

When we got pregnant, things changed a bit. I should note – we weren’t expecting to get pregnant when we did. I switched birth control methods shortly before we decided we wouldn’t mind trying for a baby in the next year, but it wasn’t working well for my body and mental health, so we decided to stop it and let my body’s rhythms adjust to my natural cycle and prepare it for getting pregnant. In that time, I started taking prenatal vitamins. I was exercising and eating well – I lost twelve pounds, and I cut down to one coffee a day. I read “What to Expect Before You’re Expecting”. I was physically and mentally preparing to become pregnant, but absolutely did not expect it to happen anytime soon.

WHELP. God heard our prayers for a future baby and got to answering it fast. It was early November and we had just gone for a little romantic getaway in the mountains, arriving home from our trip right around dinner time. We planned to order takeout sushi for a quick supper, and on a whim I thought “there’s a teeny tiny chance I could be pregnant, which would make sushi a bad idea. Let’s take a pregnancy test.”

Let’s just say, we ended up eating Mexican food that night.

The great irony of this was that the rest of our marriage has largely been marked by waiting. When you are immigrating to a new country during a pandemic, it turns out typical processing times do not apply to you. So far, we have been waiting more than twice as long for my husband’s paperwork to arrive than we were told by an immigration consultant that we could expect. Subsequently, everything else has been depending on the slow process of his immigration paperwork – being able to qualify for medical coverage in Canada, being able to get a Canadian driver’s license and license plate, etc.. Honestly to this day, we’re waiting on a number of professional/government agencies that to provide us with various services, and it’s frustrating, but at least we’re well-practiced. We waited a long time before my in-laws were able to come visit us from Pennsylvania due to the closed borders. We’re still waiting to be able to cross over and go visit family down in the States. When I went into labour on a Monday in July, I really shouldn’t have been surprised that I wouldn’t be induced until Thursday (around 90 hours later), giving birth a week after my due date.

Getting pregnant, as it happened, did not require great patience or anticipation. To be honest, this was a conflicting thing, as I had loved ones at the time who had been struggling with infertility for a long time, so a quick conception early in our marriage felt very much undeserved. However, it was something we had been praying about, and trusting that it was God’s plan for us to have this baby. We were, without question, scared out of our minds. For the first while, I was second guessing a lot of things. I didn’t want to get too attached to the pregnancy in case something were to happen – and yet I was also so nervous about all the massive life changes coming up, that I regularly had to search “newborn pictures” on Pinterest to get myself psyched up for this baby.

My pregnancy itself was thankfully pretty uneventful. I was sore and nauseas and peeing nonstop, sure. But overall I was healthy. My husband and I were so close in that season, and he was about as loving and tender and generous as anyone could have asked. Say what you will about a man not being able to work, but I am so unbelievably blessed to have had him at home during the week to help take care of me.

Lucky for me that didn’t change once the baby was born. Our daughter, Arlea, is the most beloved little daddy’s girl you’ll meet. He is sweet and tender and honestly such a natural, especially for someone who really had no previous experience with babies. He still always looks for ways to serve me and bless me, whether it’s by bringing me snacks while I’m nursing, or running errands for us, or giving me times to rest and take a long shower, or a nap, or go for a drive to clear my head. He laments being unable to work and be the financial provider for us, but to be honest, right now in this season, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

As much as our pandemic experience has been filled with a lot more sweetness than it has for most, I am ready for the next season to begin. For now, we are living rent-free in my gracious and generous parents’ home, but we are ready to establish a family home for the three of us. I look forward to the normalcy of our own routine, particularly when Pete is able to work. I look forward to being a homemaker – old fashioned as it may be – who has a place of her own to take pride in. I am eager to decorate, and to make my space comfortable and hospitable, where I have full reign of the kitchen, and where we can grow a garden and take pride in our own food. I want my daughter to have her own bedroom, where we can paint her walls and set up her toys and give her a safe place that belongs to her.

But for now, we continue to practice patience. To live in each moment, in eager anticipation of what is yet to come.

God is good. God is Sovereign. God is on the throne and he has a perfect plan.

Hi! I’m Katelyn. I’m a twenty-something living in the Pacific Northwest in Canada; the wife of a servant-hearted, woodworking, bike-riding Pennsylvanian, and mama to a playful, chatty, sweet little ginger-haired baby girl.

I was inspired to start this blog because lately, my days have been starting early. My baby has been pushing her wake-up times back more and more. Rather than continuing to let her cry until 6am as I had been doing, I’ve thrown up my arms in surrender and have been getting up to settle her back down to sleep in my arms. This was easier to do when she was getting up at like, 5:30. But this week, it’s been closer to 5… and then 4:45… and now 4:15. So with these dark, early morning snuggles back to sleep, my mind has had a lot of time to think and wander. Since journaling isn’t as easy to do with a baby in your lap, I figured I’d download the WordPress app and give it a go. So voila! Now we’re here. Let me introduce myself and my family.

I grew up on an island on the west coast of Canada. I grew up with strong opinions and lots of deep thoughts, and I’m sure many of them will come across in this blog. I am from a pretty progressive city, and completed half of my education in a public university, so I absorbed a lot of the liberal worldview in that context. In general, my personal values have aligned with many more progressive views.

That being said, as a Bible-believing new mom, I can’t help but think critically about a lot of what society is trying to establish as the new normal. The momma bear in me looks at my tiny little baby’s growing mind, and is pushed a little further to the right of the spectrum in the name of protecting her from some of the broader cultural narratives in our world today. However, since the goal of this blog is not for me to be cancelled, I’m not going to get much more specific than that right now.

For my third year of post-secondary, I decided to switch from university into a private Christian college. I was feeling lonely in the sea of bodies that is a 25,000 person school, and I was longing for deeper connection, particularly after spending my summers working in a close community at a Christian camp. So I transferred into the counseling program at a small Bible college on the lower mainland of BC, and moved away from home for the first time.

In that context, I was challenged. My liberal worldview was challenged. My conservative theology was challenged. My selfish faith was challenged. I was challenged to grow in my leadership abilities. I was challenged by learning to live with strangers who quickly became friends.

There are definitely things I look back at from my Bible college experience and I can’t help but cringe, but overall, I think I grew tremendously during my time there. And, if it wasn’t for that college, I wouldn’t have met my husband.

No – I didn’t meet him at Bible college, as the old cliche would have you think. But the summer before my final year of studies, I was granted a full tuition scholarship in exchange for 8 weeks of volunteering for a Mennonite disaster relief organization on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.

I have so much I could say about my time there, but that’s deserves its own blog post. For now, I’ll tell you that it was the best summer of my life, and the place where I fell in love with the man I’d come to marry.

Pete had been attending college in Kansas at the time we met, so our first many months of dating were long distance. To be honest, I think every couple would benefit from the experience of a long distance relationship. It’s truly trial by fire. You’re forced to confront the mental, emotional and spiritual sides of your relationship rather than the physical. Our relationship became built around asking questions and talking about our lives and goals and hopes for the future. We had to be creative with “date” nights, whether that was watching Netflix together, or doing homework together, or me coming along in his earbud while he completed his evening campus lock-up job a few nights a week.

Once Pete graduated college, he decided to move out west to Washington state. There was a lot of things I didn’t love about the Fraser Valley, where I was living, but one of the best things was that there was a Washington border crossing just down the road. Pete ended up living with a couple from a small church who quickly took us in, and the drive from his house to mine was only 42 minutes. I think when we mapped it out, even though we crossed a country border, there were only like three turns total to get from one place to the other. It was pretty ideal, considering our situation.

Washington State might be the closest thing I’ve felt to home since I left home. Sometimes I second-guess why we decided BC was the right fit for us (Spoiler alert – it was proximity to family, socialized health care, and my well-paying job with benefits) when we both loved Washington so much. To be fair, environmentally the surroundings are much the same, but northwest Washington is far quainter, less densely populated, with expansive farmland, and a smaller community feel. We found new favourite hikes, craft breweries, coffee shops and brunch restaurants – heck, we were only an hour and a half from the closest Chick Fil-A. It was heaven.

That summer, as any young Christian couple does, we got engaged. It was on the one year anniversary of our first date in Pine Ridge, and Pete took me up to “my mountain” (Mt. Baker) and found the most beautiful spot to propose with the most beautiful solitaire diamond on a white gold band.

I often say that if I were on the outside looking in, I would roll my eyes with cynicism at the speed at which our relationship progressed. But my Nana used to always say to me, “When you know, you know!” and you know what? When I knew, I knew. Y’know?

The following months consisted of prepping for the wedding that wouldn’t be. Pete and I planned to marry in his home state in April of 2020, but the Lord and the coronavirus had other plans. When we heard murmurs of the border closing between the two countries, we determined he needed to book it up north in just the nick of time.

Soon after, we eloped in my aunt and uncle’s backyard on a rainy Saturday at the end of March. I certainly grieved the wedding we’d spent the previous months planning and dreaming about. Instead, we were celebrated intimately, with only 9 close family members, and a little brunch reception of waffles and mimosas. Honestly, unanticipated as it was, this was a pretty sweet way to enter into our new life together.

Since the start of our marriage, Pete hasn’t been allowed to work in Canada. This has meant my income has been what supported us. We spent a year and a half renting a basement suite, but two months into our baby’s life we moved back into my parents home so we could save money. Here in Canada we are blessed with long maternity leaves, so both Peter and I have been able to stay home with our girl and put away the money we’ve had coming in. This is a huge weight off our shoulders in a lot of ways – PLUS we have the support of my parents, who honestly are the most incredible grandparents that I could imagine for our little babe.

Our next steps remain unclear. We are essentially waiting for my husband to be granted permanent residence before we make any major decisions regarding our future. At this point, I’m supposed to return to work in July, shortly before my daughter is a year old, but I have the option to extend my maternity leave for six additional months of (unpaid) leave. At this point, I plan to do this. But will I go back after that?

On one hand, we live in a cool city with a lot of culture, surrounded by beauty, a temperate climate, and the majority of my family. To live here means we both have to work full time in order to afford the exorbitant cost of living, in addition to figuring out the expense of childcare while we are at work. Alternatively, we could look at moving elsewhere, where we could afford to buy a home, and I could stay home with our girl and any subsequent children we have. This is the more appealing option to both my husband and me, but it requires the huge sacrifice of leaving our family and community. Is it worth it?

So for now we wait, and we pray. We consider our options and stare cluelessly into the future. Will we move, or stay? Will I go back to work, or stay home? Will we wait a while before having more children, or try to keep a smaller age gap between our kids? Will we send our kids to public school, or school them from home? Will we live near a city with amenities and jobs, or will we move out of town to the countryside where my husband will be required to commute, and we will have the freedom to be a bit more self sufficient on a big piece of property?

All we know is that God is good. God is Sovereign. God is on the throne and he has a perfect plan.