As I begin to write this post, I realize that I should have saved the half-torn piece of paper we used to write down the pros and cons of moving to Costa Rica. Our whole life was decided on a piece of paper that looked like it should’ve been in the trash (well…the recycling of course). I believe our list was on the back of a discarded day care fact sheet that had been lying around in our house, half of it already consumed with other hastily scribbled notes. We had been shopping around for day cares and cultural au pair programs for Abey, to cut down on our childcare costs. This was, of course, before we found out we were pregnant.

Despite how expensive nannies are in D.C., with two children, it actually would have made more sense financially to keep our nanny, and increase her salary even (since she would’ve been taking care of two), rather than enrolling Abe in day care. The day cares we were interested in were all $3000+ per child per month. Getting an au pair would’ve been the cheapest option, however, Sam and I were both hesitant about having someone else live with us. This brings me to the first of the top six reasons we jotted down on that tattered piece of paper.

Reason # 1 – Cheap childcare

Reality – Childcare is indeed quite cheap in Costa Rica. The minimum wage here is approximately $3 per hour, which according to most people I have talked to, is what they pay their nannies (although some pay $4), compared to at least $17 per hour in D.C. By law, you are also required to pay an additional 5.18% of the established income (since their monthly salary would be under $1000) towards their CAJA health insurance, which is the Costa Rica’s public health care system, unless they are already covered under their spouse’s insurance.

Despite childcare being unbelievably cheap, we have not hired a nanny yet. With Sam’s income, fulltime childcare is not affordable to us; not if we want to save a little bit of money. We will have to make it work once our new baby arrives, but it has not been a priority during our first few months in Costa Rica. We are currently looking for a part-time nanny however, so that Abe can get used to her prior to becoming a big brother, and hopefully transition her to fulltime once the baby is born. I  have also been really enjoying my time with Abe. We’ve been having so much fun learning and exploring our new environment together, which brings me to the next reason we moved to Costa Rica.

Fooling around on Playa Flamingo…

Reason # 2 – Mother-son bonding

Reality – The time Abey and I have been spending together has been wonderful. I feel so lucky that I get to be with him all day. It made me realize how much of his life I missed and would’ve continued to miss if we stayed in the United States.

When Abe was four-months old, I simultaneously went back to work and began my Family Practice post-graduate certificate at George Washington University, which required hours of studying and 500 hours of clinicals that had to be completed within a year. Additionally, I was exclusively breastfeeding (all night – he woke up every 2 to 3 hours to breastfeed until he was around 15-months-old when we started sleep training him) and pumping multiple times a day. Because I had not built a milk supply prior to returning to work and always wanted him to have “fresh milk”, I often had to run home during my lunch-break to bring him freshly pumped milk. You can imagine how exhausted I was by the time I got home from work, which did not leave me with much energy to bond with my son or husband.

Reason # 3 – Better quality of life

Reality – Our quality of life in Costa Rica has been MUCH better than it was in the United States. The U.S. work-culture is not conducive to family life. You are expected to always prioritize work, and when you don’t and instead prioritize your family, you are viewed as lazy. As a woman of color, I especially felt like I had to work twice as hard to prove myself at all times.

On our morning walk to the beach

As I mentioned above, I was juggling a lot and of course Sam, being a D.C. Public School (DCPS) teacher, didn’t have much energy left when he got home either. We barely had the opportunity to enjoy each other. We were both exhausted and by the time we made it home, we needed to figure out dinner, which often meant take-out because there wasn’t enough time (I hated feeding Abey take-out even though we often ordered healthy meals), and start bedtime routines. Sam would walk Squiggles while I bathed Abe. Then I would read to Abe and breastfeed him to sleep (which changed to Sam putting him to bed when he was around 15-months-old). If we weren’t too tired, we then prepared Abe’s lunch for the next day. Otherwise, I had to do it in the morning while making his breakfast before going to work.

Fridays at the Sailing Center in Surf Side… Abey was excited to see “coconuts!”

Our entire life felt like a series of chores. Additionally, I worked every other weekend until April of 2017 when I decided I had to quit my job and focus on school because juggling school, Abey, clinicals, and work was too much. Working one weekend day every other week left us with one day a week together during those weeks. That one day, however, was not only dedicated towards errands, but it was also the only day I was able to catch up with school work. We had just moved back into our house in August of 2016 after a gut-renovation and had a lot of organizing to do. An errands-day was therefore always very busy. It was an incredibly rough year, which felt unfair to Abe, the most important person in our life.

Hiking with uncle Tony

In Costa Rica, we have had so much more of a life. Sam and I are usually up with the sunrise between 5:30 and 6:00AM, eat breakfast together, and even have time to peacefully enjoy a cup of tea before Abe wakes up. Sam then goes off to work; Abe wakes up, and has his breakfast. Once he’s done eating his garlic scrambled eggs made by his baba, we do a morning activity; either going to our favorite beach, Playa Flamingo, which is about a 30-minute walk in the hot sun, or the pool, which is at a nearby hotel. We then come home, have a snack, read books, cook and eat lunch, nap, wake-up, and wait for baba to return from work. Together we do an evening activity, which usually means walking to the beach and hanging out there until sunset (we sometimes stay past dusk to stargaze). Recently we also started having play dates once a week with two wonderful families with babies around Abe’s age. Additionally, Abe made two new friends, a 7yo and 9yo girl (sisters), who just moved into our building. They have been spending some evenings playing with him. I then prepare dinner that we enjoy together, Sam showers Abe (big boy!) and brushes his teeth, and then Abe and I head to bed while Sam lesson plans.

Although the sun sets at 5:21PM and it is pitch black out by 6:00PM, it feels as if we have a lot more time in the day to enjoy life; not just for me because I am a stay-home mama, but even for Sam who works fulltime. Now that we’re settled, weekends are usually spent doing fun things like exploring other parts of Costa Rica or nearby countries like Nicaragua. This is what family life should be like.

 

Reason # 4 – Living in a developing country means saving money

Reality – NOT! Costa Rica is incredibly expensive. Apparently it is known as the “Switzerland of Central America.” In many ways it is more expensive than the U.S. Where do I even begin with how expensive it is? When someone who has lived here for a long time mentioned how expensive it is prior to us moving here I didn’t believe her. I thought, “Gringo, she’s probably only buying imported American goods. There’s no way a developing country could be expensive, at least not by American standards.” Turns out, everything here is imported and the import taxes are insane!…As in 50% to 80% insane, which means a small bottle of sunscreen is $25. No, not special sunscreen, just the same ol’ “Banana Boat” brand.

A dining area in a Tico home that was available for rent

Rent in the part of Costa Rica that we live in is as much as some parts of the U.S., unless you choose to live in a typical “Tico-style home,” which if we didn’t have a toddler and a baby on the way, I would’ve been down with being a little more adventurous. Rent may not be as bad as D.C.; however, it is probably equivalent to places like Atlanta. Cable and Internet costs as much as the U.S. except the service has not been as great; at least not with the company we are using. Gas is way more expensive than the U.S. and there is only one gas station in the area, which is about a 20-minute-drive from us. Phones are expensive, although we have been buying prepaid cards and can therefore control how much we spend per month especially since we mostly use our Wi-Fi at home rather than data.

Car being sold for $7000… It is similar the Honda Accord I just sold for $3000 in the U.S. Except mine had 70,000 less miles and was 3 years newer

Cars… don’t even go there. A car that would cost $1000 in the U.S. would probably go for $4000+ here. The good news is that car value does not depreciate the way it does in the U.S. Apparently cars are expensive because, well, the 50-80% import taxes. And yes you need a car to get around, which we don’t have yet because we have not wrapped our heads around how expensive cars are.

Then there is the bureaucracy and how much taxes and fees you have to pay for everything. We recently got in a car accident (everything and everyone is fine and we will talk about that experience some day) and because Sam, who had been driving, did not have his passport on him, it ended up costing us an additional $1100 (yes, American dollars), despite him presenting a copy of his passport and of course his license. $100 did end up getting waived after we presented to the DMV office in the city, an hour away, with his passport.

Reason # 5 – Tropical paradise = fresh and cheap organic produce

 Reality – Yeah… no. Not at all. I can’t begin to tell you how excited I was about eating fresh, clean, organic produce throughout the rest of my pregnancy. I am a firm believer of the importance of eating as clean as possible, especially during pregnancy, to ensure a healthy intrauterine environment without antibiotics, chemicals, and hormones impacting the baby’s growth. I imagined eating fresh and delicious mangoes, plantains, and other “exotic” fruit every day and having the healthiest pregnancy ever. I mean, have you seen how green Costa Rica is? The scenery screams mango, plantain, and fruit paradise! Unfortunately that has not been the case. We haven’t had any good mangoes yet, but we will hopefully have better luck during mango season. The plantains are clearly harvested way too early, which really takes away from how delicious they can be. The same goes for most of the produce we have had here.

The only fruit stand near us… It is about a 20-minute-walk away

Amazing produce probably comes from Costa Rica, but we wouldn’t know. Apparently there are two grades of produce here; “export grade” and “keep in Costa Rica” grade. I have even seen restaurant menus that specify that their fish is “export quality.” Basically, all of the amazing produce is considered “export quality” and it is therefore exported out of the country. In Costa Rica, we are left with what was not “good enough” to be exported. Additionally, I have a feeling that in Guanacaste, the “driest part of Costa Rica,” we get the left overs from the “keep in Costa Rica” pile since the more fertile parts would have first dibs.

In the grocery stores, you therefore either get the super left overs or imported produce, which cost an arm and a leg because of the crazy import taxes. I have even seen garlic imported from China! We have therefore been paying Whole Foods prices for non-organic, just-OK produce.

Meat is quite reasonably priced, although it is unclear whether or not the cows and chickens were grass-fed, free-range, or raised without antibiotics and hormones, which has always been a big deal to us. We have also not been able to find fresh fish yet. Most fish we have seen in the stores is frozen, which is nuts to me because it feels like we are surrounded by the ocean. We thought there would be a seafood galore here.

I also expected to be shopping in outdoor fruit, fish, meat, and vegetable markets, as we do in Zanzibar. Here in Costa Rica, at least where we live, there is no market-culture; but rather supermarkets and mini-markets. I never thought I would say this, but I actually really miss the produce options that were available to us in the U.S.!

Reason # 6 – Taking a breather

Reality – As previously mentioned, Sam and I were exhausted in the U.S. Sam had been working as a DCPS teacher for 9 years (anyone who is familiar with DCPS knows how crazy it can get). He therefore felt like it was time to try a new school system.

Sam giving me a ride to my Georgetown Midwifery hand-blessing-ceremony. I remember being so happy to be done with school because I thought life would get easier after this… HA!

I had been going one million miles an hour ever since I started graduate school in 2012. The Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner/Nurse Midwifery program at Georgetown University was not a joke. We worked HARD! In addition to school work and studying, we had to complete 600 hours of clinicals for the Women’s Health NP role and spend God knows how many hours on labor and delivery for the Midwifery piece. During my last semester, I had the opportunity to do my clinical internship at a homebirth practice. I therefore had to be on-call 24/7 for three months. Once clinicals were done, I had to study for my comprehensive exam, and finish my classes all while planning our three wedding receptions (two in Zanzibar and one in DC – each with at least 200 invited guests).

How I felt every day during my 24-hour-shifts

I then had to sit for my two board exams to get certified as a Certified Nurse Midwife (CNM) and Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner (WHNP). Once I passed my boards, we were off to Brazil for the 2014 World Cup, then to Zanzibar for our wedding receptions, back to D.C. for our last wedding reception (two weeks later), then it was time to job search. While job searching, I spent a month in Zanzibar volunteering in the maternity ward of the tertiary hospital there, which was quite an eye opener. I also had a miscarriage while I was in Zanzibar, which was a very difficult experience.

On the way to Brazil for three weeks prior to heading to Zanzibar. I can’t believe we dragged all these bags that contained three wedding dresses and lots of wedding supplies through the Amazon, Salvador, and Rio!

Once I was back in the U.S., I was offered a job at an insanely busy practice in Baltimore where I would work until I was 3-months pregnant with Abe. I had to stop working there because the shifts were very long (24-hours with barely any sleep; sometimes longer) and my 1.5-2.5 hours commute each way did not help.

I was offered another job with more reasonable hours at a hospital 5-minutes away from our house in D.C., where I worked throughout the rest of my pregnancy and until Abe was around a year old. It was while working at this job when I had to juggle school, clinicals, Abey, and work.

Super sleep-deprived in the middle of the night with my Midwifery-mama during a 24-hour-shift.

Sam was offered teaching positions abroad when Abe was around 13-months-old and right after we found out about our pregnancy. By then I had also been offered an amazing job opportunity at a Women’s Health Practice in D.C., where I was supposed to start working upon returning from Zanzibar in July of 2017.

After finding out about the pregnancy, however, and having spent the past few years being incredibly busy, I felt like I needed a break; badly. Especially since I probably would not have gotten much time off for “maternity leave” aka short-term disability as a new employee (I could go on and on about how ridiculous maternity leave is in the U.S. but that is a whole different subject). I simply did not think that I had enough energy left to juggle two babies, after maybe 5-weeks of maternity leave, and a new job. Sam also felt like he was running out of energy because he too, had been going at a breakneck pace for the past 9 years.

Escaping to the tropical paradise therefore seemed like our best bet, especially since the school that Sam was offered a job at sounded amazing. Plus, I had just discovered, also around then, how much I LOVE pediatrics! I was doing my clinicals with Abe’s pediatrician, the best pediatrician on the planet, and she completely transformed how I felt about pediatrics. She truly made me fall in love with it. I therefore felt like I needed to take a step back and figure out exactly what I wanted to do next; whether to use my Family Practice certificate or continue with women’s health… or both. Lastly, the opportunity to learn Spanish during my “time off” made the move particularly attractive.

Beautiful sunset in Nicaragua