The Leap of a Lifetime: Moving to New Zealand

It’s COVID’s doing, I tell people when they ask why our family decided to move to New Zealand. My husband doesn’t agree because we’ve wanted to come Down Under for years. He’s not wrong, but as I see it, the upheaval COVID caused in our lives gave us pause, and got us to actually make the leap across the “other pond.”

How the idea started

In 2004 New Zealand was the dangling carrot, or truth be told, the duct tape to our gaping infertility wound. My husband and I decided that if our fourth round of IVF didn’t work, we would take an extended vacation to New Zealand…allowing us a change of scenery and opportunity, without the distraction of two stressful jobs, to reevaluate our desire to grow our family.

But as luck would have it, July 2004 brought twice the good news we had been waiting for: we were expecting twins. We had the twins. Then eighteen months later we had the surprise daughter. And then we were wrapped up in home-work-childrearing balance and suddenly our kids were teenagers. As time flew by, the idea of going to the land of the kiwi took a back burner.

But it was a back burner on a low simmer. Every so often my husband and I would talk about getting to New Zealand “someday”, stirring that pot of adventure, and checking on its progress when we remembered to do so. Over time the contents of the pot transformed into something pleasantly complex: New Zealand would be an adventure involving our kids, not the vacation-for-two as planned so many years ago. But it was still a someday endeavor.

Someday.

How COVID got us to New Zealand

Then COVID hit. Nothing like being grounded from travel to kick the wanderlust into high gear. Especially after the pandemic dashed plans for three family vacations. And nothing like your office getting shut down to get a guy like my husband thinking. He’s already in his head a lot (Think perfect score on the introversion scale. No, I’m not kidding.). So if he can’t operate, his wheels turn even more. And a six-week operating room shutdown really got him thinking.

He decided to not renew his contract with the healthcare group he had been with for nearly eight years. He planned on signing, but changed his mind. My husband was more shocked about it than anyone else. And everyone else was pretty shocked. He just couldn’t work in the management-heavy environment of healthcare anymore. No one…me, his physician colleagues, support staff…blamed him. My husband wanted more control over his time and work schedule, so he entered the world of locum tenems, filling in as a general surgeon where and when he wanted.

For awhile.

Then one day he looked at me and said, “You know, New Zealand.”

Yes.

“I’ve wanted to work in a system with nationalized healthcare, to see what that’s like.”

Yes.

“New Zealand has nationalized healthcare.”

Uh-huh.

Now may be as good a time as any to look for a job there.

Sounds good to me.

So…

My husband interviewed remotely (at 9:30 at night, and 18 hours behind New Zealand) for a position on the west coast of the south island. It was a little cooky seeing my husband, sitting in his home office, wearing a suit instead of his COVID clothes (you know, sweatpants and ratty sweater). And no, in case you’re wondering, he didn’t sit in his boxers, opting to wear the suit pants, too, in case he had to get up in the middle of his interview to retrieve something essential. Like I said, he’s always thinking. (And he’s a Boy Scout…Always Prepared.)

Then the call came. 10:00 one night in early June 2021 as we were settling in for sleep.

“I know it’s late there, but I think good news is good at any time of day,” said the voice on the other end of the line, a Kiwi brogue surprisingly clear for coming from over 7,000 miles away.

We were going to New Zealand.

During a pandemic.

With three teenagers.

And a dog.

How, in the course of four months we

• sorted stuff to pack, store, ship, sell or toss
• did a massive amount of repetitive paperwork for immigration (ok, that was all my husband…)
• got our house in Colorado rented
• completed the ungodly number of steps for our dog to immigrate with us
• and eventually coordinate our drive to Los Angeles with our international flights, which was a last-minute affair given visa and quarantine approval

I have no clue.

But we got it done. And here we are…for nine months, already.

And I can’t wait to share our experiences with you, through the circumstances of COVID, the turbulence of the teen years (times three), and as a family on a far-flung adventure.

Stay tuned. I’ll be interspersing our Down Under adventures with regular parenting-inspired posts. I’m so happy to be back sharing with you all.

Here’s a teaser for my next New Zealand-themed post.

Our welcome to Aotearoa included a bathroom large enough to have a massage in (and a hidden shower):