Heading to the States Sooner and Apartment Issues

Originally for this post I planned on telling you about our Chinese New Year and our recent trip up the mountain to go inner tubing, but that will have to wait. In the past few days our plans have changed quite a bit and I feel it’s more pressing to share about this.

In the past two weeks Heather has been experiencing a lot of contractions. Heather has had previous problems with pre-term labor so we were worried. We decided to go to a Hospital here to have everything with the pregnancy checked out. Our friend Susan who’s an American Doctor also living in Xian went with (which we were incredibly grateful for). Susan performed the ultrasound on Heather and informed her that her cervix hadn’t begun to open. This was really good news as it means that Heather wasn’t going into labor. But she also informed us that Heather’s amniotic fluid (the fluid around the baby) levels were low and then advised Heather to return to the States in the next couple weeks. Our doctor was worried that the amniotic fluid issue could become more serious and with where Heather is in the pregnancy it would be better for us to be in the States.

So as of now Heather and Aubrey will be flying home in less than three weeks (March 23rd) and spend time in South Dakota with her family. Sydney and I will be coming home two weeks (or so) after her. We did it this way because Heather obviously needs to get back sooner and because Aubrey doesn’t turn two until March 25th so we can save on our ticket price. I (Matt) will need more time to wrap up things here before heading back and so that’s why I will be going back with Sydney slightly later.

But that’s only part one of the new developments. The next day after finding out we would be traveling home a lot sooner than expected, we also got this surprise. I called our landlord to try and get started working through extending our lease, since our current lease will end while we are in America. She informed us that she wants to sell the apartment. This means that we would lose the apartment we’ve spent almost two years in making our home. It might not seem like a big deal, but for us it was really a tough pill to swallow. What makes it even more difficult is that she’s not sure if she can sell it yet or not, (so we may still be able to rent it ) but we won’t know for another two weeks. We are left in limbo and trying to trust that it will all work out.

All of this adds up to be a bit stressful and clouds a lot of things.
So regarding the house if we can’t continue renting this one we either need to talk our landlord into extending our lease until we get back to China (October) so we can find a new place then (instead of now) to move our stuff out. If we can’t extend the lease we will need to find a new place in the next month and move our stuff there. As I write this I feel my shoulders sinking due to what native English speakers call stress.

We would love for you guys to be thinking of us and we will keep you updated on all that transpires here. Look forward to seeing your lovely faces soon!

The petersons