The honest reality of living abroad in Cabo, navigating motherhood six months postpartum, immigration limbo, and raising a baby away from my village.
I live in a place most people come to escape their real lives.
And lately, I've found myself desperately missing mine.
We have been living in Cabo for almost three years now. This December will mark three years since we moved here, and somehow our fourth Christmas in Mexico. This is where my husband and I really started our life together. It's where we got married. It's where we built our home. And most importantly, it's where we became a family.
There is so much about living in Cabo that I genuinely love.
The adventure of it. The culture. Being minutes from the beach. Seeing the ocean every day. The slower pace of life. The incredible hotels, restaurants, beach clubs and all of the vacation-esque things that somehow get to be part of our normal life.
And, of course, the people.
I have met incredible people here. I have friendships and a community that I absolutely adore and want to continue pouring into. Cabo has a magic about it that is hard to explain unless you've spent time here. There's just something about this place.
We have a beautiful life here.
But lately, I've been thinking a lot about the other side of living abroad. The side that doesn't photograph quite as well.
And six months postpartum, I think I'm feeling that side more than ever.
This is the reality of living abroad that I don't think we talk about enough.
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Paradise Can Still Be Hard
Living in Mexico comes with realities that are very different from living in the United States. Cabo has grown incredibly quickly, and the infrastructure hasn't always grown with it.
There are dirt roads and potholes. Water issues. Power outages. Things break and can take forever to fix. There are products and services you simply can't get here. And many of the little conveniences I never thought twice about in the U.S. require significantly more effort.
Before having a baby, most of that was annoying at worst. After having a baby? It hits differently.
Take something as simple as formula.
I use Bobbie formula for my daughter, and the specific one I use is incredibly difficult for me to get in Mexico. I can't just order it directly and have it show up at my house.
For most things I buy from the U.S., I ship them to a freight-forwarding company in San Diego. They receive everything, verify it, handle the international shipping and taxes, and eventually it makes its way down to me in Cabo.
On top of whatever I purchase, I usually pay another 20-30% just to get it here. And it takes an average of about two weeks.
Bobbie won't ship to my freight forwarder. So every time I need formula, I have to figure out how the hell I'm going to get it here.
Diapers? Same thing. I use Coterie. I order them in the U.S., send them through the forwarding process and wait.
And yes, before anyone comes for me, I understand these are choices. I could use another formula. I could buy different diapers. But certain things about the products I use for my daughter are important to me, and I haven't found the same options readily available here. So I choose to go through the hassle.
The point isn't really the formula or the diapers anyway. It's the mental load.
I have to know weeks ahead of time how much formula we have. How many diapers are left. When I need to order them. Where I'm going to send them. Who might be coming to Cabo who could throw something in a suitcase for me. Whether I have enough to make it until the next shipment arrives.
It's another calculation constantly running in the background of my brain.
Add that to being six months postpartum, raising a baby, managing a home, and working full-time remotely for our family business, and sometimes something as small as the water running out feels like the thing that might actually send me over the edge.
Motherhood Without Your Village
Postpartum has been, simultaneously, the most rewarding, happiest, most overwhelming season of my life.
I don't know that I fully understood how isolating motherhood could be until I became a mom away from my village.
We have help twice a week during the day, which gives me time to work, go to the gym and feel like a functioning adult for a few hours.
Beyond that, I'm mostly home being Mom. And I love it. I really, really love it.
But two things can coexist: I can love being home with my daughter and still feel lonely sometimes.
I can be grateful that I get to spend so much time with her and still desperately need adult interaction. I can be capable of doing all of this and still need help.
If becoming a mom has taught me anything, it's how incredibly capable women are. We figure it out. We carry more than we thought we could. We get up and do it again the next day.
But I've also learned something equally important:
We can do it alone. That doesn't mean we should.
Support matters. Having someone hold your baby while you shower matters. Having your mom nearby matters. Having somebody you completely trust so you and your husband can go to dinner without thinking twice matters.
My husband and I haven't had a date night since our daughter was born.
My mom is in town right now, and we're getting two. Two date nights. You would think somebody handed me an all-expenses-paid trip to Europe.
I Miss Home. Whatever "Home" Means Now.
The strange thing about saying I miss home is that I don't entirely know where home is anymore.
Home is where my husband is. Home is where my baby is. So Cabo is home.
But home also means comfort.
I miss familiarity. I miss my family. I miss my friends. I miss easy.
I miss DoorDash and Uber Eats and Amazon Prime. I miss Target. I miss my favorite foods. I miss realizing I need something and knowing I can probably have it sitting on my doorstep tomorrow.
I miss the ease of my people simply being around.
I don't necessarily miss going into the office every day, but I miss being able to be there. I miss being part of the team in person. I miss being able to jump in when my brothers are slammed. I miss the camaraderie of working beside them instead of always being the person on the phone or the computer.
I miss not having to think so hard about everything. Maybe that's what "home" means to me now. Not necessarily a place.
Familiarity. Comfort. Ease. And the people who knew me before this version of my life existed.
The Part That Is Hard for Me to Admit
This is probably the most vulnerable part of this post.
In almost three years of living here, outside of our wedding and my family coming for Christmas, we have had two friends come visit us.
TWO.
One friend came last August for their birthday, and my best friend came after I had the baby to spend time with me and to meet her.
My mom comes. Thank God for my mom.
But otherwise, my people haven't really come. And this one hurts.
Maybe because I have always been the person who travels back to see everyone, I assumed people would come visit us. Especially because, I mean... it's Cabo. It's not exactly a difficult place to convince people to vacation.
But almost three years later, I feel like I can't ask anymore.
"When are you coming?". "You know you're welcome anytime.". "Come whenever you want.". "We would LOVE to have you.". "Please come."
I've said some version of those sentences so many times that I'm honestly sick of hearing myself say them.
And if you're one of my people reading this, this isn't meant to offend you. I love you. I understand everyone has jobs and families and schedules and expenses and their own shit going on.
I know nobody is intentionally trying to hurt me. But my God, it really fucking sucks sometimes.
Because I think somewhere underneath all of those invitations, what I've really been saying is:
I want you to see my life.
I want my people to sit in our home. I want to take them to our favorite restaurants. I want them to meet the friends we've made here. I want them to know my husband in this life we've built together.
And now, more than anything, I want them to know my daughter.
I have wonderful friends here. This isn't about not having a community. I do, and I'm incredibly grateful for it.
But there are people who knew me before. People who knew my dad. People who knew the versions of me that existed before Cabo, before marriage, before motherhood. And I want them to know this version of me too. I don't need anyone to rescue me. Sometimes I just want my people to come stand beside me in the life I've built.
I want to feel seen.
There Is Something About Being Stuck That Changes Everything
And then there is immigration.
Three years.
Three years of attorneys. Three years of paperwork. Three years of waiting. Three years of not yet. Three years of hoping today might finally be the day we get the email that changes everything. Three years of traveling back to the United States without my husband. Three years of him missing things.
Three years of our lives being partially dictated by an immigration process we have very little control over.
Today, we got another update.
My husband's application has been accepted, but now the U.S. visa process requires more evidence from me demonstrating that I intend to reestablish my life in the United States.
More paperwork. More proof. More trying to convince strangers behind a computer that yes, I actually do want to go home.
And I wish there were someone I could just call. Can I please speak to an actual human being and explain that I long to be able to go home?
Can I explain that my family is there? That our business is there? That being away affects my ability to work alongside my brothers and help grow the company we've spent our lives building? That I spend an insane amount of money traveling back and forth because my husband can't come with me?
Can I explain what three years of living in limbo does to you? Because here's the thing I desperately don't want to get lost in this post:
I love Cabo.
If my husband's immigration were approved tomorrow, I wouldn't wake up the next morning and happily pack our house.
I would be sad. Really sad.
This is our home. This is where we started our life together. This is where our daughter was born. We have friends here we love. We have a community here. There are parts of this life that I don't ever want to give up.
Eventually, yes, we 100% will move back to the United States. Ideally in the next few years! But if we had the freedom to travel together tomorrow, the urgency would disappear. The feeling of being stuck would disappear.
When the time comes that we move back to the US, we will always go back to Cabo to visit and spend time there. It's a part of us. It's a part of our story.
BUT... I need to be able to go back to the U.S. with my family whenever I want.
There is something about being stuck that changes everything.
It's one thing to choose to live abroad. And, yes, while we did choose this, it's another thing entirely to feel like the choice has been taken away from you.
I want my life back in our hands.
And Somewhere in All of This, I'm Six Months Postpartum
This season has been a lot.
I've also been dealing with some postpartum depression.
Nothing dark or scary. For me, it has shown up more subtly. My spark feels dimmer on certain days. Little things feel heavier than they normally would. Something that I could usually shrug off suddenly emotionally takes it out of me.
When the water runs out. When I can't get something I need for the baby. When I desperately need help and don't have it. When another immigration email arrives asking for another document. Sometimes I just don't have the emotional bandwidth for one more thing.
Thankfully, I recognized it, talked to my doctor and we're taking care of me, too.
But I also think postpartum has stripped away some of my ability to just keep powering through everything. And maybe that's not entirely a bad thing. Because I've been powering through for a long time.
My dad died six years ago, and sometimes I feel like it's been one life lesson after another ever since.
Grief. Family. Business. Immigration. Moving abroad. Marriage. Pregnancy. Birth. Motherhood.
And somewhere along the way, I became-or maybe always was-the strong one. The oldest daughter thing is strong over here.
I'm constantly thinking about my brothers. My mom. My husband. My baby. Our business. Our immigration process. Our future.
And underneath all of it is the grief that my dad isn't here for any of this. Not the milestones. Not my wedding. Not becoming a grandfather. Not the random Tuesday moments I wish I could call him about.
Sometimes the mental load of the last six years hits me all at once and I think:
Woof. I'm fucking exhausted.
And I Am Also So Happy.
That's the weirdest part. I am so happy. Genuinely.
My husband is incredible. He is my rock and my partner in all of this.
Our daughter is healthy and happy and literally perfect in my completely unbiased opinion.
We are healthy. We have a beautiful home. I wake up in Cabo. I see the ocean.
I have friendships both here and "back home" that I treasure.
I get to watch the person I love most become a dad and watch this tiny person we created become more herself every single day.
There is so much joy here. And there is grief. There is gratitude and overwhelm. There is paradise and loneliness. There is adventure and a desperate craving for easy. There is a part of me that looks around and thinks, God, I am so lucky. And there is another part that thinks, I really need a fucking break.
Maybe that's what I'm learning in this season. Life doesn't neatly divide itself into good seasons and bad ones. Sometimes the happiest season of your life is also one of the hardest. You can be overwhelmingly grateful and completely overwhelmed. You can love where you live and miss home. You can be capable of carrying everything and wish someone would help you carry it. You can love the adventure and still crave familiarity. You can build a beautiful new village and still desperately miss the one you left behind.
And you can look out at the ocean, holding the baby you once dreamed about, beside the husband you love, in the beautiful life you've built together and think:
How lucky am I? And also... Holy shit. Can my people please just come visit me?
