Home, hectic, home

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This article was published 13/04/2020 (2146 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It was 11:30 at night on March 26, and Lauren Kroeker-Lee was going into labour.

She and her husband, Geung, arrived at the hospital, where they were greeted by security guards. They went through some pre-screening tests, “which, as you can imagine with someone in labour, feels a little unnecessary in the moment,” Geung said.

“It’s a weird time to be welcoming a new human into the world,” he said, referring to the fact that the world is in a perpetual state of anxiety and lockdown due to COVID-19.

It’s also a weird time to move in to a new house. For the Kroeker-Lees, both events arrived with a startling congruence.

In January, with the new baby on the way, they decided to look for a new house to match. The one-bedroom apartment the couple had lived in inside a Honeyman Avenue triplex was already starting to feel small: their two-year-old daughter, Sula, had grown up there just fine, but for two children, the space felt constricting.

Geung, a music teacher and choral director, and Lauren, a coordinator with Resource Assistance for Youth, didn’t have to look far. A few blocks over they found a gem: a century-old two-and-a-half storey charmer with a blue and white exterior, a big kitchen, a large main floor for Sula and the baby to explore, and lots of natural light. There was even a room on the top floor perfect for entertaining out of town visitors.

The couple put in an offer, and got the house. They took possession during the first week of February, and some key renovations began, like adding a functioning bathroom, removing knob and tube wiring, and putting in new drywall.

“We looked at the calendar, and knew our moving day would have to be a weekend,” Geung said. The weekend of Easter would be impossible, so they circled a date on the week before: March 29, one day after their baby daughter was due to arrive. A friend was also set to move into their apartment April 1, so the 29th would have to work.

It wasn’t too crazy: if Lauren went into labour, a crew of 20 or so family members and friends could make the move a smooth one, Geung recalled thinking.

Obviously, a few things soon changed.

As the realities of the pandemic set in, the couple got in touch with their personal moving crew: if you don’t feel comfortable doing this, we totally understand. They reached out to moving companies, who at that point couldn’t say with certainty if they’d even be open come the end of the month.

“It’s a typical Wolseley house, but it was not a typical Wolseley move,” said Geung.

Then, Lauren went into labour.

“Thankfully, it went smoothly,” she said. “It was a little stressful at the time,” she added — it turned out their daughter was breached. But at 12:36 a.m., 36 minutes after she was due, Lena arrived, weighing seven pounds, 12 ounces.

While the outside world, and even the outside wards near the women’s hospital, contended with the stress of COVID-19, the Kroeker-Lees held their newborn and took the next day in Lauren’s room to recover and relax.

“We had this strangely serene experience,” Lauren said. “It was eerily quiet, and the experience (of being there) was oddly relaxing.”

Then on Sunday, after the big arrival came the big move.

‘It’s a typical Wolseley house, but it was not a typical Wolseley move.’

The Kroeker-Lees drove straight from the hospital to their new home. Their original crew of 20 dwindled to seven or eight, and each person who helped them move in had preemptively self-isolated in anticipation of their need.

During the move, people kept their distance — a hard thing to do when an adorable newborn is nearby.

Lauren spent most of the moving day in bed with Lena on the third floor, in a little isolated suite her parents had set up before the big day.

“It shows how important community and family support is,” Lauren said. “We really do not take for granted that not everyone has that kind of support readily available.”

After the move, the crew — which included in-laws and siblings — went their separate ways, and each began isolating again. “The move was this weird little blip where everyone came together,” Lauren said.

Now, the family is riding out the isolation in their humble new abode. Both Geung and Lauren are on parental leave, and Sula is home from daycare, so the bigger stomping grounds couldn’t have come soon enough.

Had the big day arrived a week later, it could have been a different story, Geung said. Who knows whether anyone would have been able to help, he wonders.

There’s still some work to be done, he said. But rather than tackling everything all at once, the family is setting small, achievable goals. “Sometimes we get them done, and sometimes we don’t,” he said. ‘But that’s OK.”

“Overall,” he said. “We are just very happy to be home.”

ben.waldman@freepress.mb.ca