Chapter 98 Outgrowing Space
Crew's POV,
The apartment hunting started at twelve weeks, when Harper finally felt confident enough to start planning beyond "survive first trimester."
We sat at our kitchen table on a Saturday morning, laptop open to rental listings, both of us realizing simultaneously that our one-bedroom apartment wasn't going to work with a baby.
"We need at least two bedrooms," Harper said, scrolling through options. "Preferably two bathrooms. And we should stay in this neighborhood—close to the clinic, close to the arena."
"So we're looking at what, three thousand a month? Minimum?"
She pulled up a listing. "Try thirty-five hundred. For anything decent with two beds in this area."
I did the math in my head. Between my salary and Harper's clinic income, we could afford it. Barely. But it would be tight, especially once the baby came and Harper took maternity leave.
"What about buying?" I suggested. "We could get a mortgage, build equity instead of throwing money at rent."
"With what down payment? We have maybe twenty thousand saved. That's not enough for a down payment in Vancouver."
"The Groundwork money. The signing bonus was fifty thousand after taxes. We've been sitting on most of it."
Harper looked at me. "That was supposed to be our emergency fund."
"Buying a place before the baby comes is the emergency. We can rebuild savings. But Harper, if we're going to have a kid, we should have stability. Our own place. Something we can make into a home."
She was quiet for a moment, then nodded. "Okay. Let's at least look at what's available in our price range."
What was available in our price range was depressing.
We spent three weeks looking at condos. Toured fifteen places. Every single one had something fundamentally wrong with it.
Too small. Too expensive. Too far from everything. Sketchy neighborhood. No parking. Needed major renovations. On a busy street. Near a construction site that would be active for two years.
By week four of searching, we were both exhausted and discouraged.
"Maybe we just stay here," Harper said after viewing a particularly terrible two-bedroom that smelled like cats and sadness. "Put the baby in our room for the first year. People do that."
"People do that when they don't have options. We have options."
"Do we? Because every option we've seen is either unaffordable or unlivable."
Our realtor, Caroline—a efficient woman in her fifties who'd been endlessly patient with our indecision—spoke up from the driver's seat. "I have one more place to show you. It's slightly above your budget, but I think it might be worth seeing."
"How much above budget?" I asked.
"List price is five hundred thousand. You said your max was four-fifty."
Harper and I looked at each other. Fifty thousand over budget was significant.
"Let's just look," I said. "Can't hurt."
The condo was in Kitsilano, ten minutes from both the clinic and the arena. Third floor of a converted warehouse building, exposed brick and high ceilings and huge windows that let in incredible natural light.
Two bedrooms. Two bathrooms. Open kitchen. Balcony overlooking the courtyard. Parking spot included. Storage unit in the basement.
It was perfect.
"I can't afford this," Harper whispered as we walked through.
"How much would we need for a down payment?" I asked Caroline.
"Minimum 5%, so twenty-five thousand. But I'd recommend 10% to avoid mortgage insurance. So fifty thousand."
Harper did the math. "That's our entire emergency fund plus the Groundwork money. We'd have nothing left in savings."
"But we'd have a place. Our place. For the baby."
Caroline left us alone to discuss. We stood in what would be the baby's room—smaller bedroom, east-facing, painted a neutral beige that could work for any gender.
"I love it," Harper admitted. "But Crew, if we put everything into this down payment and something goes wrong—if you get injured, if the clinic has a slow month, if the baby needs expensive medical care—we have no cushion."
"Then we rebuild the cushion. We have seven months before the baby comes. If we're both working, we can save."
"What if I can't work? What if the pregnancy gets complicated and I'm on bed rest?"
"Then I work. I do sponsorship appearances. I figure it out." I grabbed her hands. "Harper, we're going to be okay. This place is perfect. And yeah, it's scary putting all our savings into it. But staying in a one-bedroom with a newborn is scarier."
She looked around the empty room, trying to see it furnished. Trying to imagine a crib, a changing table, all the baby gear Maya kept texting us about.
"Okay," she said finally. "Let's make an offer."
\---
The offer was accepted three days later. We got the place for four-ninety, ten thousand under asking because the seller wanted a quick close.
We signed papers. Transferred our entire savings account into escrow. Watched our emergency fund disappear into a down payment.
"We're homeowners," Harper said that night, staring at the purchase agreement like it might vanish.
"We're broke homeowners. But homeowners."
"We close in six weeks. That's mid-December. We need to move, set up the nursery, get settled before I'm too pregnant to help."
"Make a list. You love lists."
She pulled out her phone and started typing immediately. "Move in December. Paint nursery in January. Buy furniture in February. Baby stuff accumulates gradually through spring. Baby arrives June. We have a plan."
"You really do love lists."
"Lists keep me from panicking about the fact that we just spent every dollar we have on an apartment we haven't even moved into yet."
The next few weeks were chaos. Packing. Coordinating movers. Trying to work full-time while also planning a move while also being pregnant and exhausted.
Harper hit fourteen weeks and suddenly had energy again—the second trimester upswing everyone had promised. She used that energy to pack our entire apartment in four days.
"You're nesting," I observed, watching her organize boxes by room with color-coded labels.
"I'm preparing. There's a difference."
"You alphabetized our spice rack yesterday. That's nesting."
"That's just good organization."
We closed on the condo December 15th, two days before a five-game road trip. I helped move the major furniture, then had to leave Harper to unpack while I flew to California.
She sent me photos throughout the week. Box-filled rooms gradually transforming into livable space. The nursery—still empty but clean and painted a soft gray that worked for either gender.
We still don't have a crib, she texted on day three.
Put the baby on the floor. Builds character, I replied.
You're not funny.
I'm occasionally funny.
You're occasionally adequate.
By the time I got back, the apartment was mostly functional. Our bedroom set up. Kitchen organized. Living room furniture arranged. The nursery still empty but ready for furniture we hadn't bought yet.
"It's starting to look like home," I said, walking through.
"It's starting to look expensive. I paid for movers and they broke two of our boxes. I paid for cleaning supplies because this place was filthy. I paid for—Crew, we've spent three thousand dollars in the last week just on moving expenses and we haven't even bought baby furniture yet."
"We'll rebuild savings. I promise."
"How? We're broke."
"We're not broke. We're cash-poor. There's a difference. We own property now. That's equity. That's wealth."
"Equity doesn't pay for diapers."
"No, but my salary does. And your clinic income. And the Groundwork quarterly payments. Harper, we're going to be fine."
She sat on our new couch—technically our old couch but it looked different in the new space. "I'm scared. About money. About the baby. About whether we can actually afford to be parents."
I sat next to her. "Remember when we couldn't afford rent in Seattle and we survived on ramen for six weeks? Remember when your clinic was hemorrhaging money and you thought you'd have to close? Remember when I turned down three million dollars and we thought we'd made a terrible financial mistake?"
"Yeah."
"And we're still here. We figure it out. We always figure it out."
"This is different. This is a baby who needs things we can't just improvise."
"Then we'll buy the things. We have seven months to accumulate baby gear. People have been doing this for thousands of years with way less resources than we have. We'll be fine."
That weekend, Maya came over with Simone and approximately fifteen bags of baby items.
"I've been shopping," Maya announced, dropping everything in the nursery. "I couldn't help myself. Look at this stuff. It's so tiny."
She pulled out onesies, blankets, bottles, a mobile with little moons and stars, a stuffed elephant that was bigger than most real elephants.
"Maya, this is too much," Harper protested.
"It's not too much. It's exactly enough. Plus, half of this is from my mom. She's been shopping online and shipping things to my apartment. I'm just the delivery service." Maya held up a onesie that said "My Aunt Maya is Cooler Than Your Aunt." "This one's my favorite."
"Of course it is," I said.
We spent the afternoon setting up the nursery. Maya and Simone assembled the crib they'd apparently bought without telling us. Harper organized all the tiny clothes by size. I hung the mobile and felt like I was accomplishing something even though I was basically just watching everyone else work.
By evening, the nursery looked almost real. Crib in the corner. Changing table against the wall. Rocking chair by the window. Shelves waiting for books and toys.
"It's really happening," Harper said, standing in the doorway. "In six months there's going to be a human in here."
"A human who needs us for everything," I added. "Food, changing, sleeping, not dying. All of it on us."
"You're doing that thing again where you catastrophize about being a parent."
"I'm being realistic about being a parent."
"You're going to be great at this. Both of you," Maya said. "Now come on. I ordered pizza. You need to eat and I need to know if you've thought about names yet."
Over pizza, we talked about names. Maya had opinions. Strong opinions. Simone had different opinions. Harper and I mostly listened and let them debate.
"I like Charlotte," Maya said. "It's classic. Elegant."
"Too formal," Simone countered. "What about something more modern? Like Harper? Oh wait, you used that one already."
"We don't even know the gender yet," I pointed out. "We're not finding out until twenty weeks."
"That's six more weeks of me buying gender-neutral clothes," Maya complained. "Do you know how boring gender-neutral is? Everything's yellow and gray."
"Everything in this nursery is yellow and gray," Harper observed.
"Exactly. Boring. You need to find out so I can buy proper color-coordinated outfits."
After they left, Harper and I lay in bed in our new bedroom that still didn't quite feel like ours.
"I think I'm starting to believe this is real," she said. "The apartment. The baby. All of it."
"It's definitely real. We're broke and own property and there's a human growing inside you. Very real."
"Are you still scared?"
"Terrified. But also excited. Is that normal?"
"I think that's exactly normal."
We fell asleep holding each other, both of us thinking about the nursery down the hall. The empty crib waiting for a baby we hadn't met yet. The life we were building one terrifying decision at a time.
And somehow, despite everything, it felt right.
Like maybe we actually knew what we were doing.
Or at least like we were figuring it out as we went.
Which was probably the best anyone could hope for.