Kyle and I went to dinner last night and I think by the end of dinner we had talked ourselves out of transferring. :(
I feel slight disappointment at not getting to go home to the states, but I was also able to analyze my feelings a little more and I came to the following conclusions:

A) If we transfer, Kyle WILL have to go to Miami for as few as 12 weeks and possibly as long as 6(?) months. I REALLY do not want to move my family to Miami for such a short term, but I KNOW I would go crazy being a single mom during that time. The months we spent apart last year (while I was having the baby) were seriously the hardest months of my married life. It took us *so* long to get back to having a good relationship. Things are better now than they have ever been, and the thought of making a conscious decision (tranferring) that could possibly jeapordize that makes me a little sick.

B) If we transfer, there's a good chance I will end up living w/ my mom for several months. I love my mama, but its really hard to live in someone else's house. I have already pictured in my head how they would have to make someone park on the street away from the house to make room for my car, how she'll have to make sure my little bro moves out before I get there, how my kids will make messes and if I'm having a bad day and don't clean up - everyone would have to deal. Of course, there would always be the option of trying to find a short-term rental, but then we run into the financial problems of trying to maintain a house in Arizona AND funding Kyle's life in Miami. We barely get by on our $ here in Guad and we're only 1 household. Not to mention that a house by myself w/ 3 kids would be lonely w/out Kyle.

C) Transferring will cost us more money in the long run.

D) There will be a stigma attached to Kyle as a foreign med. student in US rotations. If we stay here, he will not only have the opportunity to practice VERY hands on medicine, but he gets this creepy respect from the patients and physicians in the hospital. It sounds nice to put off the stigma-thing until residency.

E) I've really like having Addie in preschool. To get the equivalent preschool in the states it would cost us 5 or 6 times as much.

F) Overall, being in Mexico keeps things safe, secure, and overall more comfortable for ME and KYLE.


Of course there were obvious benefits to transferring too:


A) Guthrie could start Kindergarten in the fall and finally get to interact w/ other kids his own age on his same level phsyically and mentally. I sometimes worry about how he's going to turn out if we stay here. Will he have a hard time relating to other kids his own age? The kids in his current class here in MX aren't very nice to him (yet, he still insists that he loves school?) and the children of my friends that he plays with are all younger than him. I don't want him to be that weird kid in the 2nd grade when we finally get back to the states. I would feel like it was my fault for not providing him more chances to interact. . .ARGH - THIS is the biggest thing that makes me want to transfer.

B) We would finally have access to libraries, safe parks, and even *gasp* public assistance. The financial help would come in SO handy, and of course if we had libraries, parks and mall playplaces, I might not miss Addie's preschool so much.

C) If we transfer, we will probably end up living in some random city in the US for a while, but we could probably find something a LOT cheaper than NYC would have been. (And obviously transfer= NO 5th pathway.)

D) Transferring means we're back in the US - and that means that when things get frustrating or hard, we have the support of family and the obvious ease of being in the US (where things seems to make more sense than here.)


You know, now that I look at all that - it seems like all my reasons for wanting to stay are to benfit me and kyle and all my reasons for wanting to go are to benefit the kids. *yikes*

Are we being selfish then???I thought I was all convinced to stay here in MX, but I guess not. I feel torn again. *sigh*