We left off-grid life after having a kid; St. Louis suits our needs

In 2019 my husband and I bought an off-grid home about an hour outside Taos, New Mexico, on 40 acres. The place had a well, septic tank, and solar panels. Mornings began with freshly chopped wood warming the stove and sandstone floors cooling our feet as we sipped tea by floor-to-ceiling windows, then hiking with our dogs and watching sunsets over the Rocky Mountains.

We grew vegetables in a 40-foot garden, listened to thrift-store records and often ended nights puzzling under moonlight as coyotes yipped. By March 2021 I was nine months pregnant and planning a home birth; after our son was born I hemorrhaged badly. Although the nearest hospital was about an hour away, the ambulance trip took closer to two hours and I required multiple transfusions.

That emergency forced us to reckon with how far we were from family, friends, and medical care. Parenthood shifted our priorities. Only one other family with kids lived nearby, and driving to activities would have taken hours, so we decided to move back to St. Louis.

United States, Taos, New Mexico; St. Louis, Missouri

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