Saga of a Pregnant Ant

I first learned of Ant Hill about 5 years ago while I was married to my ex-husband.  I signed up for the wiki and had a passing thought that “Hey, this looks like a nice alternative living situation… but my husband would never go for it.”  Fast forward 5 years and I’m living a completely different life.  I’m divorced, have a Guatemalan boyfriend that I met while living off and on there and am a week away from my departure to the Peace Corps in Panama … and PREGNANT.  That last part let’s say, was a bit…  “unplanned”.

With my future in the Peace Corps now cancelled (apparently going to a 3rd world country where access to medical care is limited while pregnant is a liability)… I was living with my parents trying to absorb everything that had happened and imagine a new future for me and now my impending bundle of joy.

I had read a book called The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical, by Shane Claiborne which details the life of the author who lives in an intentional community in on of the worst neighborhoods in Philadelphia.  Through this book, I learned to really love the idea of intentional community and realize how necessary it is in this world of ours.  Sharing resources, and building community… yea that sounds more like it.

Living at home wasn’t terrible, but it was isolating and something about being pumped full of extra hormones and being under the same roof as my parents was reminiscent of being a drama filled teenager.  After a particularly nasty fight with my dad that was mostly hormones but was clearly not instigated by me, DAD, I decided to take another look at Ant Hill.

I sent in my application which has questions on it like “If you could have any super power, what would it be?” but really didn’t expect them to want to eventually live with a screaming baby in the house.  They invited me over for a Thursday potluck which happened to be in celebration for Chinese New Year.  The house was PACKED.  It was such an exciting atmosphere with lots of diversity and I knew that this was what I was missing.  After dinner we talked about what it would be like living at the coop and what the possible affects my baby would have on them and vise versa.  I left that night thinking “Hey… this might actually happen”.

I heard a week or two later that they had accepted me and provided me with a few options of how to provide a quiet, smaller atmosphere for me.  I decided on living at the main house until I gave birth, then moving to the bakery (2 houses down) after that.  I moved in soon after and that now seems like ancient history.

Being at Ant Hill is exactly where I needed to be.  I suffered a lot through my pregnancy and the energy of this place kept me sane.  One particularly bad night, I left my room really upset and found everyone in the living room with the lights off, candles lit… chanting OHM. There are frequent spontaneous sing-alongs, back-rubs and cuddling.  What a wonderful environment for an expectant single mom!  Part 2 is to come about how it’s been raising my daughter at Ant Hill. Stay tuned!