In this new post, we want to explain a bit more who we are and what inspired us to start By your side BCN. Share a bit of our story.
We’re both from Spain and although we’ve been living in many cities, we feel at home in Barcelona. Our longest experience abroad was in Amsterdam where we spent 8 years and got to live the Dutch way.
We learnt how to make the most out of our days (especially if they were sunny), live life to the fullest and put things into perspective. We realised how important it’s to find your family away from home and how different your experience abroad is when you’re surrounded by good friends.
We never got used to saying goodbye to people we loved and decided to move to another city. One of the downsides of living in a city like Amsterdam where people come and go.
We had great ducth friends that showed us the insights and hidden gems of the city and helped us with logistics and any other related matters that were completely new to us. Oh boy, did we appreciate having that support from them!
Due to personal reasons, we decided it was time to come back to Barcelona. It wasn’t an easy decision. We were a bit expectant of how it would be coming back home after years being abroad. Somehow for us, it was easier to leave to a new city than coming back to a place you knew but you haven’t been for a while
Would things be the same? Would we feel like strangers in our own country? Expectations are bigger when you’re coming back home.
Fortunately, coming back was a great experience. It required some adjusting and getting to new ways of doing (for sure) but we appreciated being close to family very much. We loved spending some proper time with them rather than the usual holiday catch up gathering.
We felt like it was time to settle down and start a family. The path to becoming parents came up longer than expected and we got familiarized with all the terms related to Infertility. We visited several doctors and ended up going through a few IVF procedures before getting pregnant.
It was a rocky path and quite exhausting emotionally but we felt very grateful and lucky that we were finally becoming parents. This chapter is long enough for another post in our blog (stay tuned!).
Having a kid was quite a revolution - something common amongst parents as we have realised over the years. The lack of logistics (our family lives in another city), the sleepless nights and the sense of “everything is coming new to us” was quite overwhelming at the beginning.
One of the breaking points for me was meeting other mothers with kids of same age and going through the same feelings. Understanding that I wasn’t the only one feeling that way was so comforting, so refreshing. I then realised how important it is to find the right support in such a special and emotional period of your life.
We started doing lots of research to make sure we had that support we needed along the way. One day looking back at the past years and remembering our Amsterdam days, something clicked inside of us and we decided we could use our experience and research to help others going through the same and By your side BCN came to life. The feeling was a bit like…
"if we, knowing the city, felt that way… imagine not being familiar with the options available and how it works, not speaking the language…"
It is a great feeling when you connect with something that you care deeply about. The energy you put into it is fantastic and very rewarding. Meeting great professionals that help you shape the project, investing many hours learning more about what the city has to offer for families has been truly satisfying.
Knowing that we could be that support for other families, helping them navigate through the uncertainty and finding the right professionals for their needs makes us very happy and it is our main drive and mission.
Do you feel like you could do with some support in family related topics in Barcelona? Do you know someone that could need our help? Contact us!
We offer 20 min discovery call to understand what you’re looking for and how we can help you.
And if you want to learn more about By your side BCN - you can also check the entry Therapy in Barcelona made about us in their blog .
For more details...