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Away We Go We Go follows the journey of Sophie & Jordan Epton, an American couple who moved to France with their 10-month old twins, and the crazy adventure that follows. We dive deep into what it's really like moving and living abroad as expats, interview others who have taken the road less traveled, provide travel tips, discuss how you can do hard things to change your own life, and everything in between.
Big Update! Elstori has been born and the Eptons are moving!
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[00:00:00] Hello and welcome back to another episode of The Away We Go. We Go podcast. Hell yeah. Away we go. We go again. ~Uh,~ I'm not sure exactly how we start this episode. This is probably the biggest one we've had yet.
This is like a football entrance, like break through the paper type moment. I feel like this is, yeah. Fucking hit it. Hit 'em with it. Okay. Well we have two very big [00:01:00] announcements. We'll get right to it and then we'll kind of explain why and where and how, and all of the things. We don't bury the lead. We're not gonna bury the lead.
So we have very big news to share One. As of, well, in real time as of yesterday, yeah. I launched my brand new company, tech company, ~um,~ that is supporting women in postpartum and early motherhood. Yo, Sophie launched her company yesterday. Amazing. Oh man. Yeah, we gotta get into that. I have my biggest supporter right here.
Like, and me couldn't. No. Oh my God. The dad jokes couldn't do without you. That's what we do. And in also very, very big news, which I think we're a little nervous to tell everyone. We come as a shock. We come as a shock. We're moving, we are moving, [00:02:00] we are moving from X to what we have heard and we're just gonna run with it.
The. PVance of the us ~uh,~ or of California. We're moving to California down to San Diego. Sunny San Diego, San Diego, California, ~uh,~ early this summer. Yes. So it's coming up and coming in hot. It's, it's been a really, really wild turn of events. If you would've asked me, I don't know, last, I mean, I would say like September, October, before the new year.
Before the new year essentially, ~uh,~ there was no way I would've thought we were ever like moving. I don't even know if it was hardly a conversation at that point. Hardly a conversation. But it's things changed, baby, that things changed. Ha It changed quickly with us. When we decide we wanna go for something, we go for it.
Oh my gosh, Sophie, I love this about her. This [00:03:00] girl makes decisions, man. I mean, there are certain circumstances. Maybe like if we're designing something, she, you know, has a lot of different ideas and that takes a while.
But I'm talking like big shit. When this girl is ready to make decisions, it is like we think about it, we process, we make the call, boom, it's happening. It's how we got here. Shit. Well, if you do know me, you know that I like to build in privacy so no one will know my plans except for a few, you know, people that are really in the know, which is essentially.
Jordan, or maybe my parents, but we have been building, we've been essentially building everything for a long time. Mm-hmm. And now that everything is set, we're ready to share it with the world. And we definitely know that you'll have a lot of questions, and that's something that we'll get to in another [00:04:00] episode.
Absolutely. But in the meantime, I thought it would kind of be good for the audience if we walk them through everything and really tell our story. I mean, this is, this is super exciting. And, and the, the whole reason why we started this podcast, obviously there's a few, the twins were a huge part of it, and being able to share this wild decision that we made and took action on, ~um,~ when we decided to move here, when they were 10 months old and, and start going through the whole process when they were, you know, six, seven months old.
That was a big part of it. But I think the other was just documenting this experience of us for ourselves, just stepping out of our comfort zone and doing really hard things and learning to trust ourselves more. Learning to really take risks and [00:05:00] not be scared, ~um,~ when we go through this stuff. And so, yeah, I think this is, this is kind of an US thing feels like, and very much, ~um,~ I'm gonna give a little bit of a backstory 'cause I'm gonna turn it over to you because this, this company that you have launched is obviously very much all you, but what I can tell you is before we moved here, when we were in Austin, ~um.~
Sophie was working so hard. She hardly had any space for inspiration. She was just working. I knew that when we arrived here, the pace, what she was doing would absolutely provide her with some space. And it literally did just that. Not exactly in the way you might think, ~um,~ but in true Sophie fashion, she has grabbed life by the horns and I am literally like [00:06:00] electrified with pride for this woman.
And, you know, today is a culmination of months and months and months and months, ~um,~ and years really of insanely hard work and getting to this point where, man, I know that this is a run on sentence for Sophie. She's probably like jumping out of her skin right now, but to me it's really important to talk about.
Just how impressed I am by you and you continue to do this, ~um,~ since I've known you. So I'm really pumped for Sophie to tell you all about what she has created, and this is just the beginning. You are gonna make me cry. I love you so much. Not to get too sappy, but here we go. So, ~um,~ if you've been following along, if you've been listening since the beginning, you know all about our son, Luca, and you know that when he was born, he was born with a congenital heart defect.
~Um,~ that required him to have surgery [00:07:00] nine days after he was born. And he spent 41 days in NICU and then finally came home to us. And actually I say finally 'cause it really is miraculous, like how quickly he healed from an open heart surgery. Yeah, shit was nuts. Newborn was nuts to be real. But I think the thing, I've touched on it a little bit lately.
I'm kind of in anticipation of knowing, you know, where this is all going. But something that I have not shared publicly until this week is that I went through an absolutely brutal postpartum. And I'm not sure if it was because it was twins or if it was because of Luca and the trauma that happened, like with everything, you know, just so many different things when he was in the hospital and just everything that we had to do as a family to survive that time.
But [00:08:00] essentially, when he was born. I was like in tunnel vision and I just wanted to essentially get him okay and get him home and then get on with our lives and our move to France, because we knew that we wanted to move to France before the babies were even a thing in our lives. True. And so when he did come home, things felt really good.
Obviously. Like he was home with his sister, they were reunited, like they started sleeping through the night together, which is insane. Like insane. We're the, for having twins. It's the one thing that we were given that was easy, but Oh, so thankful that Yeah. They've been great sleepers. They've been great sleepers.
Sorry if that's triggering to anyone, but Yeah. ~Um,~ and then, and then we were planning our move. It was like, boom. He came home and we were like, okay, we're going to get everything in line. We're going to sell the house, we're going to get, you know, our visas secured. All of the things right. [00:09:00] And it was just, it was very busy.
~Um,~ you know, we were traveling to California for work with the kids, with our cat, like we were doing all the things. So when we finally moved in July of 2023, I had time finally to like sit in everything that had happened to me in the last, not even more than 10 months, because we found out about Luca's condition when I was 18.
18 weeks. 18 weeks, 18 weeks. It was right before we went on our babymoon actually, we found out about his condition. So I had sat with that in my, more than half of my pregnancy, and then obviously the 10 months and everything that happened and it just came over me like, I don't even know how to explain it.
It was like a thousand freight trains, like thousand freight trains nonstop. It was crazy. And, and I went from. I think being really excited to move here, [00:10:00] which I still was so excited the whole time, but I think just the reality of what had happened and what my life was, and also, don't ever let anyone fool you.
We've talked about this many times, like the first year of moving anywhere is really hard, but the first year of moving to a foreign country is 10 times harder. It's beautiful, but it's 10 times harder. And so I think just combining all of these things, I went through such a deep dark hole that I didn't know if I was gonna come back out, you guys for a while there.
And by the time we st we, you know, started the podcast, I was in a much different place. But I would say for certain. It took two years for me to fully come out of it, and the first year was extremely dark, and I, I'm watching Jordan right now. Are you getting [00:11:00] emotional? I'm good. Okay. Well, he was essentially, he and my mom were the only ones who knew what was going on.
I think there's a ton of shame that happens around postpartum and around women when they have babies and the idea of a bounce back and the idea that, I mean, even when I hear women, they almost talk about not having postpartum, like it's a pride thing, which I get because it's like if you, you know, there's not enough women out there talking about what it's really like, because at the end of the day, you know, I would take care of these babies.
They were babies at the time, all day long, and they, like, these babies were very well taken care of. Like they would've had no idea what was going on with me. But then. I mean, Jordan can tell you, like at night when I would put them down to sleep, I would crumple up into a ball and just cry and just, [00:12:00] you know, talk about how much, you know, the trauma had affected me.
Talk about how much, I just missed a lot of things about my old life, or I just didn't know who I was anymore. And these are all things that are so normal, but that aren't talked about enough and they have to be normalized so much more. And so I essentially was able to get through postpartum and I really, it took six months of really, really doing deep, deep work.
But there was one point essentially where I remember this, I was talking with my mom and I was talking about how unhappy I was one night again, another night after I'd put the kids to bed. I remember like feeling like I was floating above my body and looking down and being like, you have to do something about this if you're going to get out of this.
And the [00:13:00] next day I started to make some changes. It was like a switch was flipped and what, can I just pop in really quickly? Yeah. Because from a partner perspective, you know, and I think if you've been listening to the podcast for any amount of time, you know, I, I got hype man mode. I love being a hype man, especially love hype manning, Sophie.
And, you know, when we first got here, and we spent a lot of time where I was working nights, so these nights within our first year, I was working until midnight, five days a week. Yeah. I didn't, I did not talk about that. And, and Sophie was having, you know, I, I do, I always wake up and do the mornings with the twins.
You know, I would essentially, you know, we're divide and conquer type family and I would hand 'em off to her in the early afternoon and she would pick them for the rest of the evening. She would do [00:14:00] dinner with them, you know, baths, whatever, put 'em to bed and then she's alone for a good five hours, you know, four to five hours.
And this is just, imagine like we just moved here, we don't know a lot of people. She's going through a very intense amount of postpartum, putting the twins down by herself and then having hours upon hours of night solo where like by the time I get done with work, it's not like we even had a ton of time to like really catch up.
So while I knew what was going on, I didn't even know what was really going on. And it was like, not for lack of like wanting to share, it was you were just figuring out yourself how you were dealing with everything. And, and I very vividly remember you like [00:15:00] having those conversations and you know, I, I'm very much oversimplifying you, making the decision that you have to work on it.
But yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, I think the thing that doesn't get talked about enough, it doesn't matter whether you had a fine time after you delivered the baby or if you went through a, you know, deep, dark postpartum. You are a different person after you give birth. Plain and simple. There is literally, there is no, and I I always say this to people too, postpartum is for life and maybe it needs a different rebrand or a different name.
~Um.~ There's something called NCE that talks about this, but essentially like who you are changes overnight. And it is something that women have to grapple with so much who they are, how they fit in, you know, how they, I mean everything from their [00:16:00] careers to how they're taking care of the baby, to feeling like some days like you're failing as a mother.
'cause there's certain things that maybe you, you can or cannot do, whatever it is. And so essentially I really worked on myself. I feel like I, I rewired my brain and how I thought about life and, and that is when, around that time is when we started the podcast and we, you know, went into this. I kind of new, exciting chapter of France and I felt like, you know, even though there was so many beautiful moments we had even through all of the darkness of living here, I also felt like this was a time for us in the last year just to like really enjoy and share things.
And I mean, the community that we've built with all of you has been amazing. I mean, this podcast is now listened to [00:17:00] in over a hundred countries. That's wild man. And like, we could not be more thankful. I mean, there's just, it's just, it's the coolest really fucking awesome. But, but I think, ~um,~ one of the most beautiful things that happened, as Jordan was saying in France, is that through this whole process, through this kind of crazy valley of my life, I'd never experienced anything close to this in my life.
I was able to go through it, come out the other side and have a totally different perspective on. A kind of a, a calling in my life. And I remember we were, it was just the two of us last May, it was like literally almost a year ago to the day. Mm-hmm. We were driving to go see the poppy fields. Mm-hmm. And I finally turned to you and I said, I like just let it all spill out of, we had, we had literally parked the car and we were like sitting in the car and it was just one of those like, you know, we weren't in a [00:18:00] rush to get out.
And you had that like this, this look of like, something needs to like explode out of my mouth. Yeah. Like say something kind of face, not sick kind of face and you're just like, I just need to like get this out because it's been like rumbling around in my head. And she just like went off on what she would refer to as a Jordan tangent.
~Um,~ and it was like, I hadn't seen her lit up like this in such a long time. And like, you know, the, I think the things that like, you know, nobody who would understand was like, you know, Sophie and I have been together for almost 17 years and, you know, early on in our relationship when she was, you know, figuring out living in Austin and figuring out her career path and then building a business and then like leveling up and up and up and up throughout that process.
And [00:19:00] it was like, I got very used to seeing this girl lit the fuck up about her ideas, manifesting them and materializing them into something awesome. And then getting like celebrated for it. Like that was a, became a kind of a normal thing for Sophie in, in what she was doing. And then. This was a very, very, very different experience.
And to see her like, see that, like it's more than a spark, it was a lightning bolt, like shine. It was like, oh my God, this is fucking, this is exciting. I didn't know exactly what she meant, what she was thinking of, but I, I definitely got the idea. It was just awesome to see her in that state. And I feel like for the last, like, I don't know, eight months or so, like you've been a walking lightning bolt, like just fizzing with energy and man, that is, that is some, you know, [00:20:00] other than that being like electrifying shit to be around like it is, what's the word I'm looking for?
Where like, I am getting that feed off of you words. You're absorbing good energy. Yeah. ~Uh,~ yeah, it's, I told Jordan everything that was in my heart, everything I had been thinking of, and we started to really like work on the build out and, you know, just incorporating the business and doing all the things.
I mean, because we have big, big plans for where this is going. So we have a trademark underway, like we're registered, like corporation, all of the things, because essentially it's an app that I am creating that is going to help hopefully so, so, so many women in [00:21:00] postpartum and early motherhood and, but it's, you know, when we think about the 10 year arc of this 15 year arc, 20 year arc, who knows what this journey's going to be.
~Um,~ we are here to change what is going on for women and for mothers and, you know, just the journey and the experience that women are having after they have a child, which is the most profound experience that any woman could ever go through. And the fact that you're given almost no support and you have no, like, they give you so many classes about the baby, like how to breastfeed, you know, CPR, all of these different things.
And they barely touch on what's going to happen to you. And I think that's like the biggest atrocity in the world because the more that we can support women, educate them, lift them up, the better this world is going to be. And I'm so excited [00:22:00] to, you know, take this. Crazy experience that I've had and turn into something really, really positive that, you know, I can make a big impact with.
And so that's, that's where we're at. And so we, we really have been working on everything. Gosh, we've been working on it all fall really hard. We started doing beta testing with users with moms back in December. And I don't know if you guys remember when we did our summit and we were planning out the year in January.
We went to my mom's house and we sat down and looked at the whole year and the two of us turned to one another. And I think when we just looked at everything that we had planned and everything that we want to do and all the goals, I think we just made the decision that it was really important that we back be back in the [00:23:00] United States to build this out.
It was, it was a wild process. I really quickly, 'cause I know we're transitioning, but I just want to again, jump back in 'cause this is not really my, my platform to speak obviously as, as somebody who's not capable of, ~um,~ doing that miraculous thing of no growing a fucking human, but we love you anyway. And giving birth.
Thanks buddy. But like Sophie has literally built all of these different elements that she would like, refer back to that. She's like, I didn't, I didn't have this, I didn't have this, I didn't have this. I wish I would've been able to dot, dot, dot. And the feedback that we've gotten from the moms that have been playing around with it already, and just the conversations that I'm privileged enough to overhear or, you know, afterwards, you know, [00:24:00] get Sophie's kind of, ~uh,~ review of these conversations.
It's, it's really exciting. It feels very empowering. ~Um,~ really fucking proud of you. ~Um,~ thank you. Thank you. Really is, ~um,~ the, the summit and the whole decision. A lot of it felt like a very condensed version of the process. We went, coming, like went through coming here. Yeah. ~Um,~ which was again, also like, you know, that we've talked about our whole kind of process around.
You know, just using our resources to figure out where, why, talking about our why, which is obviously a huge one. ~Um,~ doing our pros and cons list for the, the new priorities. Again, new information, new decisions. And that's kind of where this, this got to, and it was after that kind of summit. Well, I think the idea [00:25:00] we had mentioned earlier on, like, we probably need to be open-minded to the idea that if you're gonna build a tech company, ~um,~ and we're gonna release it mostly in the US that leasing in the US for now.
Now, yep. ~Um,~ that, you know, can we stay here and do it of course, but in the way that we would really want to accelerate and connect with people. In building a tech company, ~um,~ where we understand the language well. Yeah. And like also just meeting people in real life, shaking hands, like being in the rooms with the people that, you know, we want to meet.
And I think we, we kind of quickly collaborate with, we quickly decided we don't have enough money for you to fly back and forth all the time, essentially. Yeah. Or, or to be gone from the kids that long. And you obviously like, and me obviously. Obviously. Yes. Me. ~Um,~ so yeah, it's, you know, we are taking, I'm [00:26:00] gonna say we're taking a leap of belief because it's, to me, it's way more than faith.
This is, I feel like a new calling and I'm ready and I believe because there are so, so many women out there that I, that need this and that. I can't wait to help. ~Um,~ and it's, it's not just me by the way. It's, it's me and so many other postpartum specialists who have been part of this journey as well.
Mm-hmm. Who, you know, we now have a postpartum advisory board. So it's, it's just so many women and we're just gonna keep, I love thinking about this. I was just telling someone this today that it feels like this movement of just women that we're just, as we keep going along this journey, we're just gonna keep, like, you know, bringing people, like other women into the fold mm-hmm.
And making this more and more like powerful and impactful and all those things. So, [00:27:00] so all that to say, when we decided where we should move in the United States. ~Uh,~ I don't think there was really a question. Well, and, and you know what helped? I don't know the number of the episode number 51 or something like that.
It was just a few back where we talked about astrocartography, but that Oh, that, yeah. Kind of did also, I think that more reinforced, it reinforced the decision for sure, because I think we both knew the decision well, even before we moved to France. We always talked about how if there was anywhere else in the United States, where would we want to live?
Because there's only like certain climates, I think now after living in Austin for 15 years, that she we're willing to tolerate. We didn't, Sophie always talks about how she's like, I've always lived somewhere sunny. I'm not willing to move somewhere. Not sunny. That's true, that's true. Because weather, like, like cloudy [00:28:00] gray weather, like really affects me.
~Um,~ you, you won't be around this chick when she's in like. Months of overcast, like Yeah, well that was, that was this past winter. Mm-hmm. Which is wild, but, and then also just, I mean, there's just so many things like, just like the climate and what we had access to. And so for us, Southern California was always kind of the number one.
And especially, you know, we kept going back, even living here, we kept going back there, as you guys know, for work. Yeah. At least two, three times a year. And every time we go, we would still like fall in love with it even more. And I would refer to it as like my happy place. And so I will say it does, there's, I mean, I've seen a lot of.
Instagram posts lately, which is really funny about how like you can't, you know, convince me that California and France aren't like the same. ~Um,~ because it is, it's wild. It's like a lot [00:29:00] of the, you know, just you have the, you know, the OS or the ocean, the sea. You have the vineyards, the mountains, like you have all these things and ~um,~ so I think in a lot of ways it will be a really warm welcome.
We have a lot of friends that live there and we know the area really well now after years of going there for work. And it's been really wild to see how, I think just the things have been lining up. We found an incredible place that we're so excited about moving into, which is huge. 'cause you know, your surroundings is everything.
We'll be pretty close. Place isn't huge, just the No, no. I mean, it's California, but, but it, it will be, you know, it will be not very far from the beach, which is like gonna be amazing to think about, like, taking our kids there all the time. ~Um,~ we officially just got them into the [00:30:00] school system there, and so we're excited about, you know, that, I mean, there's, there's so many things.
I know you guys are gonna have a million questions and we'll definitely get into that in a, you know, different episode. But it's, it's a really wild feeling because, you know, we've loved so much about our time. Well, and you know, we planned France for like a long time. Yeah. We really did. Like we had been, I've talked about this many times.
We moved here July of 2023. In June of 2020, I told you on a walk. Outside when it was hot as fuck. I said In Austin? Yeah. I said, I'm, I'm ready. I'm like, I'm ready. Like my brain, like the switch was there and I was like, I'm ready to move. Like I'm ready to like plan it. Like I, if we had the opportunity to go tomorrow, I'd be ready to go.
Like, that was like deep in COVID and obviously we didn't know anything and so we weren't gonna go then. But, uh, but I, like my head was there and then it [00:31:00] was like another three years before we actually moved and there were obviously three years worth of conversations and planning and dealing with the patients that I had to deal with from already mentally, like, wanting to do it.
And this one was way more accelerated by like a hundred times because the, the degree of us having a why is kind of the same, you know? I think what feels really interesting about. This move back is, and, and we've, we've been able to share with, with, you know, friends and, and some people here, and the questions do come up like, you know, oh man, are you like so excited?
Just like, get outta here. And it's like, that's not the vibe. No. Like that. That's not because it's, again, it comes back to episode two and knowing your why and like we have a really strong why. Like we [00:32:00] know exactly why we're moving and we know exactly why we're moving there. And it obviously comes with some bittersweet feelings because you're not excited about the things that you love that you're leaving, but you're also really excited about the things that you're going towards.
Yeah. What's ahead and you know, we like to be not toxic, positivity, you know, gumballs flying outta my ass type people like, you know. There are things here that we've been very frustrated about that we're like, Hmm, that's gonna be a relief when we move back. And then there's also things that we already know, like, oh, that's not gonna be kind of the same experience when we won't be, won't be the same when I open up my windows.
And I don't see like the beautiful, you know, city of X. I mean, yeah. It's, I mean, I mean we're, we're in the apartment that we wanted to be in. Yeah. And, and I think for you, this, this apartment was like some of like the [00:33:00] most like grounding parts of like, living here for you because it's, you know, oh yeah.
Your home and your environment is like huge for you, is for everybody. Yeah. But for you, like, that's always been really important and, and walking back into this place every day and just being able to like feel that like, I live here. You know, like, yeah, we are going to miss that, like we're gonna miss.
Yeah. There's not in the summer when we have no ac Fuck that. No, there's, I mean, there's, there's so many things. It's a very, very bittersweet feeling because, you know, there's, I mean, I have my parents that live here and, you know, we've had so many beautiful experiences and, you know, we love X. There's just, let me just think about all the memories and everything that we've done and the fact that our kids are, you know, speaking two different languages right [00:34:00] now.
And yeah, there's a lot, but I think the pull to California is just, it's just greater right now. Yeah. And so I have no doubt in my mind. Of course, you know, France is always gonna be a huge part of who we are. It's. You know, it's a place that we'll continue to return to just to visit family and visit friends.
And it's not, it's not a goodbye, it's an and. Mm-hmm. Um, truly. And, but I think just right now we know, we know where we need to be and we know that that is the United States. And if it's United States, it has to be Southern California. That's right. And it has to be San Diego for us. So, so here we go.
Embarking on yet another global move with our young twins where we are dealing [00:35:00] with all of the logistics of, you know, we gotta we gotta shut down all the lights here. Oh yeah. And turn on all the lights there. Oh yeah. Uh, while we are in the middle of continuing our parenting. Did we mention that Sophie launched a new fucking company today?
So yeah, there's gonna be navigating that and, you know, both of us working and all the, just general logistics of what do you do with your stuff, when do you shut down certain things? How do you keep certain things? Does anybody wanna buy our car? All sorts of stuff that we gotta figure out, you know, to, to get outta here and try to make it as smooth a transition as possible.
So, um, forgive me for, you know, saying the movie title and the movie, but like, away we go, we go again. Like, you know, it's about to be a fucking thing, but we're really excited to do it and maybe we're fucking crazy [00:36:00] by that I mean, we, we are, but you knew that going into this. You can't change it now, homie.
Well, with a Gemini and Aquarius. We're bound to always live a life that we push boundaries. So there it is. Yeah. So I think on that note, obviously there's a lot to still answer, but what we'd love to do is we are announcing everything as well on Instagram today. We want all of your questions. Um, and we're going to answer everything in another podcast episode coming up soon.
And in the meantime, we really appreciate you listening to our story and just, you know, being someone who's coming along with us on this journey. You know, life is, I think life is what you make of it, right? It's this big, beautiful, crazy world, [00:37:00] and it's really just about. How you wanna move through it. We always said to each other, you are the architect of your own life and your own journey.
And so it's really about what you wanna do. And for us, it's about starting a new adventure yet again. And feeling pretty excited about it too. I'm real excited about it
so we will be back next week with a brand new episode and a lot to talk about. And in the meantime, sending all of our love to you guys. Have a great week. Love y'all. Bye.
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