About two years after we were married, my husband and I managed to purchase our first apartment in the suburb of Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. We were heady with joy and excitement to be able to purchase a home at such an early stage in our marriage. Having grown up in Los Angeles, it was my first experience living in the boondocks in a newly developing town.

We moved to Ramat Beit Shemesh with two babies less than a year apart; the eldest had just turned a year old, the other was a newborn. We bought a four-bedroom apartment in the hopes that our family would grow. Now we are a family of eight, filling up all four bedrooms.

Back then, we didn’t know that it is considered the norm to exterminate before moving into an apartment, so we also shared our living quarters with spiders that jumped when you tried to swat them, crickets that chirped, and frogs that croaked.

We loved our new apartment, but I was not used to the isolating feeling of being so far from an established community. Street signs had only just been put up, the roads were newly paved, and I had heard that ambulances had gotten lost more than once.

There was only one minimarket in the area, so I had to travel to a different neighborhood to do my weekly shopping. I would leave the little ones with a sitter. It was great to get out of the house, but strange to me that I couldn’t buy more than just the bare necessities in my neighborhood.

When I would go out on the massive patio at night, the only noise I would hear were the crickets chirping and the jackals howling in the dark. It made me feel very lonely for the hustle and bustle of Jerusalem, from where we had moved.

The realtor who sold us our apartment made it sound like “RBS,’’ as our community is called, was a hop, skip, and a jump away from Jerusalem, but I was just starting to feel the reality of how far a 45-minute bus ride from Jerusalem really was.

One morning, I sent my two little ones to a sitter so I could go to breakfast in Jerusalem with a good friend. When I rode back from Jerusalem, the baby sitter was on the bus with me! She had left my children in the care of her 15-year-old daughter, who she said was used to watching all of her little siblings. I was happy that the girl had experience, but unhappy that the sitter hadn’t told me her plans up front. That was the only time I left Ramat Beit Shemesh that year.

Several years have passed now. Our oldest is 17, and our house is full of life. Ramat Beit Shemesh is not what I would call a bustling metropolis, but there are plenty of stores here for food and clothing and even a few restaurants. There are also several malls and eateries only a short bus ride away. Gone are the days of feeling completely isolated and alone with only the jackals to keep me company.

Miriam Epstein, a freelance writer and photographer, lives in Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel. Send comments and a 550-word essay on your first home to Address@globe.com. Please note: We do not respond to submissions we won’t pursue.