Howling and exhausted from jet lag and breastfeeding, I stood between the metres of shelves in the US supermarket. We had just moved here and I had no idea why there were so many strange types of milk and where to find BPA-free pacifiers. My six-month-old baby cried along in solidarity, our three-year-old son clung to the huge shopping trolley in uncertainty.

At home, I realised that we had bought cream instead of milk. Because instead of the usual tetra packs, milk in the USA comes in huge plastic gallons. My mum and my friends, who I would have loved to cry with, were tens of thousands of kilometres away. And it was the dead of night at their place. There I was: alone and completely distraught over little things with two small children between moving boxes.

A few days earlier, I had flown to the USA with the children, following my husband. He had been offered his dream job there, a promotion within the company. We had only been given a few days to think about the decision to move to America as a whole family. Then my husband took up the new job straight away and I had to say goodbye and move away from Switzerland alone with my baby and toddler.

I had actually seen myself as the adventurous type. Student exchange, studying abroad, moving myself for a job, discovering new things? "Of course, it's exciting," I always thought. I was also open to moving when it came to my husband's job. After all, the children were small, I only wanted to work a little and from home anyway, maybe even have a baby. It was all a perfect fit.

What I had completely underestimated was the stress that it means for a family to change location. How different a self-determined and chosen move felt to a job-related move. How exposed and overwhelmed I would feel as a trailing spouse. That's what I was suddenly called in company-speak. Suddenly I was just an appendage, the "wife of ...". Suddenly a job determined and changed our entire environment.

Our family was caught up in the maelstrom of global mobility and constant availability. My job was to build a new home from scratch in the new place as quickly as possible. So that the children didn't get too out of balance. And so that my husband could concentrate on the new job.

Packing hundreds of boxes and unpacking them at the new location wasn't the worst part. Most of it was done by a removal company at the company's expense. Others had already helped with finding a house and a playgroup, organised visas and flights. There was full support for organisational matters. And as expats, we had a good salary at our disposal for our new life. Friends envied us, perhaps longing for a new start and great freedom themselves. Living the American Dream.

And yet, even when we had reorganised and settled in, our home sweet home was still not home. Everything around us was new and unfamiliar, exhausting and confusing. My old friends hardly understood how I was suffering inside, even though everything looked perfect from the outside. There were no new friends yet, in the first few weeks I only exchanged a few words with postmen and governesses. Nevertheless, I had to manage to cheerfully build a new and intact world for two small uprooted children. For a man who worked late into the night.

We made new friends: Nice parents from preschool, helpful neighbours, friendly mums from baby gym - and above all other "trailing spouses". I had previously sworn to myself that I would never cluck with other Swiss and German women in the USA. Today, these same mums are still best friends of mine and we meet up regularly. What connected us quickly and deeply were the challenges and the mutual support and encouragement. We all needed it.

Just as a feeling of "having arrived in a new life" was tentatively emerging in me, the next departure came. Exciting new job, great opportunity - everything would be organised again, just please accept immediately and pack your bags.

Four years earlier, I had moved from Basel to Bern , pregnant and with a small child. Less than 12 months later, the next move was Bern-USA with a baby. After three years in the USA, where our third child was born, another move with a new baby, this time to Belgium.

For our eldest son, who was only six years old, it was the fourth nursery, his fourth home, which I set up in Brussels. And me? In the meantime, with all the great opportunities and decisions that my husband was discussing with his superiors, I no longer felt like a person. I was just a complication. Could our family's need to live safely in a stable community be less important than the company's internal need for managers with global experience?

Neither my son nor I really gained a foothold in Belgium, only the younger daughters settled in well. Three years later, the next job change was imminent, shortly before our middle daughter started school. This time I insisted that we would go to a place where our three children could finish school - back to Basel.

I longed to come home. And I realised that you don't swim in the same river again. After seven years away, with three children who only knew Basel from stories, we had to work hard to find every piece of home here again.

A happy ending for the family that was plagued by the move? Well, yes. The position at the company headquarters means that my husband has to travel for weeks at a time, often with only short notice. Then the children and I are on our own again. And that makes it difficult for him to really settle in.

The job merry-go-round keeps on turning, with changes having to be made every two to three years. Flexibility and commitment in the country branches are explicitly expected. If my husband can't find a new job here, what then? Would he commute and be a weekend dad to provide stability for our children? Would our marriage be able to cope? Would we miss him too much and move back? Could he restart his career in his mid-40s as the main breadwinner and how?