Expat bumps unite!

[expatttc]

Hi ladies,

I was/am on a ttc expat thread, and it's lovely to share experiences with those around the world away from home!

Now that I'm in the first trimester, I'm hoping to find some folks doing the same thing that I am...being pregnant while being based abroad, and trying to deal with all the decisions that entails!

Should you do testing in your host country or elsewhere (that's an easy one for me, i'm in Papua New Guinea, and there's min. health care here, so I have to head down to Australia)??

Giving birth in what country??

Dealing with cravings of food that isn't on the same continent (I'm from Canada, my DH is from Italy, and the pacific keeps us far, far away from favorite munchies)...

I'd love to hear from you and gain some global bump buddies!

 

[Nits]

Oh, I wish more people would reply to this thread! It's a great idea.

I am from Argentina and moved to the US 3 and a half years ago to be with my DH.
I am 37 weeks pregnant with our first. She will be born here in the US.
I had some cravings for Argentine candy, but I was lucky enough to have friends come and visit, so they brought me some.

I didn't see my mom or brother at all during this pregnancy =(
However, my mom just arrived yesterday and she's staying with us for 6 months

I found that waiting a few years to have a baby was a blessing, even though I was dying of baby fever
I feel a lot more at home, and I have made quite a few friends now. My support network is a lot stronger than it would have been had I just moved.

 

[expatttc]

Hi Nits! Happy to meet you! We'll see if we can gather more international bumps along! What are you doing in the US?

 

[albs]

hi! i'm in third tri but would still love to join you guys. dh and i are both from england but live in australia now. it's been hard doing stuff without family around, but i'm lucky to have made some awesome friends in the few years we've been here and they're looking after me just fine!
both mums (mine and dh's) are coming out after the birth but at different times. I love my mum to bits, and my MIL is pretty good as MILs go, but i'm still worried about it being a bit intense. 2 weeks for each of them with just me and the baby at home as DH will be back at work.
we're going back to the uk for a visit at christmas which i'm so excited about. we haven't been back since we moved over here 4 years ago. i do love it here, but we live here for DH really (you can't do his job in England) and i do miss England sometimes.
the biggest challenge i've found is a silly one, but all the names for things here being diffferent, and traditions being different. i spent ages trying to work out the difference between a stroller, pushchair and pram! and a friend threw me a baby shower which i was really nervous about as you don't have them in england, and it just seemed like i was inviting people to buy my presents. but it turned out to be awesome and everyone was so lovely, and very generous!

 

[expatttc]

Hi albs! Lovely to hear from you! I've just gotten my first scan done in Australia - Brisbane to be exact. It's the closest from PNG. The terms for everything are different...I agree completely with that. We were actually thinking of giving birth in Australia, but leaning towards going back to Canada (where I'm from).

 

[Nits]

ALbs, I'm on my third trimester as well. My mom is here for 6 months! (speaking of intense) but I am loving it so far. It's like her 5th time visiting by now, so she's actually pretty familiar with the place and has even made herself some friends.

Babyshowers don't exist in Argentina and I ahd the exact same feeling, I was afraid people would think I just wanted presents. I wrote on the invite that presents weren't mandatory and I wouldn't mind used things. But people were really happy to buy tons of stuff for us.

Expatttc, I moved to the US because this is where DH is from. I've been back to Argentina only once since the move but I've had many firends and family come visit me, which is lucky.

What do you do in Papua New Guinea?

I would love to visit Australia. Growing up I always thought I would move there, don't know why

 

[1eighty]

Popping in

I'm originally from the UK but moved to Zimbabwe to be with my then boyfriend, who was born here but lived in the UK for a decade. We got married out here last month

Most of the food I miss most is things that really, I could only get right in the UK. Domino's double-based pizza, Tesco's finest ciabatta (with steak and onions on top), proper chocolates (the local stuff is crap).

The healthcare out here is fine, if you have Medical Aid or a ton of money. We have neither, but enough to be getting on with it. The pregnancy will probably send us into debt a bit at the end, we're estimating it to cost about $3k USD but it could run as high as $5k if there are complications or an extended hospital stay. Thankfully most of our friends are being very helpful and suggesting ways to cut the costs.

We want the baby to be born in Zim so that he/she can have citizenship (that whole issue is a bit of a mess in the current political climate), though they will be entitled to a UK passport through me if one is needed later on.

Our doc is brilliant and has a portable US in his room, so at every appointment we've been able to get a glimpse of the LO. We're off for our 12 week abnormality scan tomorrow, hoping to get an idea of which flavour we'll be getting

 

[Maviyildiz]

Hi!
I want to join you guys. I am at work at the moment though so won't write much just now-just wanted to say hello. I am from the U.S. and I moved to Sweden a year ago. Will pop back to this thread soon!
p.s. Albs, I have the same concerns about the MILs! Both have to travel to see us, so it will be really intense while they are here...

 

[bumpycat]

Hi ladies! OH and I are both Canadian, living in the UK. We've been here more than 6 years now and I'm 36 weeks pregnant with our first. I've got nothing but good things to say about the antenatal care here so far, and I love that it is midwife-led. I do miss some things from North America, but apart from my family, nothing major. My parents are coming to visit 2 weeks after the due date, and OH's parents shortly after that, though their plans are still somewhat up in the air. Luckily neither set plans to stay with us, they are both going to be staying nearby in their own places.

This is something silly, but I think it's kind of awesome at the same time that expats would particularly appreciate. Our baby was conceived on vacation in Canada, in Nova Scotia, in a town called New Glasgow, and will be born in Scotland, in Edinburgh. How appropriate is that??

 

[dgirllamius]

I'm from the UK and came to live in Germany with my German boyfriend.

I'll be giving birth here as it's a bit too late for me to now go back the UK. Plus the healthcare here is considerably better here.

I'm hoping my mum will be here for the birth - it's all fine getting here in the first place but once she is here, it's a two hour drive from Frankfurt to Kassel (where I'll be giving birth) so we might be a bit unlucky, or we might be very lucky...we'll see.

I have no family here and my boyfriends family are a waste of space. They have never bothered at all, never call...never visit so I doubt that'll change once the baby is here.

I miss a lot of stuff from home and have considered returning but now is not a good time. We're better off here financially and I think that's important. I miss the food from home...my mum does send me stuff but not very often as it's so expensive to send.

 

[Nits]

This is something silly, but I think it's kind of awesome at the same time that expats would particularly appreciate. Our baby was conceived on vacation in Canada, in Nova Scotia, in a town called New Glasgow, and will be born in Scotland, in Edinburgh. How appropriate is that??

ooo the British Empire!

I'm from the UK and came to live in Germany with my German boyfriend.

I'll be giving birth here as it's a bit too late for me to now go back the UK. Plus the healthcare here is considerably better here.

I have no family here and my boyfriends family are a waste of space. They have never bothered at all, never call...never visit so I doubt that'll change once the baby is here.

Sorry you are feeling somewhat lonely. That's what we are here for! How far along are you?


Nice to see the thread going =D

 

[dgirllamius]

Sorry you are feeling somewhat lonely. That's what we are here for! How far along are you?

36+1.

I'm glad that my mum will be here for some time when she is born (hopefully for the birth too, I wish the hospital would give me some answers). Don't know how I'm going to feel when she has to go. Luckily I will have a family midwife visit me twice a week for the first year of her life so I'll have some professional help too.

 

[Nits]

talk to your midwife about all your feelings, don't feel bad about being open and honest.

I have to say, the closer I get to the due date, the more personal an experience it becomes. I've enjoyed sharing my pregnancy with my American friends and my Argentine friends on facebook but now that I am strating to feel my baby is getting ready to come out, I don't feel like socializing.

It's a weird feeling, i feel happy and excited, I just don't have the energy to socialize, which is weird considering I used to be the kind of person who always had something going on.

 

[mrstrouble]

Nice thread! I'm 8 weeks today, and from the US but living abroad in Turkey, the hubby's home country....I'm constantly craving fast food chains that don't yet exist here, esp. Chinese I won't give birth here because they boss you into C-sections all the time, so I'll have to leave by 6 months back to the US. Ahhhhhhh! But hey, it's worth it for baby

 

[bumpycat]

This is something silly, but I think it's kind of awesome at the same time that expats would particularly appreciate. Our baby was conceived on vacation in Canada, in Nova Scotia, in a town called New Glasgow, and will be born in Scotland, in Edinburgh. How appropriate is that??

ooo the British Empire!

Yup! Rule Britannia and all that.

One of the joys of being an expat is the amount of control we get over visitors - been a lot of complaining threads on the 3rd tri forum lately about relatives threatening to visit when they aren't wanted. Though it kind of bites the other way when we want/need support, or just trying to keep communication going.

I phoned my grandmother for Mother's Day today. She and my grandfather are 85 and 86, and total internet refuseniks. They're not up to traveling from Canada to the UK, and we aren't going to make the reverse trip for the first couple of years. I'm not going to be making a big effort/expense to get photo prints made and sent to them (apart from a couple of nice ones for framing and showing off to friends of course), so I've told them they need to get an internet connection or they won't be seeing much of their first great grandchild unless they are at my aunt's house to use her computer. Am I being mean? Maybe after they see the baby on Skype for the first time they'll be convinced, but I feel kind of cruel for being so up front about it. It's not like they can't afford it, and my uncle has offered many times to set them up with a basic computer and to handle all the maintenance/updates. What do you all think? Anyone with similar problems, how did you get past it?

 

[Nits]

Bumpycat, they may not be tech savvy enough...
I am a family person, I wouldn't mind living closer to. My family. My mom came to stay with us for six months. Even though it's great, it'd be better if we all had our own space and privacy.

 

[bumpycat]

Bumpycat, they may not be tech savvy enough...

They learned how to use a VCR, how hard can it be? But you're probably right ... they've been resisting it for years, and I guess this won't change anything. It's sad, though, that they won't get to see as much of the baby as they might if they'd make just a little effort.

 

[Nits]

Well, I know my grandmother won't get an internet connection either, so I'll have to make sure that she let's me know whenever she's visiting my mom or one of my cousins so we can skype. Honestly, she doesn't even feel comfortable talking to the computer for that long, it'd be mostly so that she can see the baby.

I am planning on making birth announcements with photos, mainly because I want her and my brother to have one.

 

[expatttc]

Hi ladies, we've found that skype for newbies can cause more troubles than its worth, and it's best to do skype only when someone's around to help non-tech savvy relatives. Also, we've been doing a ton of making of photo books and sending them as gifts (not re. babies, but for everything else) and that is something that grandparents and older relatives have really seemed to love. Combined with phone calls, they're good.

We're still trying to figure out where to give birth. We want to go back to Canada (we're in Papua New Guinea), but don't want to stay all the time with my folks, who have space for us in their house but that might be a bit stifling after three months. I think the compromise will be for me to stay with them pre giving birth, then when my husband comes over and takes paternity leave so he can stay with me, we move out and get our own place. They're in the middle of a rural area though, so we have to decide to stay out there (lovely but in the winter, isolated to say the least), or maybe in a bigger city where at least my hubby can go out...

 

[Nits]

Hi ladies, we've found that skype for newbies can cause more troubles than its worth, and it's best to do skype only when someone's around to help non-tech savvy relatives. Also, we've been doing a ton of making of photo books and sending them as gifts (not re. babies, but for everything else) and that is something that grandparents and older relatives have really seemed to love. Combined with phone calls, they're good.

We're still trying to figure out where to give birth. We want to go back to Canada (we're in Papua New Guinea), but don't want to stay all the time with my folks, who have space for us in their house but that might be a bit stifling after three months. I think the compromise will be for me to stay with them pre giving birth, then when my husband comes over and takes paternity leave so he can stay with me, we move out and get our own place. They're in the middle of a rural area though, so we have to decide to stay out there (lovely but in the winter, isolated to say the least), or maybe in a bigger city where at least my hubby can go out...

That is a tough call having to move to a different country to give birth! Would you go back to PNG afterwards or are you planning a permanent move? (then it'd be more worth it to try and get your own place). What part of Canada are they in?
I am in Vermont (US), only a couple of hours away from Montreal, so trust me, I know what you mean by winter isolation. My mom refuses to come visit in the winter
What other options do you have, besides Canada?