Cambodia at a Crossroads

a less busy week

So it looks like Tuesday night is the big social outing night- the last 3 weeks I've come home from the clinic with other pregnant people. One of them has already given birth, but a few new ones have appeared!
Last week we worked out although it looked like there were only 5 of us in the car there were actually 8 people.

Yesterday I went to the hospital where I'm planning to give birth, I filled in a paper and got a hospital number on a card back. Then back to our leafy guesthouse for lunch with a women who will be helping with the birth (hopefully, if he comes while she is in town). She is Swiss but studying to be a mid wife in the Philippines.  I met her through the expat birth team network here.

We're still working out how to do the paperwork for the birth, looks like we have a few different options (sending a person down, sending the documents by EMS).

Buying dinner on the way home from the Tuesday night pregnant  outing to clinic

Soeun is trying some new med and less exposure to inside dust. The doctor here reckons if we treat his dust allergy his inner ear will be more healthy and it will deal with his fatigue and insomnia.

At this point in time it feels like being pregnant and trying to get healthy is a full time job for us! I think i imagined we would be doing stuff in these weeks, but we only have enough energy to do the essentials it feels like. So we are very thankful we are staying somewhere that means we can just focus on health for now.  Don't feel like we have energy to look after a baby- but we don't have a baby yet so thats ok for now.

I'm enjoying public transport here, feels safe, smooth, easy and comfy. 

something new to try

I think my memory of Thailand is going to be all about 7 eleven and doctors! We spent the day in the hospital, so missed lunch, although it was nice to be in air con all day!!

 Saw a doctor about Soeun's health and it seemed to make sense. We only went to this doc cos we have time now, it didn't feel like it was going to be useful as we have already spent a few years seeing different docs and trying different things. We ran out of energy in Aust, but now that we've had some breathing space we started investigating again, and seems fruitful (to our surprise). We'll see what happens over the next little while with meds and lifestyle changes.

slowing down

Feeling like things are less hectic now, thankful yesterday both of us did pretty much nothing all day which was a relief. Enjoying staying here with the trees, grass, birds and various other things like geckos.

within 2 weeks

Over the last 2 weeks I've lived in
1 room, visited
2 hospitals, been to
3 doctors clinics and
4 birth classes.
 I've lost track of the number of 7elevens and song thaews (red ute, public transport) I've been in, and the number of nice friendly helpful people I've met.

blue spot

We just had lunch with a couple from our birth class, and at one point in the convo I felt like they had got together before hand and come up with a baby fact I'd never heard of, it was a bizarre experience!

The other father-to-be is American (white) and the other mother-to-be is Chinese (from China). The father told us how he had recently found out that most asian babies are born with a blue spot that normally fades after a few months.

Soeun and I were both surprised for different reasons. I was surprised as I'd never heard of it before, and he was surprised because he thought all babies had that and was surprised that I and the other father-to-be didn't know about it.

So now all 4 of us are wondering if our half asian babies will have the blue spot.

Daunting

The thought of having a baby is quite daunting, and the thought of going to a new country is also daunting. But thats what we are doing... well we've just arrived in a new country and getting ready to have a baby. 

We've been travelling in these red utes, much more comfy than a motor bike!

Getting ready to come here and travelling here felt like a big effort, thought once I got here I would be more relaxed, but the first week has felt busy, good busy! Enjoying getting to know some people here, other expats from various places and others giving birth as well as those who can help us at this stage of life.  The main reason we came here was because of the network, and so far it has been great.

More of our first week is on other blog click here.

Lots of nice trees!