Easier

At the start of the year it felt like we had a lot of hard things to do, and now those things are over. Phew! Feeling more relaxed and happy than I was in March.

Pack up our place in Aust, work out how we were going to get back to Cambodia, visit people in various places, set up house in Cambodia, work out what country to give birth in, go to Thailand, have baby, come back and get settled again.

Now we've done all that and as far as I can tell most of the rest of the year I'm just doing the same thing each day- feed baby, wash nappies, etc. Big sigh of relief!

Also, now we have less heat, less mozzies, less time with the power off AND as of yesterday sounds like the issue with our house is resolved. Another big sigh of relief.

Daddy and Baby at church a few weeks ago

Settling back in...

It was weird coming back after being away for 3 months. Trying to remember where we keep things in the kitchen and which TV channels have which numbers, so many new buildings, roads etc.

The baby is mostly sleeping at night now, and feeding is much easier than those first few weeks. I don't have a sore back anymore, and there are lots of different places I can feed him so feels more relaxed. And i guess once you do something for awhle it just gets easier. I was given a kindle so i've been downloading and reading lots of free books while I feed. I don't think I could have done that in the first weeks.

I've been spending time with neighbours thanks to the the fact that the baby prefers to be outside with people than inside with boring mummy and daddy. Other kids around here the same size as him seem to be 10 months old! He is bigger than a khmer baby.

Back in Cambodia

I've been warned about it.

I've seen it done to other people.
And this morning it happened to me.

Just arrived back in Cambodia with new born, took him outside this morning for a walk in the cool air, as its so hot inside. A grandma who was walking along came to talk to me.

She said something like :Your baby is cold, wait until the afternoon then he wont feel so cold. He will catch a cold if you bring him out now with not enough clothes on.

I wanted to tell her that when we spent the whole day in aircon (on the way back the airports and planes all had aircon) he was happy and slept well. I think he actually finds it too hot here.

Thankful for last few months

My first trimester was hard, Soeun was sick, I was sick, we didn't know what country we were going to have the baby in. Where could we go???- hoping for somewhere we could trust the medical care, where we could both be healthy and have somewhere to stay. It seemed like it was all to hard.

We had wanted to go back to Cambodia with an organisation but that didn't work out with everything else going on (we would have had to stay in Aust longer to go through the application process which involved health checks), and it was scary when I found out they required us to have health insurance but I couldn't be covered for maternity as I was already pregnant. We felt like we needed to get settled back in Cambodia asap as we weren't coping with life in Aust, and really needed to feel better before having a baby. But there would only be a few months for us to be in Cambodia before the baby came, so it wasn't ideal to go back anyway, as we would probably need to leave in a few months if we were to give birth outside Cambodia.

For most of my pregnancy I was travelling , first within Aust to visit church/supporters/family etc, then to Cambodia and finally to Thailand. And most of it we were trying to work out which country to give birth in. (Phnom Penh? Bangkok? KL?if in aust, which state/town? there is no one natural/obvious place)

 Thankfully we were together for the birth and had good experience of labour- painful of course, but happy we could be together for it and it went smoothly. The combo of the expat Birth Team here (who helped us prepare for birth ,and have been helping with breastfeeding etc) and the Christian guesthouse (designed for Christian workers in the region to come for a rest/ medical care etc)  have made it a fantastic place for us to be. Along with the good medical care here in Chiang Mai , Thailand it feels like the perfect place for us to be spending these months as we transition from two to three.

Three other families have also had babies here this month, the others had their 3rd and 4th kids. We've got to know lots of different guests from all over the world in our time here, mostly they only stay for a week or so. The other 3 families have also been here for about the same time as us, so it will be weird when it comes time to say goodbye!

The guesthouse does food and laundry for us, and has lots of nice people and trees, so its the perfect place to be when you are sore/ sleepy/ stressed. Also the rest of life is on hold and we can both just focus on getting to know the baby.

Once we go home we'll be busy with the rest of life, work, housework (its been great not having to go to the market and tryng to plan meals we both like) and obligations to people.

 Although its only the 2 of us in the house we rent we end up having various relatives and fake relatives staying for meals and nights, sometimes planned, sometimes spontaneous. Recently some friends stayed in our house cos their roof blew off in a storm, other times they have got locked out, or its been too stormy to go home (lightening + motorbike!!)

Its great we can be part of community and help people out, but I find this aspect of life stressful, esp as I've only been back in Cambodia a few months, so I'm still getting used to things.

I think I'm going to find it hard going back, I'm sure there will be plenty of people who will want to help, which can have its pros and cons in our situation.

We've applied for the first bit of paper work, when that comes through we can do the second stage, then we'll be able to leave Thailand.

The photo album from Kronicle Extra blog is here, if you go right to the end you'ss see the baby photos- the most recent ones are last, and this photo album has all the photos from our overflow blog.
On our other blog Kronicle Extra see Getting the Baby out 

first four photos of the 3 of us

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More on Baby

If you want more details about adventures in newborn land, and more baby photos have a look at my "overflow" blog Kronicle Extra

Baby!

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!

snails getting ready to meet Soeun

Khmer New Year- frogs, a funeral and stormy weather

Fried frog!

Soeun spent a few days with friends in a village for the biggest holiday of the year. Normally we would visit relatives in the province, but its not practical for me to travel at the moment so this was the next best thing.

 Lots of dancing, games and yummy food, also a funeral. This time of year is extra dangerous on the road and a member of the community he was visiting had a fatal moto accident.

It was awkward as the dancing place in the village was right near the deceased's house. Normally the funeral would have involved everyone and gone on for a few days, but they just had some monks chant for half an hour and then the dancing continued as normal. That was on the 3rd day of the holiday, the 4th day there would have normally been dancing too, probably as by then everyone knew about what happened and didn't feel it was appropriate.

It was only meant to be 2 nights away for Soeun, but on the day he was supposed to ride the moto back to Phnom Penh it was too dangerous due to wind and lightening. So he tried again the next day, but there were still storms. He finally came back, 2 days late and got some friends to ride with him to make it safer. So they cut their stay in the village short to help him, but then found their student accommodation wasn't accessible so ended up having to stay 2 nights with us!

So the last 4 nights have been different to how we expected, but seems like its all settled down now. Even the weather seems to have gone back to mostly just hot.