What with Kate and Keira sporting baby bumps, 2015 seems to be the year to have a little one. But what about being pregnant on foreign shores? Travel writer, kodomo.com contributor, and ex-pat Gabriel O’Rorke discovers what it’s like having a baby aboard abroad…
The final stretch
Since I last wrote, this little bump has mainly been cruising to Cape Horn, queue jumping (as mentioned in part 1 of this blog) and having a massive growing spurt. I am now unmistakenly pregnant, but still determined not to succumb to the pregnancy waddle.
“He could come any time from week 37, which is just 3 weeks away,” said Leyla, our midwife at our check-up this week. This was the first time we met the midwife as the process is very doctor-led in Chile. Each doctor has a midwife with whom he works, and she will be there for the majority of the labour, with the doctor arriving just before the birth.
We also did a tour of the maternity ward, seeing the birthing room and the “hotel room” where we will be moved to for three nights after the birth. All very nice, and all getting very real.
I also went to a prenatal talk at the hospital. Sitting in a room looking at a Powerpoint presentation on birth felt strangely like being back in a Spanish lecture at university; it’s easier to feel detached from the whole thing when you’re ooing over new vocabulary, but one line stuck in my mind and it has to do with perineal massage.
“You might like to ask your mother to help,” said the midwife. Umm, I don’t think I’ll be doing that, and somehow can’t imagine the same suggestion in NCT antenatal classes…
So, I’ve now done my last big trip before the birth. We went on a cruise through the fjords of Southern Chile and Argentina, starting in Punta Arenas, stopping at Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of Chile, and finishing in Ushuaia.
I didn’t think twice about a third trimester trip to the end of the world (although I did come armed with a very handy doctor’s note for the flights) and, much to the surprise of the crew aboard the Via Australis, I took on the toughest hikes. People who go on cruises aren’t generally known for their sporty prowess. Now, my itchy feet will have to wait a few months until our first family holiday.
And so I enter the final stretch, my prenatal yoga classes have restarted after a month-and-a-half summer break (only in South America) and now it’s pretty much just a waiting game. We have an invasion of friends and family coming our way, with eight visitors arriving over the next month, so I’ll be nice and busy. Everyone seems to want to get in before the baby comes; I suppose it’s the end of an era, but maybe my sister is the only honest one when she says “I don’t want to miss seeing you fat.”