Last blog from Spain

This will be the last blog from Spain. Baby and I are traveling to Pokhara leaving Barcelona on Tuesday and hopefully getting into our great bed at Maya Devi by midnight on Wednesday some time. I am thinking about that bed as the bump gave me the first sleepless night last night...well it was not all the bumps fault, the rain and lightning did not help either. Before I would wake up and then effortlessly fall asleep again, but last night getting comfortable again after every time I woke up got increasingly more difficult.

We had a thoroughly rainy Sunday today so most of the packing is done already, just some final things to sort out tomorrow before we are off! Wet clothes hanging everywhere - hope they dry before we leave!

Jess and I went to Barcelona on Saturday for the last European shopping bonanza, it was quite an involved affair I am telling you...we did not get back to Can Ballus before 11pm! Did manage to find some pregnancy jeans and another even larger bra which by the way the bump is growing, I will be needing in less than a month or so.

There is no hiding the bump now, even if I wanted to. Definately can not sleep on my stomach any longer either...

And baby's first outfit...with "I believe I can fly" on the front, which I thought suited a baby of ours. The other top is made by Isca's mother. All the furry birds are from Cim d'Aligues, where our Harris Hawks will be spending the winter- we are going to make a mobile with them...some of them even emit a lifelike sound when pressed.

We have been doing some pram or rather 3 wheel travel system research of late...in fact we have become quite obsessed by finding the perfect one for our slightly unique set of circumstances next spring. Not that I think there has never been parents looking for a baby pram before but I am certain that most of them had a place to live first! Scott and I find ourselves looking at every pram that rolls past and believe me in Berga there are quite a few of them. We think we may have found the one: a Jane Slalom Reverse Matrix - stylon, with a back or forward facing stroller part and more importantly for us, for the first few months, a carseat that turns into a pram at the press of a button. It seems to be ticking all the boxes. Now it has become more of a logistical problem of finding the Jane at a good price somewhere, where from we can get it to where we are. And if we decide to have the baby in Bangkok then how do we get the amazing carseat to either Nepal or Thailand?

I am so looking forward to getting back to Maya Devi now and getting going on our Nepali part of the season. Next week's blog from Pokhara!

Oh and in case you have been missing my cravings...ribs anyone?
Just for clarification, the second plate is Scott's.

Positive is good... right?

Yep, I've hijacked the blog this week. Gone are the intelligent musings of a happy and glowing expectant mother, you'll have to put up with my un-insightful account of this weeks events.

As Anita said last week, everything was going so, well, normally. You could in fact say that up 'till now it's all been pretty much positive and I've always believed that positive is good. Anita is feeling good, the baby is doing what it should be doing, I'm just doing what I always do, considering the life we lead, it was all just skipping along nicely thank you very much. I started to think that I could even get used to this normality, stay normal, stay positive. What could possible go wrong.

Well, anyone who knows me knows what happened the last time I said that, I ended up in a Nepali jail arrested on drug trafficking charges. Obviously the allegations were false, the real culprit was caught and I was released without charge but it did make me think twice about ever using that phrase again. Until now that is.

Following our 12 week scan, which was all normal and good, we had an appointment with the Doctor. We find out that Anita is blood group A- which is pretty rare by all accounts, in fact, on finding out this information, Anita did her research, she's good like that:

"Only 7% of the Caucasian population have the blood type A rhesus negative and only 0.5% of the rest of the world. In Europe 15% of us are rhesus negative which is a recessive gene, meaning that chances are that the baby will be rhesus positive and we will have different blood types. If mine and the baby's blood mix my blood will produce antibodies to the rhesus positive element of the baby's blood, which will mean that these antibodies can cross the placenta in subsequent pregnancies and attack a potential next baby's blood production which can be dangerous. I will therefore have to receive an Anti-D injection later on in the pregnancy and in conjunction with the birth in order to prevent my blood from producing antibodies in case my blood mix with some of the baby's. Then the baby and I will be totally safe. However, in the rest of the world less than 2% of the population have blood I can receive in a blood transfusion."

Here's where it gets a bit complicated for us since we choose to live in Asia and we're looking into the possibility of having the baby in Thailand, again more research by the missus was needed, here are her finding:

"I did some more research and found that outside of European and American populations only 9 out of 10000 Africans are rhesus negative and 1 in 10000 Asians. For all my adult years if anything had happened it would have been very difficult for me to get a blood transfusion and I never knew. Some think that Europeans became rhesus negative after leaving Africa as a response to differing CO2 levels in the air"

Some "people" also believe that Rhesus negative blood types have super natural powers, that would go someway to explain that strange flash of light I once saw when she was standing in our bedroom at the summer house, but that's another story. I knew she was special, now I'm starting to see why.

We were told not to worry, as long as she takes the required drugs at the required times then there should be no risk to  her or the baby, at least not for this baby. But it could pose a risk for any future pregnancies. This also made us rethink about having the birth in Thailand or even whether the clinic in Kathmandu would have the drugs or the facilities we needed. Suddenly, everything was all a bit different, we may even have to change our entire plans. Unless of course if I had a blood test and it turned out to be Negative, what are the chances of that, certainly the same chance of being negative as Anita but surely that percentage drops significantly when you're talking about the both of us. If we are both negative blood groups then the baby will also be 100% negative so there will be zero risk and everything will be back to, erm normal again.

Today I went for a blood test, a mere formality I'm thinking, just to be told that I am positive blood type like the majority of the worlds population. How wrong I was when the results came back. It turns out that I am O-. Not only will Anita and the baby be OK, now we have our very own blood transfusion unit.

So, it seems when it starts to go a bit wrong, all you need is a double dose of negativity to get things back to normal again.