Pregnancy blog 1

What a souvenir!

Whilst we were traveling Australia, after being away for a year living the dream, just when it was least expected… I said to Richard “I think I’m pregnant”. And from that moment on our lives changed.  

Our Story 

After spending 2 months decorating our house, selling the cars and finishing up our jobs we finally left the cold, miserable UK in February 2017 and started our ‘once in a lifetime’ trip. We were so excited although fairly anxious to be finally doing something we had only ever dreamt about. We spent 100 days traveling South East Asia visiting Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines and Bali. Followed by arriving in Sydney in the May. We saw some fantastic places and learnt so much about the culture of others around the world. An incredible experience and education we would never have had otherwise. 

Australia was a whole different ball game. Richard has an Aunt who lives just outside of Sydney, we stayed with her for a few weeks whilst we kitted ourselves out as well as we could for our camping trip around the country. 

Pregnant travel 1

Richard was just about to embark on his first ever camping experience!! Overall, we went as far north as Airlie Beach and as far south as Adelaide before I delivered the big news to Richard. The words Richard really didn’t expect to hear whilst we were having such an amazing time traveling the world.

So that day, a beautiful Sunday afternoon, we went and bought a home pregnancy test and went to a local service station to use their loo! I was so unsure of the result I actually put it back in the box and carried it out to Richard who was waiting in the car! I asked him to have a look at the test and his response was “That line looks pretty faint to me, we know what your eyes are like, are you sure it wasn’t there before?” of which I was almost 100% sure it wasn’t!  

You can probably guess what the next step was. That’s right… Finding a doctor’s surgery that wasn’t going to cost us a fortune on a Sunday afternoon in a place we had never been before! After ringing around a number of surgeries we did come into some luck, we actually managed to get an appointment that very same afternoon. We drove straight there and explained our concern to the doctor. He booked us in for a blood test the following day and an appointment for the results on the Tuesday.  

So, we went for the blood test and went back for our appointment on the Tuesday for the results. The doctor very quickly said “Hello, so, you are one week pregnant, here is the paperwork for your six weeks scan and your test results and we would like you to have a full blood test today”. By this point I was crying with laughter (clearly, I am not so good at hiding my nervous laugh!) just with the shock of what the doctor had said. Richard was just as surprised but didn’t show it so much, he asked me what I found so funny of which I could only respond with “I don’t know, but I can’t stop!” We explained to the doctor we wouldn’t be there in Adelaide for the 6 week scan and that we now needed to rethink our plans!  

We went back to the car after our appointment and had a chat about what had just happened. We were both in disbelief. The thought that one minute we were away traveling without a care in the world to now having to think about what was best for both our baby and us. This wasn’t a position we ever thought we would be in! Children? Yes, but not now!  

We then discussed that we should probably tell our parents, although no one else as it was so early on.  

Richards parents were abroad on holiday so we contacted them first as the time difference to them wasn’t so drastic. Richard was the one to tell them and as we were both still in shock Richard’s parents were not really sure how to react as they couldn’t tell how we felt about the situation. Were we happy?, disappointed? Who knew?!  

We then contacted my mum and she was so excited to hear the news. She just kept saying “I’m going to be a Nanny!” with a big grin on her face. It was so lovely to see her so happy for us. My dad was just the same. Excited! Even though we all knew deep down it was awful timing. 

We then had to discuss our plan! We figured it would be a good idea to try and get back to the UK for around our 12 weeks scan and to see the midwife. Just to be sure everything was ok. In the meantime, we travelled up the centre of Australia to Uluru (The big rock) we spent a few days there before heading east back to the Gold Coast. We had quite a few friends there as we had spent a few months working in the area. We were both very keen to say goodbye to them before leaving. We obviously had to tell them our reason for leaving and they were all as expected, very excited!  

Whilst we were there on the Gold Coast we had our 6 week scan and received all the results we needed from our previous blood tests which was great. The healthcare in Australia was fantastic. we were very surprised to be treated as efficiently as we were.

We spent a few days with our friends and made our final road trip down to the Central Coast to spend our final week with Richard’s Auntie and family before leaving the beautiful country. 

We decided a direct flight home from Australia was way too long for us. We thought the best way to complete our traveling experience would be to travel a little on the way home. So, that is exactly what we did. On the way home we spent 6 weeks in total traveling Singapore, Kuala Lumpur and some different places in Thailand. It was lovely just for the 2 of us to chill out and relax before arriving home to the busy routine of normal everyday life. 

We arrived home around mid-April 2018 and stayed with family and friends until the tenant in our house had moved out. This took around 4 weeks. That was the end of that chapter in our lives. 

This baby… Well, that’s the start to a whole new chapter! 

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