Pregnant in Thailand

Being pregnant and living here in Thailand has allowed me to learn more about this area of culture that I was previously unaware of.

For example, here in Thailand it is believed that if a women is going to have a boy that she loses her beauty during pregnancy, but if she is having a girl she becomes even more beautiful. You can imagine how nice it felt when I would show up to Thai class and my teacher would say to me, "Oh wow, you have so many pimples! You MUST be having a boy!"

as well as things like...

"You shouldn't eat so much! You don't want to turn into a water buffalo!"

Even though I was really hoping to have a boy, every time someone would tell me that I was having a boy a little bit of annoyance rose up inside of me and in my head it translated to: "Wow, you sure look ugly today." And this is where I had to refrain from glaring back at them or physically taking them down.

Other things that I have been frowned upon for are: exercising, running, riding my bike, and going on mobile clinics with bumpy roads.

We are in the middle of rainy season now, and one day I had all my laundry out on the line drying when it started to down pour. I ran as fast as I could to go and gather my laundry and was then yelled at by my neighbor and dear friend Blah who told me to rest and ran out to get my laundry herself. She then informed me that my baby might fall out if I run...

Which are the same thoughts on the bike riding, the bumpy roads, the exercising...my baby might fall out.

So far I have still exercised with my friend Billy Blanks, traveled on bumpy roads in trucks, and rode the tandem bike to Thai class in Chiang Rai with Libby (50 minutes away) and little baby Polinder has still managed to stay inside. Thank goodness.

Lastly, I would like to mention the terrible dresses that pregnant women here wear. A women switches from being fairly stylish or very stylish here into wearing the pregnant moo-moo dresses. They are basically turn you into a tent with cartoon characters or little animals on them. I had a beautiful jean dress with cartoon characters given to me by Luka's sister which I tried on for her. She couldn't stop gushing at how nice it looked, and I couldn't stop giggling at how ridiculous I looked. I will try to get up the courage to wear that dress for her now and again, especially on days when I just need a good laugh.

Other than that the kids here at the hostel have been super cute...wanting to touch my belly and put their ears up to it. Aung-lee (the little boy I talked about in my last blog post) asks me almost every other day in Thai "Have you had your baby yet?"

I've finally been able to feel her kick lots lately, and that's been fun. We also have finally found a doctor that we like and who is more open to a natural delivery than my last doctor. He is open to not giving me a standard episiotomy, letting me walk around during labor, and possibly letting me deliver in a position other than flat on my back. He whistles every where he goes, wears cowboy boots and a belt, and loves singing country roads...but I will take all of this oddness if he is open to listening to my requests.

Three day trip into Burma

Two weeks ago we took a trip about 5 hours into Burma with our friends Chad and Becky, Gee, and Manop. Gee is from Burma, and still has most of his family living there, so the main purpose of the trip was to go with him to visit his village and family.

We left on a Friday morning, and returned Sunday night. The Burmese government doesn't allow foreigners to enter through a border on a visa longer than three days. The longer visa we could have gotten for two weeks would have required us to fly into Rangoon.

On our 5 hour drive to Kiang Tong we had to stop around 15 times to show our visa's and passports at different immigration road stops. They carefully documented where we were at all times. When we arrived into the city, the hotel owner had to drive our visa documents to the local police station where they would stay until we were ready to depart. The government didn't allow us to stay in Gee's village for the night, and instead required us to stay in a registered hotel in town.

One of the little boys who lives at the Akha Youth Development Center named Aunglee is Gee's nephew, and still has his mother living in Burma. When Aunglee was younger his father who was Karen, was killed by the Burmese government. His mother then remarried a man who wasn't very fond of Aunglee and has a history or drinking and abuse. Aunglee's mother asked Gee to take Aunglee home with him last year, so ever since then he has been living at the AYDC. Aunglee is seven years old now, and hasn't seen his mother now for 1.5 years. Before leaving for Burma we took a video of Aunglee talking to his mom and telling him all about where he is living and his new friends.

On our second day in Burma, after a beautiful two hour drive on a motorbike taxi, we arrived in Gee's village. We first went to visit Aunglee's mother (Gee's sister). Since Aunglee has left she had another baby with the new husband who was about five months old. We showed her the video of Aung-lee and though she looked to be on the verge of tears, she held herself together... her new husband didn't even pretend to be interested.

Before leaving her house we took a video of her talking to Aunglee where she told him things like, "Study hard, respect those people caring for you, be a good boy."

The rest of our time there was visiting other relatives of Gee, eating at different Burmese restaurant, and wandering through the markets. Wherever we went there were so many different languages being spoken. Between our group we were able to use Chinese, Thai, Burmese, English and Akha at the market.

People were unusually kind and generous. One morning we were eating a Burmese style pancake with chickpeas and garlic spread on top at the local market, and the two ladies next to us who had met for breakfast gave each of us corn on the cob to munch on.

Another evening we were out for dinner and Chad asked a women at the restaurant if she could sew his bag. When it came time to pay she refused to take anything from him. On our last day we stopped to visit with Gee's neighbor, a 65 year old Akha women who owns a little convenience store where they make home-made chips and tea and gave it all to us for free. This Akha women who owned the store had 17 children (that was not a typo). I was amazed her uterus hadn't fallen out yet after all of those babies!

Since being back Aunglee has come to our house with his friends about 8 times to watch the video of his mom and sisters over and over. The first time he saw it little tears came to his eyes and he yelled to everyone in the room in Thai, "Hey, that's my mom!"

The trip was a really special time. There is so much going on in Burma right now with the sentencing of Aung San Suu Jee, as well as the current genocide of the Karen people. I hope we all can make efforts to stay updated on what is going on behind the borders, and remember to pray for those living there who have no voice of their own.

Here is a photo of Gee wit his nieces and nephews and finally a photo of Aunglee...