The Most Well Travelled Baby

So just over 2 months ago we were preparing to leave for our once-in-a-lifetime trip to the USA. But we just HAD to know what sex the baby was so that we could take advantage of the sales and shop till we dropped in the States. So the Friday before we left, we arrange a gynae appointment to check up on BC and see if it would open its legs for us. I think I learnt my first parenting lesson that day: when you’re expecting your baby to perform just as you’d hoped, it decides to do the total opposite! So the gynae pushed and prodded to see if BC would open its legs, which it stubbornly refused to do (will come in handy later on in life!) and in addition to that obstruction, the umbilical cord was between the legs! Sigh…..so we were having an ‘it’ still and had to be satisfied that we were going to be buying unisex type clothing for BC. (Skip to the last paragraph if you’ve heard about the details of our trip already ;-) )

Our babymoon holiday – the last holiday you have before your life as you know it ends for the next 20 years – was an amazing time of excitement, wonder, fun, family, adventure, inspiration and exploration! We started off in Disneyworld, Orlando (Florida) where we felt like kids all over again with fake snow in the streets, sparkling Christmas trees, amazing rollercoaster rides, and fairytale theme-parks. We experienced the coldest winter in the history of Florida with -2 degree mornings and icy winds. We literally had to wear everything in our suitcases and buy extra warm clothes to get us through the hour long queues we had to wait in. Unfortunately my handicap of being pregnant disqualified me from doing all the rollercoaster rides, so I had to sit on the sidelines and watch them having fun – I suppose that’s what moms do right?

Our next leg of the trip was what I was most looking forward to – a cruise on the largest ship in the world, Oasis of the Seas, round the Caribbean. The number of passengers onboard totalled 6,000, we sailed for 10 days and visited 4 islands: Labadee (Haiti), St Thomas (US Virgin Islands), St Maartens (British Virgin Islands) and Nassau (Bahamas). This was the time for me to excel in what I do best: eat, sleep, shop and eat some more. All you can eat restaurants, doughnut shops and pizzerias were open until 1am and everything was free! Included on the boat was a fully kitted out gym, a 680m running track around the circumference of the ship, an ice-rink, 2 climbing walls, a zipline across the boat, 2 surfing and bodyboarding pools and an old-fashioned carousel for the kids. It was fantastic! Jaco kept himself well busy while I unfortunately got sick again with flu and had to take my third course of antibiotics in as little as a month! But it was the perfect place to recover.



Our next adventure was Las Vegas baby where the sex, money and excess are sadly the order of the day. The high-rise hotels, flashing billboards and scantily dressed women are in your face 24 hours of the day if you can keep up. We busied ourselves shopping at the factory outlets stores of all the big brands, visiting all the themed hotels like Paris, New York, Venice, Treasure Island and attending 2 of the most spectacular shows (Love by Cirque du Soleil and the Blue Man Show). We were lucky enough to be whisked away by helicopter for a tour of the Grand Canyon which was spectacular!


Jaco and I then went solo after my parents flew home and sis & boyfriend flew to New York. We hired a 4x4 Hyundai Sante Fe and started our road trip along the Californian Coast. We drove from Las Vegas to Los Angeles and detoured through the snow-covered mountains where we stumbled upon a few ski-slopes where Jaco decided to try his hand at snowboarding for the day. In LA we visited Hollywood, Universal Studios and even got to be included in an American TV game-show audience where they gave away 3 cars to members of the audience. After 2 days of 9-laned highways and people getting arrested next door to us in our motel, we decided to head up Highway 1 along the Californian Coast to San Francisco. The road and scenery were beautiful and it reminded me a lot of driving along Chapman’s Peak. We passed through Malibu, Santa Barbara, Pismo Beach, Santa Cruz and the Silicon Valley before reaching magical San Francisco. We spent 3 days exploring the diverse and exciting city and did all the touristy things like a hop-on-hop-off sightseeing bus tour, a boat cruise under the Golden Gate Bridge and around Alcatraz island, hiring bicycles and cycling through the massive parks and visiting the Napa Valley region just north of San Fran for a touch of wine-tasting (only Jaco of course!).




The dream had to end after 5 weeks and reality was calling us to return back home to the next exciting chapter of our lives – preparing for our little baby. We were looking forward to the 4D scan at the Fetal Assessment Centre at Kingsbury where we would find out BC’s sex and most importantly whether BC healthy and well! I’m proud and very happy to announce that BC is a healthy little MADAME. So all the cute girl’s clothes I bought in the States will come to good use! Miss BC currently weighs 610grams and is approximately 21cm from head to toe (the size of a seed loaf). She has very big lips (which must be from her mom), above average sized feet (from her mom) and legs with well-developed muscles (must be from her dad). She is moving around a lot and Jaco is able to feel her kicking and turning around in my uterus. He has also started speaking Afrikaans to my belly in the hope she’ll come out twee-talig!

Today we moved bedrooms. Jaco had to settle on not having the bike in the baby’s room, so therefore it ended up in OUR bedroom! We will be staying in Fairview for the rest of this year, and to make do with our space, we are shipping some items off to J’s parent’s farm. We are now in the market for a compactum and a travelling cot to complete BC’s room. Then some wall art and a floating shelf to brighten up her new life! The reality of having a baby is settling in…..