A boy or a girl?
Being pregnant is kind of strange feeling, suddenly you have someone poking around in your tummy and you love him or her even though you haven’t really even met yet. Many parents want to find out the gender of the baby before giving birth so that they could start thinking names and the baby would seem more real to them. It’s not an “it” anymore, but a she or he. In China it’s prohibited to find out the sex of the baby on an ultrasound, because traditionally boys have been favored and girl fetuses even aborted. Xinran has written a heartbreaking book about the lost girls of China in Message…
Questions to consider before having a baby in China
Speaking of China just posted a great guest post by Charlotte about the questions to discuss if you are having a baby in China and especially if you are in an international marriage. I thought it would be an interesting discussion here on my blog as well and wanted to answer to her questions my self. 1.Which maternity and postpartum customs will you follow? Both Chinese and foreign friends have asked me if I’m going to 坐月子 zuoyuezi, meaning “to sit a month” or “postpartum confinement”. There are may rules and customs to follow in China if you sit the month, depending how traditional you or your family members are.…
Getting used to a trilingual home
Our home here in Guangzhou has been mainly surrounded by Mandarin Chinese as that’s the love language between me and my husband. We met in Mandarin, fell in love in Mandarin and also got married in a Mandarin wedding ceremony. Of course we throw in a few phrases of English every now and then, especially when we have guests or when hubby wants to practice his English. But as we are getting ready to welcome a new family member at the end of the year, we are also getting ready to become a trilingual family. According to what I’ve read, in a multilingual home it’s best that each of the…
Prenatal check-ups in China
After an exciting announcement it’s time to get started with pregnancy blogging with a Chinese twist! Since we’ve known about the pregnancy I’ve done bunch of paperwork, chosen the hospital and the doctor for check-ups (but no idea where to give birth!) and had three ultrasounds already. As I’m married to a local guy, I surprisingly found out that I’m eligible for some free check-ups just like any other Chinese woman in this city! Getting these required quite a lot of paper work, but all was done within a few kilometers from our house. Because we live in the Huangpu district, I also had to choose a local hospital for…