It Takes a Village

“It takes a village to raise a kid,” so often we hear this echoed, and yet our society no longer reflects this. Back home most people live as a nuclear family and their extended family may or may not live closeby. Even if they do, one shouldn’t expect them to help with raising a child. This is why so many children are in daycare when they are only a few months old or couples choose…

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Hello Neighborhood Hospital

{Note: I wanted to add photos to this post, but I was super slow. So while reading keep that in mind.} Last week, my husband went to our old hospital and got my pregnancy records so that we can move to the smaller women’s and children’s hospital in our neighborhood. Before switching to the smaller hospital, I had two important questions to ask to make sure the move would be okay.

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Naming Our Child

{Since I first drafted this post our daughter was born and has a given name. Given the fact that she was a preemie I find it extremely fitting for her.} Many moms and dads -to-be have names for their future children picked out long before they start families. I’m not one of those people. I hate picking names or naming people or things. For the last six and a half years I have had students…

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Navigating Pregnancy Abroad

{Note: this was written while I was still pregnant and never had a chance to post it.} When I found out I was pregnant, I decided that I would give birth here in China for different reasons even though I knew that friends and family back home would want me to comeback and give birth there. They don’t trust the system, even if I had no money I could give birth for free at home.…

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A Thank You to My Husband

I don’t publicly boast about my husband much or if at all, but he has been really good to me while I have been pregnant and through the birth of our daughter. My husband is a fabulous cook and normally we split the cooking or I do more of it, but during my first trimester I felt nauseous all the time and had a busy school schedule which left me exhausted by the time I…

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34 Things to Accomplish

Every year I make a list for my birthday whether it be a to do list or inspirational list. It is something I started on my 30th birthday and I want to continue it for as long as I can, even if the themes end up being repetitive. So here is my list of 34 things I hope to accomplish this year: Visit my family and spend quality time with them Visit a new place…

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The Beauty of Nature Dwells Within You ཁྱོད་ལ་ལྷན་སྐྱེས་སུ་མངའ་བའི་རང་བྱུང་གི་མཛེས་པ།

Back in August, I was sitting in a white tent on the Dzorge Grasslands where Dondrup’s parents camp for the summer and I began writing a poem in English for our future child. At the time, I only had the first two verses written and couldn’t figure out what I wanted to write after that. Should I make it longer? All I knew was that once it was completed I wanted to try and write…

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