The Great Escape!: Haricot (thats bean for those who didn't pronounce that arico!)

3 days after Bev and Brian arrived, we were getting ready for the island hopping week, and I woke up on the Friday morning and found that we were ... erm ... missing something. Something that usually arrives like clock work, the same time every month.
David and I exchanged a few nervous jokes and laughs but thought there was obviously some odd delay, and not to think much more of it. Sunday morning we hopped on a boat and headed out to the middle of the ocean .... zero access to any pharmacies / tests etc. This was day 3 of the missing! I decided it best at this stage to just take precautions and stop drinking for me. It wasn't too hard as the new lifestyle meant we were barely consuming much booze anyway - so it wasn't like I was going to miss much, at least until we got back to Nosy Be and could get 100% confirmation!

We started noticing a few things on the trip - like I was the only one using the heads (toilets) on board the boat - about 5 times a trip against everyone elses zero - and that I was more than ready for bed by 7pm each night after a day of chilling on the boat / beach and snorkelling!

Finally we arrived back the next Saturday and the first thing we did was jump on the quad and head to the pharmacy.

POSITIVE! Yikes .... we're PREGNANT!

Now what?

We had absolutely no idea - as Im sure everyone else in the world has the same feeling when it happens. We didn't even know if there was a doctor on Nosy Be! These weren't the kind of things we had looked into so far! This was month 3 into our year off!

The day before we were heading off island hopping, one of the workers from the hotel construction site across the road came to get us as there had been an accident! Some guy from the quarry had taken a bulldozer (high and boozed) and decided to drive it down the beach, then tried to drive it down the little alley way between Nosy Lodge Hotel and the new hotel going up .... he got pretty stuck, tried to turn around, destroyed the fence of Nosy Lodge and unfortunately, we chain our plastic double kayak to a tree in that alley, and he totally obliterated our boat! Squashed and destroyed. He also then got back to the beach and smashed into a guest from the hotel breaking the guys hip! An horrific accient and a huge pain in the arse for us as our boat guardian uses that kayak to get to our boat each night!

The reason I tell this story is that it put us in contact with the owner of Nosy Lodge Hotel - Eric, a Belgian guy. Because we were teaming up against the company who caused the damages (the hotel guest whose hip was broken also happened to be Erics uncle who was here on holiday - day 2 of 3 weeks), it meant we had to go over and chat to Eric a few times, and I noted that he had a little kid, about 8 months old! Perfect, he'll know about doctors etc! So we told Eric what was going on and he was so excited for us! He gave us an outline of who does what and where and gave us the details for a local doctor who could help us with .... well I'm still not quite sure. So we made an appointment and went to see her. She is a lovely Malagash lady and can speak a little bit of English which is always a help for us. She basically told us where we had to go for some initial test - a hospital in Diego. She gave us their phone number and wrote down on a piece of paper what we needed to have done and why - which was a huge help. She then told us adamantly to not even think about trying to have the baby here! We had a lovely little chat and then she walked us out - the appointment is at her house, and she has a load of puppies, kittens and tortoises running around the garden! Bizarre!
So to Diego we had to go .... luckily we had planned the trip to the mainland with Davids parents, so a day trip to Diego was doable.

As you know, it took us a few hours to get there, we found the hospital quite easily and were pretty relieved to see it looked pretty impressive - for these standards anyway - but it was clean, no queues outside, uniformed staff, airconditioning, clean flushing toilets with
sanitiser hand wash and an actual hand dryer. Wow! Bev and I wanted to stay there all day just for the toilet facilities!

So we handed our little note in to reception and were told to wait. I asked for the loos and they handed me a plastic cup! After that David and I were ushered into another room where they motioned for me to sit on a chair, they rolled up my sleeve and did the usual to take blood, all was fine and very clean and properly done. And that was that! Now there were two reasons we had to go to Diego; the first was that no where on Nosy Be could do the blood and urine tests, and the second was that they had a more modern / advanced ultra sound than the ones on Nosy Be, so good for the first scan. Of course, this is the third world, so the ultra sound wasn't working that day. We had to go elsewhere. Of course our French isn't good enough yet to take complicated directions, so we called the driver in and after he was briefed, we headed off to the next place. After a few 'Douglas Green' moments, we stumbled on this tiny two roomed building that was where we had to go. We sat in the waiting room and someone walking past stopped in front of us, we explained what we needed and he nodded, ushered us in to one of the rooms, pointed to the bed - old and torn plastic cover, I lay down, he squirted the gel on my belly and said Voila! Then there was a whole heap of broken communications and misheard words etc which totally threw me and I assumed something was wrong and it was too small and there was no heart beat ..... of course with no internet or books we only get tit bits of what we should see / hear etc at this stage and I became almost hysterical! It was only really 2 days later when Wendy called me and I told her about the whole ordeal that she laughed and called me an idiot and explained that its all fine and the equipment they used was so old that you wouldn't see the hearbeat at 6.5 weeks and that if the doctor marked everything as good and normal then STOP PANICKING! Phew, thanks Wends!

So that was the start of our latest adventure! We have since been to the midwife - again, at her house - and she too said everything looks fine, and I can come see her again in a month!

So now we are ten weeks in, I'm just starting to feel a LOT better and I'm looking forward to the second trimester.

Of course its already had a huge impact on the life we had planned here - I can't haul buckets of water out the well and to the veggie garden. I can't haul stuff on and off the boat, I can't scuba dive, I went on the boat once and felt far too ill and even snorkeling had me back on the beach within 40 mins! .... but David and I are good at change and adjustments and we are settling into our new routines. I'm so SO lucky to be pregnant here though and not having to work, plus the weather is amazing and I go for one or two walks every day, we cycle to the shops still and I can still be a lot more active than when we were in Dubai. The water is warming up a little again so I have dipped into the sea a couple of times and know the swimming will pick up over the next few weeks.
Everything we eat is organic, and we hadn't eaten cheese - soft or not - in the 3 months we had been here, so no loss there! We eat healthily with loads of fruit and veg and no junk food - its just not available or in our price range!

So now the next phase for us is to decide really, what next! We have to leave here end of November in order to be able to fly before 7 months, and then the biggest decision will come as to when / if we come back here, or what the best move is for baba Kitching, as well as mom and dad. The most amazing thing about being here is that its given David and I exactly what we wanted - to hang out together everyday and do stuff together, and we're not too keen on David or I not being able to be able to spend the time we want with the baby and each other. So we're flipping a few coins, brainstorming and debating a few options.
So watch this space as we find a solution to the next chapter of this adventure we call life!