I guess quite a few people who read this might already know that, but for those who don’t I thought I’d share the news :) We’re really excited about our family growing, and its a daily joy counting the days and gradually watching Laura’s tummy grow! 

Laura’s about 14 weeks pregnant now and baby is 13 weeks old (did you know that there’s some confusion about exactly how you count that? Different places use different systems) and we’re due middle of April 2009. About 6 months to go!

Given that this blog is about living in Singapore, I’ll write about what the pre-natal care has been like so far, so there’ll be more posts on the subject soon.

In the meanwhile, here are some pics (taken last week) of our baby. We still don’t know the sex, that we’ll find out when we have our detailed scan at 20 weeks. Exciting!

Between us we will have been up and down the UK, and also Spain, Italy, The Netherlands and even flew to Alderney (a Channel Island) in the space of about four months; catching up with friends and family and seeing some sights.  We even took a ride on the London Eye to wave goodbye to The Big Smoke.  Actually it was quite a lot of fun (it probably helped that it was our wedding anniversary).

We have arranged a meeting with a lot of our friends a couple of days before we leave – which should be great fun – but such things are always a case of giving each person 5 minutes of your time so that you see everybody.  It’s been really lovely to catch up with individuals and smaller groups as we’ve gone along.

Why Singapore?

Many people ask us why Singapore, so I guess that’s a good place to start.  L and I decided that we wanted to live abroad even before we were married last year; it’s not that surprising since we both had international childhoods.  We considered moving to the Middle East as we have links there, but in the end that actually weighed against the region – we wanted somewhere new, and since neither of us have much experience of Asia (L has travelled there a little, but I’ve never been at all) it quickly became our first choice.

Having settled on Asia in general, Singapore cropped up as a good choice for quite quickly – being a modern, clean and safe place (we are thinking of starting a family after all!) as well as having English as the language of business and lots of work for web developers like me.  As a key trading port, it also has amazing links to all its neighbours, which is a definite plus.

There is also the constant 30 degrees weather all year round.  Nice.

But you won’t be able to chew gum will you?

People’s reaction to hearing that you are moving to Singapore usually come in two forms: those who are excited and those who start talking about chewing gum.  For some reason, although Singapore has been both a model for reasoned development and at times harshly authoritarian – it’s the law (which I gather are far less strict than they used to be – more to come later, I’m sure!) prohibiting chewing gum which seems to resonate most with people here in the UK.  I’m personally not bothered about not being able to chew gum, and I certainly won’t mind not having it stuck to my shoes.

As to the greater issue of Singapore’s politics, I think it’s a bit more complicated than that.  Coming from London – where I believe we have more CCTV cameras per person than any other city on earth – I can’t really imagine that it will seem very different.

It’s a long way, isn’t it?

I suspect the hardest part of moving to Singapore is going to be the distance from our families and friends.  Obviously that is the price one has to pay for exploring somewhere new.  I’m really glad that we’ll be able to video-conference with everybody, and plan on doing so as often as possible.  There’s also this blog which I hope at least my mother will read on occasion!

Well, I suppose that’s it for the first blog post.  We’re quite busy before we go, but I will try posting some more before we fly!