Socialising

Maddy and Luke - Luke is 2 days older than Maddy and already 20cm (8 inches) taller.

I arrived in Hong Kong over four years ago knowing nobody. Even through my first year here, I didn't really make many friends. It wasn't until I fell pregnant with Lana and joined a "Due Date club" that I started meeting a lot of other people who were in a very similar situation to myself. I've always said that having Lana was the best thing I could have done for my social life here in Hong Kong ;) Today, some of her friends' mothers are my best friends here. 

When I first found out I was pregnant with Maddy, one of the first things that I did was to find another "due date club" of other mums due around the same time as me. We were meant to have our first meeting just before Christmas when I was about 8 weeks pregnant but for one reason or another, I couldn't make it.

Before the second meeting, I had found out about the complications in the pregnancy and at the time, losing Maddy was a very real possibility. The last thing that I wanted at that time was to go and meet other excited pregnant mothers who were actually going to be bringing babies home from the hospital while I had to plan a funeral! I was still included in the mailing lists but I couldn't bring myself to meet any of them.

I don't think that it was until I was about 30 weeks and we knew that Maddy most likely had a non-lethal form of dwarfism that I got up the courage to meet with this mother's group - and at first, it was very emotional for me. I was still "mourning the loss of my healthy child" in many ways, but I found that many of these mums already "knew" me through this blog. They had been following our story and were so supportive towards me.

During Maddy's first four months, I only met up with the other mums and babies once or twice. It felt somewhat strange going to these gatherings without a baby - and besides, I was so busy with going up the the hospital that it was hard to make time for social things anyway!

Since Maddy has been home, we've been making up for lost time though and trying to meet up with them at least once a fortnight. It's so great for Maddy to play with other kids her age - I figure that she will need to live in the real world and make friends her age sometime - so there's no better time to start making those friends than right now :) And in the process, I'm making some great friends too.

Plus, how cute is the picture of Maddy with Luke?!!