It'a a...

BOY!!!

We found out a few days ago and are really excited about our new crew. It was good to have my mom at the ultrasound with me but sad that Mark couldn't be there. I'm really glad that we had a few in Fiji before I left and will probably do another one when Mark gets home just so that he can see the baby moving around in there. I can definitely feel him moving on a regular basis - mostly at night. He has also figured out that if he kicks me in the kidney I'll eat something so I have to make sure I don't go to long between meals. I'm totally overwhelmed with all the baby stuff out there. I went to BuyBuyBaby and Babies R Us just to take a look and see what they have. I have no idea what we need. There are so many options for everything. I mean seriously - how many different types of pacifiers can there be? Plus, I have to think about what we can transport to the boat and is boat friendly. They don't exactly make a line of baby boat products. We will be home for a few months and my mom will be setting up a permanent grand-baby area (my sister is pregnant too) in her house so there are some things that won't be good on a boat but will be good to have the first few months and not go to waist after we leave. I'm open to suggestions regarding anything baby.

I've also been keeping busy helping out my mom. She closed on a new house last week and we have been busy getting it together all weekend. I have to be careful what I work on but we purchased all natural cleaning products so that I can help with the cleaning and I am wearing a mask in the house so I don't breath in any dust. My mom's husband (Andy) will be putting in new flooring so I pulled all the floorboards off in preparation for that. My mom and Andy have been busy painting the house. I stopped by to drop off dinner earlier and it looks so great - amazing what a nice fresh (and decent color) paint can do to a house!

Mark and Roberta are still in Vanuatu doing boat projects and will hopefully get to head out within the next few days. I wish he would get moving so that he can get home!

Fiji to?

We left Fiji on August 3rd for New Caledonia and ended up in Vanuatu. No matter how hard we tried the wind would not let us go as south as we wanted to and we had a lot of wind. It was a really hard sail, terribly uncomfortable and I was horribly seasick - by far the worst I've ever been. I became incredibly dehydrated and couldn't keep anything down. After about three days we decided that it was best to continue on the course we were and pull into Vanuatu. Had it just been Mark and I we probably would have continued to push toward New Cal but worrying about the baby we decided that it would be best to get to land as soon as possible. We also decided that it was probably time for me to return to the US for the remainder of the pregnancy. I had planned on returning in October after we got to Australia but after three hard crossings in a row it no longer seemed like the best plan. After pulling into Port Vila on Sunday (two days later) we booked a flight home for me for Tuesday. Vanuatu seemed like it would be a cool place to explore and I wish I could have seen it with Mark but we were skipping it for a very good reason. The country has Malaria and while it is said that Port Vila (the main city) is Malaria free the statistics for Malaria and pregnancy aren't good and we didn't want to take a chance. Pregnant women are 50% more likely to get Malaria and 80% of all Malaria deaths are pregnant women. It was difficult to make a decision, get a ticket, and fly out within a week knowing that we would be separated for awhile but it didn't really seem that there was another choice. So for now I am back in the US taking care of the baby and Mark is in Vanuatu taking care of the boat. Our friend Roberta joined him today. I'm glad he has some company and some help.