When I was about six months pregnant, I met seven other pregnant ladies through a Beijing Yahoo group and we started to get together weekly for lunch. Seven of us were first time moms, so it was a blast and a blessing to go through the experience of pregnancy and birth in Beijing together. Five of the babies were born in July, two before that and one in November.
Here's a picture of some of us with our husbands at brunch.
We still get together each week, but have moved to rotating houses - to keep breastfeeding and poopy diapers away from other restaurant patrons. It's been a total blast to see the babies grow and develop together and watch their different personalities, and our unique parenting styles, emerge. Judah's first friends make up a very international group: one Danish girl, one Norwegian boy, one Indonesion/Taiwanese girl, three Chinese-American babies and one other Caucasian American baby. Here are two of the girls with Judah from our last play date.
Sophie is on Judah's right and Silke is on Judah's left. Sophie was born in the same hospital as Judah just two days before him. She was his first visitor. Her mom and dad, Sunny and CK, were the other couple that took the Hypnobirthing class with us. Sunny was also successful with Hypnobirthing and Sophie was born peacefully and drug-free. Silke was also born drug-free, largely due to the fact that her mom, Tenna's, water broke spontaneously in her husband's office and Silke was born two hours later. Silke was six weeks early and she wanted OUT!
With Sunny and Sophie - sporting our homemade ring slings
