Seventh months and counting down. The other night I woke up around 3AM staring out our window at the lake. Night was still and suddenly a feeling of nostalgia came over me. Well, I was flipping through an album of my husband's baby photos. As I brushed over the photos, reality set in that I was going to have a baby boy of my own really soon.

Suddenly I began to cry. Part of me felt happy while the other part of me felt vulnerable. Then my mind went deeper and I thought about my own birth. My birth and Kai's birth would be incredibly different.

For part of my mom's pregnancy, she was leaving Viet Nam during the chaotic time in April 1975. She spent a larger part of the pregnancy at Camp Pendelton as a refugee. Then gave birth in Seattle without any close friends or family. In that moment while thinking about this, I realized how lucky we are. I don't have to be endure the last bit of a war, experience a refugee camp, or arrive in a new country with no money or resources. Though all the trauma eventually caught up to their marriage and it ended while I was a teen, I respect and honor everything they did for me in their circumstances.




Here I am in a very comfortable position in life as I float through pregnancy while attending health education classes and constantly surrounded by family and friends in the country in which I was born. I'm very grateful that I can now build my own family in more positive surroundings.

By 4am, the tears stopped coming and I could fall asleep again.