Wife. Expat. New Mum.
You know that plan you made when you were young and naive? I had one too: date for a bit in London first, meet someone serious at 26, get engaged at 27 on holiday in Europe, have an Australian beach wedding at 28 and be pregnant by 29. Unsurprisingly, mine didn’t unfold as expected. Instead, I met my person later in life, but the magic of finding a truly life-affirming love meant we weren’t afraid to have the big conversations early. We both wanted children, and, fortunately, despite both thriving living in London, envisioned raising them in Australia. My mum is from WA, my partner from Victoria so we had context for the Aussie lifestyle. We also couldn’t afford the space we wanted in London, and while my parents were nearby they both worked full-time. It wouldn’t be extreme to say that his retired parents were waiting for grandchildren over in Melbourne. Moving across the globe felt like an easy decision, but I asked that our first child be born in London so I could share the experience with my mum and sister. Then we’d move. We had the best of intentions. I’d sneak into the bathroom after the two week wait each month and film the pregnancy test results, with cutesy plans of how I’d tell my then fiancé the good news. Month after month, no second line. Month after month, no baby. I stopped filming. So much life passed us by. I tried on every wedding dress asking, “Would this style fit a bump?”. We were now married and still, no baby.
Everything felt like it was on pause, but the clock kept on ticking. Eventually we called it and decided it was time to make the move. The month before I did fertility treatment we sold or shipped everything we owned and moved into my parents house, not knowing when we would follow our possessions to Australia.
I’m beyond grateful to say that I got pregnant from our first round of IVF. It was very special to tell my parents the good news in person. We left at 14 weeks pregnant with my first child. Immediately, I felt the weight of not having number one at home with my family. It felt like a loss. My sister is a midwife and mother of five, so I have always anticipated I would lean on her a lot during my first foray into motherhood. I still have, but it is inevitably different. Less tangible. More digital. I was such a prominent player in her kids’ lives and I always envisaged that she would be in mine. I hold a lot of guilt that she won’t have the opportunity to see her niblings with the regularity I was fortunate enough to enjoy. And as for being away from my mum, well, I’m not sure that there is a more vulnerable experience than growing life. My mum is my safe place. She is home. Doing it without her felt impossible. After such a hard journey to getting pregnant, one my family had held my hand all the way through, I was robbing them of the happy ending. Despite all of this being true, it was time to go.
Upon arrival we moved in with my in-laws. It took a while to feel settled there but we all made adjustments and I felt more anchored once we found our own place. When my husband was away they would spend their whole day carting me to and from the hospital, sitting and waiting outside while I had my appointment. That’s the kind of people they are. Always willing to put themselves out no matter the inconvenience (they also do not believe in taxis). When little scares occurred during my pregnancy Mum and I were reminded of our different locations, but she was grateful I was in loving hands. The time difference is brutal. I don’t know if she has a sixth sense or just doesn’t sleep, but mum would always be awake when I needed her, ready to coach me through any hurdle on WhatsApp, so much so that dad would tell me to let her rest.
My parents were staying with us when the baby arrived and my mum was the perfect help. She never asked if I was hungry or thirsty, she simply kept delivering vegemite toast and cold sparkling water, exactly the way I like it. I felt so held by her care for me and it was a reminder of what I was forgoing by not being back in England.
Then she had the audacity to leave when the baby was only five days old and I was mid-hormone drop. The timing was terrible. My parents came out to Melbourne for a fortnight arriving the day before my due date. My concern that they were cutting it fine was unsubstantiated. I was six days overdue in the end, then spent two nights in hospital so I only got to enjoy five short days of my mum’s unparalleled support.
In postpartum, I found it hard to accept my in-law’s help, but it was very much on offer. As active Orthodox Christians there are many religious or cultural events in their calendar which they wanted us, and their new grandchild, to be part of, but here arose the first of our differing perspectives on parenthood. My sister was always my benchmark of how to do it well. She and her husband were dedicated to their children’s 7pm bed time because they would turn into werewolves thereafter. It made sense to me. Kids need rest to thrive and they either cry a lot or turn irrevocably hyper when overtired. Neither sound much fun for parent or child. However in Macedonian circles they bring their young offspring to all evening events, regardless of the decibel or time. While it may have been a different approach to what they are used to, where possible they’d make adjustments and ultimately accepted that if it was past 8pm (I had a little give) the littluns would not be in attendance.
I was more than happy to oblige with the religious and cultural events, so long as they didn’t directly contradict with my values. For example we had an Orthodox Christening for our two children and I asked that our son not be taken behind the altar in the ceremonial promenade because girls aren’t allowed past that threshold and I wanted them to be treated the same. If she couldn’t, he wasn’t going. The church generously adhered. Ensuring my values were honoured no matter what was integral to my positive experience mothering as an expat.
At times it seemed like my world had become so Macedonian I felt a pull to reclaim my side in my children’s environment. My husband, having spent so much time in the UK and being very conscious of the vast quantity of traditions on his side, has made a concerted effort to hold space for mine too, despite them being more preferences rather than outright traditions.
Birthdays and Christmas are my time to shine. Orthodox Christians actually celebrate Christmas on the 7th January so we spotted this as an opportunity to forge our own way of doing things in December. I go all in on making the magic for my babies. I strive to make special occasions feel familiar to my childhood. I borrow from how my mum did things. Opening stockings on Mum and Dad’s bed. Favourite meals served for dinner on birthdays.
From the start, I was immersed into an enormous and incredibly welcoming Macedonian family who really have gone above and beyond. My sister-in-law drove all over Melbourne picking up Facebook Marketplace furniture when I was nesting and my husband was away. Cousins came from far and wide to take me for river walks and long brunches. Their generosity knows no bounds, but it has been important to me that not everyone in my circle stems from my husband to ensure I have my own identity in the land I now call home. As such, I’ve also made a concerted effort to build my own village. Interestingly most of them are either immigrants themselves or their partners are not from Australia. Together we forge our own path, creating foundations as families and cultures blend and new traditions emerge. And we really show up for one another. When I had the flu while solo parenting I put an SOS message in the group chat and within 45 minutes I had medication, home cooked meals for me and the baby, cupcakes and other sweet treats all dropped to my front door. I may have only known them a couple of years, but these people count as family too.
It is much easier to raise my children away from my own family in the age of digital communication. I have a WhatsApp group with my mum and my sister called “Mums Club” and I pose every random thought to them, share funny photos of my cherubs and ask endless questions, “what would you do…?” In some ways the time spent staying under the same roof for weeks-long visits is more impactful than an afternoon here and there. My children get to create daily rituals with their English grandparents and they get to see a small chapter of growth in the babies during that time. Mum was visiting when my son took his first steps. We were staying at their place when my daughter started waving.
As I’ve gotten to know my married family better I have stopped thinking of their way as different to mine, but rather an opportunity for me to see how else things can be done. They are all so deeply family centred, as am I. My children are growing up with grandparents, an aunt and two adult cousins who dote on them like they are part of his immediate family. My eldest, especially, is thriving because his young bloom is being so well nurtured and watered. His cousins will sit and read piles of books, often in Macedonian, while my mother-in-law spends hours cooking traditional food for them and my sister-in-law outright spoils them!
My family are verbose about their love; birthday cards are lengthy, our WhatsApp group chat can have 50+ messages when I wake up in the morning and wedding speeches: guaranteed to have you in tears. Conversely my husband’s family shows it through action; let’s just say it would be an insult to hire removalists. We know how fortunate we are to have them both. We are taking what we want from each way of doing things and creating our own narrative. We are focusing on the family we are building, not in exclusion of our families of origin, but in evolution of them regardless of whether they’re a short drive or a long plane ride away.
I make a lot of effort to ensure the babies know their far away family just as much. We video call regularly. If they’re playing with a toy that was from their Uncle I remind them who gave it to them to keep him present. I printed off photos of each family member with the babies and made their own personalised book. When my son gets in the car he says, “Mimi [my mum] sit here” even when she’s not in the country because she spent an entire summer wedged between two car seats.
It’s not been totally easy to get to this point, and we will forever be missing loved ones, wherever we are, but I do feel that we are in a uniquely privileged position to create our own traditions from the foundations of so much love. Thinking back to the girl with big plans for herself, she certainly didn’t expect to end up with so many families; my family of origin, married family, chosen family and the family I am building with my husband. Now that sounds like a rich life to me.
