Or where it began. I'm Latvian-American, born and raised in the mid-west. My husband is Australian. By some luck (or divine intervention?), we met while we were both living in Riga, Latvia in 2006. We were both teachers, working at an international school. I knew I was going to marry him within about a week of meeting him. It took him a little longer to figure it out, but, we got engaged in 2008, and married in 2009.
Oh, and in 2008 we also decided to move. But we didn't just move house, we moved country. We packed up our things, said goodbye to family and friends and moved to Angola. Yep, that's the country of Angola, located on the African continent. Some people, especially those from near my hometown, sometimes confuse it with Angola, Indiana. I assure you- it's very, very different!
So we moved to Angola, started work at an international school here, and continued planning the wedding. And, being that I have been baby-crazy since I can remember, I started planning our family too.
2009 brought our July wedding, and August brought a very positive pregnancy test! We had a lovely souvenir from our honeymoon... a baby on the way! I was over the moon. And then I realized... we live in Africa! In Angola! What am I thinking???
Our daughter was born in April in my hometown, in the United States. We spent the summer living in the lap of luxury (reliable electricity and hot water, fast internet, take-out!), before bringing our family home, back to Angola, for the start of the new school year. This is how we became a family abroad.
And this is where my story, of being a mother (and a wife and an individual, etc, etc), trying to achieve all these mothery goals, but doing it all with the special challenges and yes, advantages, that living abroad provides, began.
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