“Oh-oh-oh, so you caught da calypso fevah?!”, closely followed by “Excellent! You swallowed the breadfruit…”.

There is a saying in Barbados when a woman falls pregnant – they say she has “swallowed the breadfruit”!

As you can probably envisage, a breadfruit is a large, round fruit that looks something like a melon. My husband and I first heard this expression when we announced our pregnancy to some local friends, who first exclaimed, “Oh-oh-oh, so you caught da calypso fevah?!”, closely followed by “Excellent! You swallowed the breadfruit…”. After our blushes died down, we were so chuffed by their warm and generous response to our news. It didn’t take us long after we moved to the island to realize that starting a family here would be ideal. For permit reasons, I can’t work, and so have really been blessed with time to spend at home, presently as a wife and soon as a mother. The climate promotes a healthy outdoor lifestyle, family values are still integral to the running of society on the island, and there is a very special expat and local network of mums and families to lean on and call on with family far away. Medically, the treatment has been world-class and I have every confidence in my OBGYN and his team. His laid back, Caribbean mindset is a perfect foil to my rather anxious A-type personality, but when there is an emergency or something that needs to be addressed urgently he actions it immediately and expertly. With 100 days to go until our due date, I look around and am so thankful to be carrying a (so far) healthy babe who will be welcomed onto this beautiful island, where the first few years of his or her life will be sun drenched, full of love and adventure. Guest Blogger Emma Cripwell