Advice hugely appreciated

[Laos2011]

Hello from an expectant father, baby boy due 4th April. First post on this site

Will try and keep my bio short and then get to the single question....

Girlfriend lives in Laos (South East Asia) at the moment. She will be having our child there and then I will be looking to get her back to the UK as soon a practicaly possible after the birth. I am flying out there for 5 weeks to be with her, will be my first time in Laos.

Laos is a very poor undeveloped country, I am bringing over what I can, clothes etc... but there is a limit to what i can bring based on luggage allowances and practicality. I would love to bring over a large sterlising unit, buggy and breast pump, my suitcase will obviously not support such items. I wont have the luxury of a mothercare or boots on every street corner.

If there was 1 single thing you would recommend I bring over, what would it be?

I appreciate thats a very open ended non specific question but I just want to pick the brains of mums and parents to be. Understanding that I will be fairly remote from "civilisation" I am just looking for ideas of things I could not live without and probably not get over there.

All feedback greatly received

These posts are horrible.

We know NOTHING of the circumstances of this relationship.

I think we need to respect that and we don't really have the right to judge based on our assumptions, because they may be totally wrong.

The guy sounds excited to be a father and well meaning. I don't have a problem with that and the rest is irrelevant to his questions.

Reality..You and I are alone in our thoughts, seems to me that some people are so impressed that a man wants to buy things for his baby that they skim over the glaringly obvious.

Still interested to know how a woman from such a poor country met the OP, it wasn't in the UK that's for sure.

Why wouldn't he ask for guidance? Dh has had to research his purchasing many times in the past, be it online or asking friends.

Have you been to Laos? He assumes you haven't because he tells us all it's poor, so what would we know about the culture there or having a baby.

Oh and he's either American, Irish or has poor grammar. We say take not bring.

You can call me 'Cunt' but I would take it as an insult. Anyway, I no longer have that name...all I'm saying is that we do not know.

We do not know anything more than what he has told us and we should be respectful of that.

Making wild assumptions about it is uncalled for and wrong and you can go right ahead but I don't think you're justified.

ahem, it was your name.

How do you know he knows nothing about the mother?

How do you know he doesn't talk to her already but is asking our advice for little extras for her? Thats what I took from his post.

Why is it glaringly obvious?

You are being seriously judgemental and quite nasty.

Have I missed something? Do we know for sure she's Laotian? She could be any flipping nationality under the sun. I can't understand why everyone's being so judgy about this op. In the immortal words of Manuel, we know nothing (other than she's pregnant and in Laos)

Exactly Headfairy

Nowhere has he said that he hardly knows her, and nowhere he has said that he doesn't talk to her. Maybe she was over here for a while when they met. He's never been to Laos but they must have had sex SOMEWHERE!

'Quite nasty' is generous.

Sometimes the internet is like a large playground with 7 yr old girls getting hysterical and bitchy and making up stuff in the absence of information. Gossipy nasty and unpleasant. You may think these things but the outright assumptions are just vile. Who the fuck do you think you are? I guess you can claim a moral judgement and hide behind a pretence of 'protecting' poor exploited women in Laos. You don't know the facts and hell they might spoil your moral indignation... so lets not bother them eh?

Yep it was quite generous really RC.

Spiteful, judgmental, malicious and really quite vile and horrible.

As I have stated to somebody in a PM....

I know through membership of other forums (non parent related) that most people dont want to hear my (or others) life story, hence a tiny snapshot of my situation and a question felt like the right introduction to the site.

I didnt, and havent, provided details on my circumstance as I felt it insignificant to my original question. If you swore by the "Acme V.2 breast pump" and could not live without it, it shouldnt have mattered if I met my gf online or in a bar, or whether shes from Laos or Lecister.

Thank you to all the posters that have offered advice and tips on products etc...

I don't care about the provenance of the relationship. If this person is behaving kindly towards his girlfriend and plans to take care of her and their child, I don't have any particular interest in how they met.

I'd far rather he behaved like this than abandoned her to care for their child alone.

Everett - I'm with you. I don't care actually if he met her at a lapdancing bar or church actually.

If that information was sent to someone as a pm perhaps it should have stayed that way.. Private. Probably because the op knew he'd be judged by the holier than thou crowd on here.

and actually, there were too many actuallys in that last post.

But a woman from Laos my find the idea of a breastpump pretty vile. Given the poverty and therefore risky birth why have you allowed her to stay in her country? What pre natal care have you paid for?

I'm sorry OP but, given my vast experience in these matters, I find Western men pretty loathesome that piss off to poor countries to bag themselves a wife that if all things were equal would be way out of their league.

My typos are speck tack liarrrrrr

How do you know he isn't a really nice bloke? You can assume and guess all you want, but you might be wrong.

That's all.

TBH after spending a lot of time there 'a really nice' seems not to exist. Really nice blokes don't repeatedly go on holiday to Thailand and belong to a pack of men that all bag Thai brides. I promise, if you've ever been there, the air tastes bad. I can't describe it but it's not nice. Think of Stringfellows and the atmosphere and weird level of the relationship between punter and stripper and there you have the Thai woman and the WEstern man.

He PMed BOF, who then generously decided to share that private information with the rest of the forum. Talk about inciting others and shit stirring.

Am rendered speechless by the moralistic, holier than thou, snide attitudes present on this thread. How can she be of mail order extraction? She's his "girlfriend" for fucks sake.

Laos, I wouldn't pay any heed to the snide insinuations. Its just a bunch of posters wishing to lord their moral "virtue" over "less worthy" subjects. Gives em a kick and enables them to momentarily forget their own glaring imperfections. Grow the fuck up ladies.