Oh The Places You’ll Go….The World Travels of Jude Anthony Duncan

When Lindsay and I were first married we heard numerous people give us one piece of advice…travel as much as you can before you have kids. We took this advice to heart and in the first 5 years of our marriage we visited 20+ countries that spanned 5 continents. However, we were always planning on starting a family and in the spring of 2010 we learned that we were about to have our first child…a little boy named Jude Anthony Duncan. We were absolutely elated to find out we were pregnant and the first thing we did was plan a couple of trips before he came. :) In fact, the way we told my family we were pregnant was when we were sitting around the dinner table and we said “this summer we are going to Russia/China and then next fall we are going to a place we have never been….parenthood”. We were a bit worried about what international travel might do to Lindsay’s pregnancy but after a talk with the doctor we planned 3 major adventures with Jude in Lindsay’s belly. We were going to the Dominican Republic (Lindsay was doing humanitarian work), Russia and China. When Lindsay went to the Dominican Republic she was only a few weeks pregnant and was not even starting to show. However, this was Jude’s first international travel experience and Lindsay even bought him a little souvenir wooden elephant. While she was in the Dominican Republic she was working with numerous children that didn’t have much and as an expecting mother this had a profound impact on her. Within a few months of her coming back from the Dominican Republic we were getting on a flight to go halfway around the world to Moscow Russia. By this time Lindsay was starting to show just a little. We took Jude all over Moscow and St. Petersburg and in almost every picture of Lindsay she is holding her belly as if to day “Jude is here too!” After a week in Russia we were on our way to China and this is where Lindsay’s little belly really started to show. In fact, one of the first people to ever ask Lindsay if she was pregnant was a Chinese man working at a slide (think alpine slide) near the Great Wall of China. Lindsay was about to get on the slide and he pointed at her stomach and said “Baby?.....NO!.” This meant Lindsay had to ride the chairlift down the mountain while I cruised on the slide. :) By the time we made it to the futuristic city of Shanghai Lindsay had a cute little belly and was rubbing it all day long. While walking one day through Shanghai we found an entire wall made out of beautiful flowers. The bright white and red flowers were against the sunny blue sky background and it was beautiful. Lindsay had an umbrella with her (to protect from the sun) and we took a picture of her next to these flowers that is still today one of my most favorite pictures of Lindsay. You can clearly see her belly and it was almost as if Jude was there with us in Shanghai. Despite being almost 4 months pregnant when we backpacked through Russia and China Lindsay was a total trooper. She had her backpack on her back and Jude in her belly upfront and it was so cute to see her trucking around like she always does. After our trip to Russia/China we decided to take it easy for a while. We did a quick trip to Vegas where we saw the musical “Love” and Jude was kicking during the “Hey Jude” song. We were trying to plan a quick trip to NYC or Seattle about 2 months before the due date but just never felt right about it. We would later learn that this was meant to be as Lindsay had Jude 2 months early. If we would have gone on the trip she would have had Jude while traveling and that could have been scary for a number of different reasons. All-in-all our little boy Jude visited 3 countries on 3 different continents while he was in the womb. He is extremely blessed as that is more that many people get to see in an entire lifetime. Jude will obviously not remember these trips at all but it is our hope that a little bit of our international travel passion worked its way into Jude while he was in the womb (this might be why he came early as he was so excited to see more of the world). Lindsay and I are strong believers that traveling the world is one of the absolute best things a human being can do. When you are exposed to a diversity of cultures and ways of life it opens your mind, grows your heart and helps you develop into a more well-rounded person. Travel has been a part of Jude since before he was born (literally) and we can’t help but wonder how this will affect him as he grows. It makes us think back to the famous Dr. Suess book….”Oh the places you’ll go.” Lindsay and I would not trade our travel experiences for anything in the world and we are anxious to continue this tradition with Jude now that he is out of the womb. Oh the places you will go Jude.