Baby Gear & Logistics

I think there’s a UPS ad campaign going for a couple of years now where different company employees explain to their colleagues that shipping & receiving is no longer just shipping & receiving – but “logistics.”

Turning something simple-sounding into a fancy business term.

Well, becoming all-American parents in the Middle East entails a good understanding of logistics…..logistics and a heck-of-a-lot of research.

I’m not one to ever make a single purchase without plenty of research,  and the research on safety features involving baby products is a given.  However, something I had not anticipated when we first found out we were going to have a baby was the added complexity of becoming first-time parents in the Middle East.  Couple all this with my over-planning, over-preparedness, panicky nature and you’ve got a recipe for headaches and frustration.

Somehow, though, we are almost finished shopping.  Notice I don’t say “prepared” or “ready” for the baby’s arrival.  I don’t think such a thing is actually possible.

Anyway, upon arrival in the UAE, after looking through baby stores, I was hit with a sense of disappointment.  I knew all the traditional American baby brands and I couldn’t find them at any of the local stores.  I was either going to have to dive into a group of new brands or would have to find a good way around the 8,000 mile distance thing.

Luckily, we have discovered the location of some pretty massive Toys ‘R’ Us stores.  Though they don’t carry every item on my baby shopping list, they carry a hefty amount, especially of the bigger basic items like car seats and strollers. 

We paid out the kazoo for the nursery furniture at the Pottery Barn Kids in Dubai.  Literally priced 3X for the same products found in the US online shop.  Unfortunately, it wasn’t feasible to have that ordered online  and pay for shipping.  This would’ve just been more expensive (since the American brand stores are totally independently operated here).  So, we gave in on the baby furniture.  The Toys ‘R’ Us basics ended up being about twice the price of the equivalent products in the US. 

Finally, we set up a forwarding physical address in NY state with a company called Shop-N-Ship that allows us to order those last few items I refuse to substitute with local brands that either have zero safety information available, are meant to smell like baby products but smell like Middle Eastern spices (Johnson & Johnson products – Adam thinks I’m imagining it, but I swear I smell the Nativity scene…more on that later) or I’m just completely unwilling to settle on a substitute.

Look, it’s my first baby.  Our baby wasn’t this “Ooh…oops…we didn’t mean for this to happen so early,” type of baby.  We waited for a long time for this baby.  Understand that we’ve been married almost 11 years.  There was a lot of planning for the “right” time and then waiting for the “right” time and then panicking about the “right” time having passed us sometime in my 20s. 

So, I am not about to give my first-born less than the best welcoming possible.

True, she will have a very different welcome into the world compared to most American babies – being born in Dubai, being given a birth certificate written in Arabic for us to translate, jumping through hoops to ensure her US citizenship and giving her a passport stamp at the age of 1 month.  I have no intention of turning my child into an over-privileged spoiled brat, but like any first time parent, especially one who’s patiently waited a while for their first, there is a certain dream of what that welcoming home will be like. 

Though I think it’s kind of sweet that she could be born in the Middle East at Christmas, and that we are traveling from a neighboring “village” for her birth (Abu Dhabi to Dubai),  this doesn’t mean I’m prepared to have the Nativity scene.

Besides this is Dubai in 2012, not year 0.  We are traveling in a swanky fully-tinted SUV, not on camels or donkeys.  Our hospital is more like a Dubai hotel offering aromatherapy and massage services, I'm not giving birth in a manger. 

If the three wise men did show up, I’d expect gifts from Gucci, Tiffany’s and Burberry.

So with that, every package that arrives to my office brings us a little closer to checking off all of the items from our baby shopping list.  One way or another, even if it takes “logistics” and a heftier price tag, we are approaching parenthood armed in the way I once dreamt we would.

In this post, some of the more exciting (or strange – “The Snotsucker”) items I  received this week via our Shop-N-Ship forwarding address.