The other day I was thinking, “What was I thinking?” Planning a six-month trip to India, at that point, seemed an exercise in madness. I was in the throes of preparing my packing list, preparing the house, preparing my car for storage, preparing last minute travel arrangements. The process reminded me of pregnancy: The long months of waiting and then the rush of preparations near the birth. It’s been about twenty years since I was pregnant, but I well remember the long months of waiting with only a monthly obstetrical appointment in the beginning and the vague sense that something was different in my body, with the expectation my life would be different in the future but in an unknown way. There was a sense of mystery, of something happening in and around me but I couldn’t really grasp it because it was unseen.

Then, as I remember, there is, about two months before the arrival of a baby, a rush of preparations. There is a sense the baby is really coming now, and it is time to get the nursery ready, to purchase all the necessary equipment (crib, stroller, bedding, clothes, supplies, high chair, port-a-crib, baby backpack, front carrier, etc.). There’s studying the manual about how to take care of a baby, how to keep the baby safe. There’s probably a baby shower with friends and family expressing their happiness for you and giving you their best advice. Doctor’s appointments are more frequent with further in-depth testing. You might have extra tasks at work to plan for maternity leave. (You might even be predisposed to the “nesting instinct,” which makes you want to thoroughly clean your house. You think this is in preparation for the baby’s arrival, but what you find out later it is because it is probably the last time you’ll have a clean house for the next 18 years.) And there’s this unspoken deeply buried anxiety that things might not go right with labor and delivery or you might not be adequate as a parent, the moments of “what was I thinking” that no one wants to acknowledge. In all this frenzy of activity it is hard to remember that there is actually a new person arriving in your family because it is hard to imagine who that person is and what that little person will be like and hard to really get a sense of how he/she will alter your life. And then the baby arrives, whether or not you are ready.

Planning a six-month trip to India is a lot like that. Early in January when I dreamed the dream of returning to India—dates, flight, tours—the idea seemed a vague but exciting adventure. I spent the next few months reading up about India, watching Bollywood movies, and making a half-hearted attempt to learn Hindi. I had lists of things I wanted to accomplish before I left, but, just as the coming of a baby seems unreal, the trip seemed unreal.

Then, around the first of October, I woke up from this dream. The trip was coming! There was so much I didn’t know about traveling overseas for six months. What do you do about utilities and other bills and long-distance banking? Prescriptions? Immunizations? Visa? What do you do about your mail for that long? What do you do with your house, your yard, your car, your other responsibilities? And not least: How do you pack for India for six months? There were so many questions for which I had no immediate answers that I created a binder for the trip, with a page for each item that needed to be addressed.

And I started making phone calls, doing Internet research, and taking notes. So many decisions! So much to do! The lists. And more lists. And even more lists.

There were surprises along the way: The two-week fight with my health insurance company for six months of anti-malarial medication coverage (I lost. Only three months coverage); the visa application mistake the third-party agency caught (thank goodness); the purchase of items I ended up returning due to lack of luggage space; not to mention the close examination of the nevertheless incomprehensible list of allowable liquids in what quantities in which luggage item. And the discovery that cans of insect repellent with twist-top lids do exist. Also, when you have your mail forwarded to a P.O. box from your home address, the mail goes back up to the distribution center (in my case, Detroit) before being redelivered to my local post office where my box is located. No such thing as just plopping those late-ordered Amazon items in my P.O. box from the get-go.

Travel safety. Now there’s an issue. There was the recent discovery of the CDC health safety kit recommendations for India (http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/travel/destinations/india/traveler/packing-list). Those items alone take up half my carry on roller bag! The list includes a “suture kit.” I got my doctor to write the letter and picked up the item at the hospital pharmacy. I expected a needle and thread. Here’s what I got:

Sadly, it is not going with me.

Then there was the little notification on the camel safari tour that no riding helmets are provided. Yes, you guessed it. I am that person. I purchased a riding helmet:

This is also not going with me. What was I thinking? I may not be the type of person cut out for international adventure tours.

Then, the recommendations by friends, family, acquaintances, and websites: Nicer versus casual traveling clothes, number and type of pants and shoes, number and type of underwear, SPF 30 sunblock versus SPF 50, sleeping bag and sheet (mummy or rectangular, permethrin treated or not), bed net, locking cable for backpack, condoms (!), personal safety items such as pepper spray, whistle, doorstop, and RFID sleeves for credit cards, Rotary membership, and so on. Many people, loving, concerned and helpful, are figuratively “patting my belly.”

Now it’s down to the last couple of days. My bags are packed…mostly. Lot of last-minute things remain, though. People ask me if I’m excited about my trip. Am I taking a trip to India? I want to ask them. I’m so busy preparing for the adventure that I can’t imagine what it will be like once I’ve begun it.

But one thing is for sure: I am giving birth to this trip, whether I’m ready or not. Join me for six months of travel to India to find out what life after the “baby” is like.