Not Quite to Plan Audiobook
Motherhood is a challenge. A global pandemic is a challenge. A military coup is a challenge. All three together make for an extraordinary story. Yangon was Milla Chaplin Rae’s adopted home for six wonderful years; she met her husband there, had her baby there and even enjoyed waiting out the pandemic there. But on 1 February 2021, everything changed when Myanmar’s brutal military ousted the elected government, throwing the country into turmoil and the family’s plans to stay there into question. Only two months into motherhood, suddenly Milla wasn’t thinking about nappy changes and sleep patterns, she was wondering if it was safe to go outside. The family’s scramble to find an alternative life to the one they had built in Yangon takes them from Myanmar to India, via Ireland, Jersey and Australia. Told with honesty, humour and humility, Not Quite To Plan is the story of Milla’s first year as a mother - a year in which she was as reliant on her baby for emotional support as he was on her for survival. Narrated by the author, Milla Chaplin Rae. Produced and distributed by OfSpin Media Friends. About the Author Milla Chaplin Rae grew up in Jersey (UK). After graduating with a degree in Chinese and German, she embarked on a marketing and communications career which would take her to Beijing, New York and London before leading her to Yangon, where she fell in love with both Myanmar and her husband, Dylan. NOT QUITE TO PLAN marks Milla’s debut as an author and details her extraordinary first year as a mother: a year in which she navigated the global pandemic, the 2021 Myanmar military coup and six months of involuntary separation from her husband - with a newborn baby in tow. Milla now lives in Mumbai where she splits her time between her family, her work and her writing. To get in touch with the author and share your thoughts, you can reach out to millachaplinrae@gmail.com or follow her on www.instagram.com/millarae_writes. If you are having issues accessing the content, please reach out to the OfSpin team at info@ofspin.com.
Episodes
The author's experience of the global pandemic and a military coup with a newborn baby.
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The family arrives in India and Milla is thrown into the enormous challenge of setting up a new life in India with a toddler in tow. Speaking to her family back home, she realises that she has to write down the events of the past year so that Jasper can understand it all when he’s older.
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The family waits for their visa applications to be processed. Tensions rise as Milla adjusts to the loss of the independence she had in Jersey and Dylan’s work stress increases with his prolonged absence.
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Milla and Dylan struggle to adjust to co-parenting and to handle Jasper’s jet lag while staying at Dylan’s mother’s home.
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After almost 6 months apart, the family are reunited in Doha, halfway through their journey to Australia to apply for the visa to India.
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As the one year anniversary of the Myanmar coup comes around, Milla and Jasper discover that they will have to travel to Australia to get the visa for India, but are in limbo waiting for a date to be fixed by Dylan’s company.
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Jasper’s first birthday arrives and becomes the first of many milestones that Dylan will miss as the involuntary separation extends into the new year.
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Milla’s employment contract comes to an end and with that, the last piece of her Myanmar life falls away, leaving her feeling adrift. A trip to London bolsters her confidence as a mother, but the realisation that a visa for India will be hard to get means the family’s separation has no end date.
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Milla leans on Jasper for emotional support as she takes on the new challenge of solo parenting without the support or the structure of her life in Myanmar.
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The family have just two weeks in Jersey together, before Dylan leaves for their new life in India.
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The family’s stay in Ireland is restorative but challenging in many ways: both expected and unforeseen.
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A quick tour of an enormous supermarket on the way to the family’s Irish holiday rental reminds Milla of everything she’s missed having been stuck in Myanmar for almost two years.
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Milla encounters an issue at immigration but eventually the family arrive in Dubai.
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As the family pack up the apartment and prepare to leave Myanmar, they find a loophole relating to their quarantine in Ireland.
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A work opportunity for Dylan in India results in new travel plans.
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The family tests positive for COVID, with Milla’s father-in-law narrowly surviving and Milla starts the long and complicated process of trying to get flights out of Myanmar.
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With the world all but closed to international travel, Milla and Dylan spend several weeks trying to find a safe route to the UK with their 7-month-old baby. They finally settle on a route via Ireland and are halfway through packing when Dylan makes a surprise announcement.
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The family makes the difficult decision to plan their departure from Myanmar, as soon as they have Jasper’s passport, the application process for which finally concludes in an emotional interview for Milla.
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Milla manages to restart Jasper’s passport application process but, three months into the coup, the pressure of the situation and military activity too close for comfort inside the estate where they live, starts to weigh increasingly heavily on the family’s mind.
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Amidst increasingly frightening internet outages, travel restrictions and hospital closures at the hands of the military, Milla tracks down Jasper’s passport application and struggles to deal with the bad news that it has stalled.
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