My DIL was pregnant with their first child when they decided to emigrate to her native NZ nearly 5 years ago. It was extremely difficult for us to cope with - not only would we not see our grandson when he was born we would be saying goodbye to our dear son too. We kept it together for their sakes though apart from at the railway station when we dropped them off. Since then they've had a second son now aged 2 and have just been over here for 6 weeks holiday over Christmas. We have been there once when the second baby was 6 weeks old. You do cope. It's difficult especially if they're not terribly good at keeping in touch which ours aren't but FT and Skype are marvellous inventions and also messaging like WhatsApp. Congratulations on the impending arrival
The Republic of Ireland and their tensions with migrants.