Introducing...

Isabelle Blair, our little miracle! She was born a whole 10 days after her due date, much to her Mama's disgruntlement! No, really, I was happy for her to stay a part of me for as long as she needed to. However, that being said, I am exstatic to have her and be able to hold her in my arms. She is the most precious little thing (I may be biased, just slightly)! I have been asked for details of the delivery and the "after."  Don't worry all you weak-stomached folks, I won't go into the gory details!

On Sunday, 12 February, Blair and I packed up all that we thought we'd need and caught a ride with a friend here in Turkey to the hospital. We arrived around 8:30 p.m.  The doctor came about an hour later to examine me and start the induction process. Throughout the night I would occasionally have cramping-like sensations, but nothing too painful. The next morning, the doctor came in again to examine me and much to my disappointment the medicine from the previous night hadn't done much. However, the doctor wasn't discouraged and we went forward with the same medicine again. A few hours later, she came back and checked on me and decided it was "go" time for the "big guns," Pitocin. So we got that on board and boy-howdy, did I start to feel the contractions! I went maybe only an hour and a half before I was able to get my spinal, but it felt like 3 days in the midst of it! (Sidenote: for all you women who birthed a child without medication, YOU ARE WOMAN, HEAR YOU ROAR!! I could NOT do that! And didn't!!) Anyway, after the spinal, I was golden! I didn't care how many contractions I had or how many times I got checked, I couldn't feel a thing! It was glorious! Around 1 p.m. my water broke, which was a strange feeling, to say the least. Now, keep in mind, we started the Pit(ocin) around 10 a.m. and by 1 p.m. my water's broken. By 2 p.m. I was completely dilated and being moved into the delivery room. I tell you folks, I wasn't even in the delivery room for half an hour before our sweet baby arrived into the world. I am so thankful I didn't have to push for 2 hours like some poor women.

After she was born at 2:30 p.m., weighing in at 7 lbs and 19.5 inches long, and when they were done doing there thing with her on the warmer, Mama and Belle got our snuggle on! She was so alert and was looking right at Blair and me. I couldn't stop the tears and I think the doctor thought I thought something was wrong with her because she kept saying, 'The baby is fine! She's ok!" While I was being worked on, Blair was able to hold her and have Daddy daughter time. It was so precious!

Not long after delivery, we got moved to our postpartum room/suite. It was so nice! The hospital really caters to Americans and treat us like VIPs! They have a company that comes in to decorate the room depending on the gender of the baby. We had pink everywhere, which of course, I loved! The hospital translator also made us wonderful cookies decorated with baby stuff (i.e. bottles, bassinets, diapers, etc.) Not only where they adorable to look at, but they were delicious too!

It was so great to be able to have "new family" time in our new room. Blair and I couldn't stop staring at our precious little girl.

Blair has taken to Daddy-hood like it's old hat. He scoops Belle up and carries her around like he's been doing it everyday of his life! He even changes diapers without complaint!! (He said he thought of the meconium as pudding so he didn't get grossed out changing it! What an imagination!) He has been so wonderful to me! He's been helping without me even asking and taking care of stuff around the house. He holds Belle when I go and shower or if I want to take a nap. It's been so great to have such a wonderful husband!! I always knew I loved him, but this has surpassed my desires! He'd never tell or want recognition and that makes it all the more special.

As for Belle, she is doing well. She was just so darn cute that for the first few days, she slept on my chest because I couldn't let her go...However, now we are working on getting her to sleep on her own, and she seems to be adjusting well. I've found that swaddling her before she gets fed helps. I try to make sure she is good and asleep before I lay her down and that helps too. For the most part, she is a happy and content baby. Now, when she's messed her diaper, she is NOT a happy camper and lets everyone in the radius of her voice know that she wants the situation fixed and fixed NOW. But I can't say anything, from all reports, I was the same way! Hopefully this means she'll be easily potty trained later! One can hope, right?!

Now I'll leave you with some snapshots of our little one. Hope you enjoy!

Update

So, today is February 3rd. The long-awaited day for Blair and I. Has it been eventful, no. At least not in the way we were expecting. See, today, or sometime before today, I was expecting to be holding my sweet baby in my arms. That or yelling at Blair in the midst of labor.  But alas, that is not to be...at least not today. So, we are waiting. As most of you know, I don't wait well. I mean, I feel like I've done fairly well playing the waiting game up till now. But as someone told me today, it won't be more than 10 days (that's when my doctor will induce). So, I'll mark my calendar for the "new due date" and wait for that. Should she decide to come before then, HALLELUIAH!

But as promised, I will now show you her room, with her newly arrived furniture. Most of you have seen it, but for those of you that have not...enjoy!!

Belle at 37 weeks

Well, much to the disappointment of my dear sister, I have not been taking daily or even weekly pictures of my stomach growth. This is because I feel that there is not enough change to be seen in photos so close together. That being said, the last picture I posted was around 32 weeks. Since then, I feel like Miss Belle has "dropped." The doctor confirmed that she is indeed in the vertex, or head down, position. In Greece, she was breech, so all the walking must have jarred her into the new position! I have been to the doctor twice in as many weeks, due to my gestation. On both occasions she's checked me and so far, no dilation has occurred. Meaning, no Belle for a little while at least!

But as much as I can't wait to meet my new little one, I could use a little more time to prepare! Not long after getting back from Greece, we got all of our household goods. Thanks to some friends, we made major headway into the unpacking the first day; they pretty much unpacked my entire kitchen for me and a lot of the rest of the house!! So my time has been taken up with finding place for everything in a house that is about half the size of the one we came from. We are finding that much of our decorative items will need to remain packed, unfortunately. Slowly, our house is becoming a home to use. Also, since we only came to Turkey with a crib for Belle, we ordered some custom furniture for Belle. No pictures as yet, because it's not been delivered. However, I'm hopeful that it will be in place in her room by the end of next week! Along with the furniture and getting all our stuff, I have been busy getting all Miss Priss' clothes washed up for her, which to be honest is a challenge with no where to put them when they're clean! But laundry baskets work for now, I guess! Oh, and yesterday, I went off base with a friend to a leather shop that's within walking distance and got Belle a new, big diaper bag. It's a knock-off Coach, but I love it!! And they gave me a deal since it was for my baby! How nice was that?! For now I will leave you with a picture of Belle's room as it is now, for the most part.

 Her Daddy getting the room painted in preparation for her arrival!! He did a great job!

Daddy putting together the crib. It looks great with the colors!

Here is Miss Belle at 37 weeks! She's definitely dropped, huh?

Not much change..

I apologize for  being away for so long. Our lives for about 3 weeks after my last post were quite hectic. From December 18-23, Blair and I went on a Biblical Tour of GREECE!! And it was as amazing as it sounds! Hop over to my Facebook page for a taste of the trip. It was awe-inspiring to be able to walk in the same places that such Godly people walked 2k years ago! We followed Paul around a lot; we went to Corinth, Thessaloniki, Athens, Delphi, and Phillipi to name a few. We also got to tour a couple Greek Orthodox churches. They were so amazing with all the detail and intricate woodwork that went into the building of the churches. One day we got to tour a monastery and a nunnery. The location of the two was the most amazing part, I think. They were high in the mountains of Greece and had some seriously beautiful vantage outlooks. Everywhere you looked in Greece was another gorgeous place to take a picture.

In case your wondering, Belle and I did pretty well, I feel, on the trip. My only hang up was that my feet and ankles got massively swollen. Thank God for a friend that let me borrow some of her boots. I wore my tennis shoes for the first day and had I been forced to where those the entire trip, I would have been miserable! But God is good and He knows our needs before we do, and took care of it for me!

Ok, ok, you convinced me, I'll post some pics from our trip. I hope you enjoy!

Lovin' Technology!

I am soo excited! I just downloaded the Bible to my iPod! This is exciting for other than obvious reasons. Why you ask? Because on Sunday, yep, this Sunday, Blair and I will be making our first international trip since being in Turkey! We're going to Greece, folks! On a Biblical tour! Hence, the need for a Bible. You may be wondering why I wanted it on my iPod...well, the answer to that, my friends is because we are only allowed 20 kgs (approximately 45 lbs) and this girl wants to be smart with the packing! (That and I stupidly let my Bible be packed in our household goods, thus I don't have one technically!) Anywho, I just thought I would share about how stupendously excited I am to have technology that allows me to carry God's word around at all times while weighing less than a pound! You rock, technology!

Aaaannnddd, here is a totally random picture of some guy that asked me to take his picture when I was in Old Adana with some friends. After I snapped it, he nodded his head and walked away! So funny!

Isabelle at 32 weeks (which is 8 months!)

 I don't know if you can tell a difference, but I feel like I can! Miss Priss is getting so big! She's active a lot of the time, which I like, because it makes me know she's okay in there! Even though I can't wait to hold her in my arms, I am enjoying being pregnant. Except when the heartburn hits. But at my 32 week appointment today, the doctor prescribed me some Zantac so even that should go away!!

Isabelle at 32 weeks gestation

Isabelle at 27 weeks gestation

Turkey's Different, Go Figure!

I have been meaning to write this post for a long time; however, life as gotten in the way. But I'm here now and that's what counts right?! 

I just wanted to share a few of the things that I have noticed since living here in Turkey that are different, besides the obvious, whole foreign country thing...

For one, the toilets are different. Now, when your out and about, you kinda have to search sometimes for a "European" toilet (sometimes called a "modern" toilet), which is the ones that we red-blooded Americans are used to. Thankfully, most places have at least one...sometimes...if it's working. Sadly, I don't have a picture of it, but the traditional Turkish toilet is what we over here fondly (and sometimes not so fondly) call the "squatty potty." Imagine if you will walking into the bathroom to find, not what you want to see as an American needing to use the facilities, but rather a porcelain hole, if you will. Now, in order to use this particular facility, one must do exactly as our nickname suggests, squat. If you know me, and most of you do, you know that I've never been one to be able (or want to) pee in the woods. It has to do with the fear of turning my socks yellow and having to walk around explaining that one all day. Especially being pregnant and in my last trimester I was worried that should I ever need to utilize one of the "traditional Turkish toilets" that it would not go well. However, sometimes, I surprise even myself! On a trip to a sorta nearby town, Gaziantep, we ate at a restaurant that had two stalls, one with the "squatty potty" and one with the door locked, so I really can't say what was behind Door Number 2. For those of you who have been pregnant, you know that when you gotta go, you gotta go. None of this, "Oh, well, I can hold it" mess. It's now or never baby. So I stepped out of my comfort zone, or should I say, squatted into it, and tried the infamous "squatty potty." And what do you know? I came out sans yellow socks! I was so proud. I made sure to tell everyone I was with so they could congratulate me too. Yes, I really did. I was proud, what can I say? Now, you may ask, "Are you going to use the 'squatty potty' from now on, since you know you can?" My answer would be a resounding, NO. If they have a European toilet, this prego will be utilizing it, thank you very much!

Moving along in my story, even the European toilets are slightly different that what most of us are used to. Now, the most important thing is that, yes there is a place to rest your weary bum. The difference comes to play in how to flush when your done. To date, I've seen three different kinds of 'flushing apparatus.' The one I have most easy access to show you is the one in my house, because lets face it, when I'm using the bathroom in public, I don't generally take my camera with me. Shown here is the most common type I've seen. Do you see the little silver knob on top of the tank? Yes? Well, when done doing your duty (or doody, haha) lift and hold that little gem and away we go! The second most popular is basically the same, except for lifting the knob, you press and hold a button. Same result. The third type I've seen, and seen really only off base is two buttons on the wall behind the toilet, one being quite a bit larger than the other. Now, when I saw this the first time it caused me a tish bit of trepidation. I was wondering, "If I push the wrong one is it going to send what I just did right back at me?" Ugh, imagine trying to explain why you had wet hair to a tour group after a routine pit stop. Thankfully, though, you can push either one with relative safety. The big button is for a 'full' flush and the small one is for a 'half' flush. I guess Turkey is trying to "go green."

The second thing I wanted to show you is the differences in outlets. For those of you that have traveled outside the good 'ol US of A may have seen these before. For me, despite having been to Mexico, these are a novelty...and an occasional nuisance. Obviously I can't just plug my flat iron straight into one of these babies. First, I'd have to get a transformer/converter that has a regular 110 (what we use in the states) on the front and a 220 plug coming out the back...However, thank the good Lord, there is an American plug in our bathroom. Granted, there's only one, so Blair and I have to go back and forth as to who's stuff is plugged in, but there is one. So, yay!

Pretty much the first thing I learned about Turkish culture when we got here is that they love them some tea (they call it cay, pronounced ch-I). Now, being a good Southern girl, I figured I'd give it a go, even though it's hot tea, not iced like I prefer. Much to my surprise, it's not bad. When your out in town, almost every shop you stop at asks you if you want some tea. (Really, we need to introduce that kind of service at home!) You'll be walking down the street and you'll see a man run by with platter of maybe 6-8 tea cups filled to the brim; don't worry, he's on a delivery run. I'm not kidding you when I say, they LOVE tea!

 

Ok, so something happened with my blogger and I can't write where I want to about the above picture. So we'll do it here. This is what you think it is. A plastic cup of water. No biggie right? WRONG! Here in Turkey, they don't routinely filter their water (yuck!) like the base does. So when you go off base and need a little something to wet you whistle, sometimes this is what you get. I've gotten this size at a dessert place and on a tour I took. I'm assuming it's because they're cheap. When you go to a full fledged restaurant and ask for water, they give you a tepid bottle and glass, whoopie. But at least it's parasite free!

Now we'll talk about the picture below. It's not really anything too exciting; I just thought they were cute. The top one is honey (see you didn't know that did you because it's in TURKISH!!) and the bottom one is butter. I got both of these when we went with some friends to a town about an hour away called Kizkalsei and had brunch by the Mediterranean Sea. And yes, it was as wonderful as it sounds.

The picture below may be slightly misleading. From what I can glean from the picture and the itsy, bitsy amount of Turkish that I know and recognize, this is advertising corn and sunflower oil. But neither one of those are in that deceiving little package. What is it you ask? It's a wet nap to clean your hands! A lot of restaurants will provide these for your cleaning pleasure. I have noticed though that they don't all do it at the same time. Some hand them out before your meal, some after. I guess when I've gotten them before the meal I had grubby hands and didn't know it!

 The last thing I wanted to share with you is the differences in the sinks over here. Below is my kitchen sink. Notice anything "off?" Yeah, you got it, there's only one side. I haven't been into a native Turkish persons home so I don't know if this is something the base did to save money, or if they all have sinks like this. I will tell you that when I went to the mall's version of Home Depot, the sink display had about 10 sinks that look like mine and about 3 that were similar to American sinks. As in they had two sides, but one side was half the width and depth of the other side. All I have to say about this sink is, thank you Jesus, I have a dishwasher! Can you imagine washing a full load of dishes in this?!

I hope you enjoyed my ramblings of the things I have found to be different here in Turkey. I'm sure the longer I live here the more I'll notice. I will attempt to capture everything and share with you. However, I may be to busy picking my chin up off the floor to be able to react appropriately! But if something stays still long enough for me to snap a candid, be sure I will!