Dwyer's Christmas 2008

My concept of Octonodecembuary is that once you decorate for Halloween every day becomes a blur that can make Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve, and Valentine's Day just seem like one quick month. Plus, I have my birthday in December, Karen has hers in January, and we have five close friends and family birthdays in there as well. So the most important thing of all is to make sure you don't let anyone rush you through it because time flies when you're having fun.

This Christmas was no exception. Katie Marie Dwyer's first Christmas ! ! ! It was hard getting prepared. We had "the incident" at the mosque in Adana that set back our decorating one entire week. And work...work has been very busy in December. With Karen having sciatic nerve problems, me not getting any time off due to base drug testing needs, and not having seen our friends and family in over 16 months - it has been tough. But it has also been one of the best Christmases ever just because of Katie. She can light up your day like....well, like a Christmas tree.

Karen and I want to thank all of our friends and family for everything they have done for us. Especially during the Christmas holidays. It was amazing how much stuff everyone sent us. I could go on for days and not have said enough about that.

I am going to just let the pictures tell our story. The first one above is Katie's first "face-to-face" with Santa Claus on Christmas eve day at the CDC. She had seen him at the tree lighting ceremony. But here she gets to really check him out and tug on his beard.

The Christmas season started with the tree lighting ceremony. The gradeschoolers put on a great performance. The video is very dark but it sounds great and you get the idea:

Below is 3am Christmas eve after Karen and I finally finshed getting the house just right:

Below: ELMO! ! ! ! Elmo does abso-frig-lutely everything. And I mean everything. He even farts and tells two minute stories. I am not kidding. Sometimes he will say, "Elmo has something to tell you. Squeeze Elmo's nose." And when you do he farts and says, "Excuse Elmo."

Below: Karen and Katie opening presents:

Below: the Grinch rears his head:

Below: A young girl after a very tiring first Christmas:

Starbucks At Incirlik Air Base

Starbucks has opened at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey!  And this is not a "We Proudly Serve..." but a full-blown Starbucks with mugs, desserts, and wifi.  In fact, I believe this is the first full-sized Starbucks in all of USAFE.  The base had been trying to get Starbucks to come in on a smaller scale but once Starbucks Turkey saw the base and the captured market, Starbucks offered to put in a full store.  I heard they paid for 100% of the construction in exchange for being able to keep all profits for the first year.  Sounds fair to me.  Thank you Starbucks!  

Karen and I love our Starbucks.  I don't care how commercialized people claim it is.  The ambiance and smell offer a comfort feeling that reminds us of home.  I'm a pop culture junkie anyway.  We spent four years at the intersection of Black Mountain and Mira Mesa in San Diego, where they literally had afour Starbucks - we miss our coffee!  We bought Starbucks thermoses that say "Turkey" on them.  They are the yellow ones onb the shelf in the photo above.  We also bought a little bear wearing a Starbucks 2008 jacket and waving a Turkiye (Turkey)  banner. We are hoping they will bring in mugs that say "Starbucks Incirlik" but we will see.  Starbucks may not want their name going on mugs with the name of a military base on it.  Incirlik is also the name of the village outside the base so it still could happen.

Below Katie is held by one of the Turkish workers on opening day:

Whirling Dervishes In Konya

NOTE: BE SURE TO CHECK OUT THE VIDEO OF THE DERVISHES AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST.

Karen and I went to Konya on December 14th to see the "real" Whirling Dervishes. It was a long five hour trip up into the mountains and a sort of high desert area that looked a lot like the Antelope Valley near Edwards Air Force Base.   I took the above picture myself.

A quick Wikipedia explanation: "The Mevlevi Order or the Mevleviye are a Sufi order founded by the followers of Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Balkhi-Rumi, a 13th century Persian poet, Islamic jurist, and theologian, in Konya(in present-day Turkey). They are also known as the Whirling Dervishes due to their famous practice of whirling as a form of dhikr (remembrance of Allah).  The Mevleviye, one of the most well known of the Sufi orders, was founded in 1273 by Rumi's followers after his death, particularly by his successor Hüsamettin Çelebi who decided to build a mausoleum for Mevlâna, and then Mevlâna's son, Sultan Veled Celebi (or Çelebi, Chelebi, meaning "fully initiated"). He was an accomplished Sufi mystic with great organizing talents. His personal efforts were continued by his successor Ulu Arif Çelebi. The Mevlevi, or "The Whirling Dervishes", believe in performing their dhikr in the form of a "dance" and music ceremony called the sema.

The Sema represents a mystical journey of man's spiritual ascent through mind and love to "Perfect." Turning towards the truth, the follower grows through love, deserts his ego, finds the truth and arrives at the "Perfect." He then returns from this spiritual journey as a man who has reached maturity and a greater perfection, so as to love and to be of service to the whole of creation.

The sema was practised in the semahane (ritual hall) according to a precisely prescribed symbolic ritual with the dervished whirling in a circle around their sheikh, who is the only one circling around his axis. The dervishes wear a white gown (symbol of death), a wide black cloak (hirka) (symbol of the grave) and a high brown cap (kûlah), symbol of the tombstone.

The Mevlevi Order was outlawed in Turkey at the dawn of the secular revolution and the dervish lodge was converted to Mevlana Museum in Konya by Kemal Atatürk. In the 1950s, the Turkish government legalized the Mevlevi order as an association and began allowing the Whirling Dervishes, who are chosen among the members of this authentic Mevlevi sect, to perform annually in Konya on the Urs of Mevlana, December 17, the anniversary of Rumi's death.^[1] In 1971, they performed in London with Kani Karaca as lead singer. In 1972, they toured North America for the first time with Kani Karaca, Ulvi Erguner, and Akagündüz Kutbay among the musicians. They performed in France, for Pope Paul VI, and at the Brooklyn Academy of Musicand other venues in the United States and Canada - under the direction of the late Mevlevi Shaikh Suleyman Hayati Dede. In April 2007 the order initiated another tour of the U.S. where they performed to sold-out crowds, in places such as Denver and San Francisco.

The order is still active in Turkey, currently led by the 20th great-grandson (22nd generation descendant) of Rumî, Faruk Hemdem Çelebi."

So I guess Rumî, Faruk Hemdem Çeleb is the guy in the picture in the black robe on the right side of the floor.  We were glad we went to see such a unique event but ten hours on a mini-bus is a long time.

This was also the longest time we left Katie alone. We left at 0600 in the morning and did not get home until around 1100 PM. Thanks to Larissa and Chris Cook for watching Katie on her first "long day" away from Mom and Dad.

OK. There are some errors on here I just can't fix. For example "Katie" text above being wrapped around so the "e" drops to the next line. The software literally won't let me correct it. Just part of living in Turkey I guess.

Our Turkish Christmas Birds

Two birds have been sleeping in our vine outside our front door every night.  I have never seen anything like it.  I didn't know that birds actually get close together and snuggle.  It has been cold here - in the 30s most nights.  And our vine is just about bare at this point.  But these two birds get up there every night just after sunset and snuggle together until the morning sunrise.  When they are puffed up like in this photo they seem to be asleep or almost hibernating.  there eyes are closed and I can actually walk up to about a foot away to take a photo like this.  While we are going in and out the front door in the evening, we walk within three feet of them and they never move.

I'm not sure what type of bird they are.  Our Turkish shoeshine guy at the Medical Group, Jaf, tells me they are Nightingales.  They don't look like the Nightingales I see when I google them.  But perhaps they are some Turkish variation.  

Merry Christmas From Patrick, Karen, Katie, and Slinky Dwyer!

Meeeeerrrrrry Christmas everyone! I have one minute to post this! they now have a time limit set on the computers and they automatically log you off. In fact I am going to log off right.....NOW!

And now I'm logged back on and have 55 more minutes but the library closes in five so let me get in what I can. Octonodecembuary is blowing by and time is literally flying. I posted as many pictures as I could of Katie on her site. She is wonderful and talking (or she thinks she is at least)...a lot! They have made it even harder to do stuff on government computers including at the libarary. Flash drives and active x controls are disabled to some extent. I found a way arounfd loading the pics though. Karen had a hell of a time accessing e-mail and Facebooks.

I'm still collecting pee at work. I can only begin to tell whay an absolute thrill that is. I don't actually have to collect it but I have to manage the program. We are trying to get cards and stuff out to everyone but please expect delays. We appreciate everything everyone has done for us or sent us. We miss everyone! Oh, the pedal car. I drove that thing around the entire base perimter - 8 miles. It absolutely killed my legs! It was to raise money for the Combined federal Campiagn.

Our holiday greeting videos ran in St. Louis missouri on KSDK and some station in San Diego. If anyone has a way of capturing that in file format, please send to me. We miss you all. Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night....

Long Time No Post; Getting Short

It's actually been more than a month. Wow. I'm telling ya - Octonodecembuary is in full swing. We haven't had time to blink since October got here. We just put the Halloween stuff away today. And we are getting short. We should be home about nine months from now. When Octonodecembuary rolls is over we will essentially only have 5 months left and we will be shipping our stuff 3-4 months after Octonodecembuary is over.

I am going to try to start coming by the library one night per week to blog so hopefully I will catch up soon. A quick summary of events: I gave my last guitar lesson a week ago, I am still the base drug tester with no end in site, my Mental Health Flight won the paintball championship yesterday, we had a nice Halloween night giving out candy (Katie slept through the whole thing), and Katie will be 4 months on November 15th. Some recent photos:

Below, our house on Halloween. That's Karen's boss, Rada Ford on the left and a prop on the right...or is that Rad on the right? No Rada is on the left:

Below, Karen and Katie in the living room just prior to Halloween:

Below, the hedgehog that seems to be coming through our back yard every night. So far Slinky seems to know to stay away. That black dot is his nose and the smaller black dot just up and to the right of his nose is his eye:

"Little ghost, little ghost, your the cat I love the most." Some of our Halloween decorations sat out on the patio until today when we had time to put them away. last night was a little cool so Slinky warmed up to the skeleton bride below:

The Fence Is Down

I know we posted before that we are enjoying the fence being down. Just wanted to post a few more photos. Below Slinky is amazed to see there is a whole other world on the other side of the fence. This is the first time he was ever able to see past the fence much less walk out the back gate. Remember, we had a five foot tarp around the whole fence.

Another shot of our banana tree. Actually, it's our neighbor's banana tree but this year it has grown so much we have one stalk that has sprouted up on our side of the fence. We have a smaller one on the other side of the yard as well. This tree below is over two stories tall:

Now that Karen's back to work and things have fallen into a routine, we have found time to venture back in the alley. Below is Katie's first trip to a bar. We went to The Turkish Turtle to have their famous chicken sandwich. They were excellent! Below is a shot of Karen and I over by the grafitti wall.

There is a good shot of Katie in the bar that I will post on her site at adayinthelifeofkatiedwyer.blogspot.com

Well Piss On All Ya!

That's right, I am now the official Incirlik Air Base Drug Testing Program Administrator. That means I am the sole urinalysis tester. For all practical purposes I am actually the Program Manager as well. On paper, the Program Manager is our new OIC but since I am the only one actually in the office doing the testing and coordination I would say I am doing both jobs. So I am now the NCOIC of the Mental Health Flight, the base DTPAM, and also perform the Demand Reduction Program Manager duties. I was crunching numbers the other day and I calculated our Mental Health staff has shrunk by 42% since I first arrived. Since July of 2007 we lost our Family Advocacy Outreach Manager, our New Parent Support Program Nurse, our DoDs school alcohol and drug counselor, our child psychologist, our Demand Reduction Program Manager, and one mental health technician. Now I will get a tech back in June of 09 and we did regain a new Child psychologist, but I also see the potential of loosing two more positions so a 42% reduction hurts hard.

So when Karen and I are at home I try as hard as I can to forget about all the work stuff. We have been busy trying to get our back yard looking nice. Here is Katie and Karen in the back before dinner. Don't let the banana tree fool you. There's something about a banana tree that can make everything look like paradise. Trust me it's another world beyond that fence. but that's the whole idea. A paradise backyard. It's a little blurry but I was trying to get far enough away to capture the effect of the whole yard:

Karen has started back to work at NAF and Katie is at the CDC. Karen actually was moved to the corner office of Building 833. Well, she had the corner office and now she has the one next to it - but they are both NAF offices. Normally, the Air Force sticks NAF in a really crappy location so Karen and her boss, Rada, are happy to have one of the best views from the building. It's actually a commander's office that somehow went vacant.

Katie is thriving at the CDC. All the ladies love her and she is always busy. They actually had her make an art project last week. hopefully, I can get a picture of that soon. If you want pictures of Katie, you should know where to go for that. If not - just ask.

Slinky is busy doing his best to help out with his little sister. Here, he inspects Katie's new exosaucer:

I finished my 30 education units to recertify my alcohol and drug counseling certification. Now it's time to take the 6 unit CLEP before Christmas. Octonodecembuary is almost here!

Flashing Before Our Eyes

Well it seems like I won't get time to post as often as I like out here until we get home internet. When we do find time to go to the library, I have just enough time to post the daily photos of Katie. Remember, you can find those at: http://adayinthelifeofkatiedwyer.blogspot.com .

There is some interesting stuff going on at work and some nice changes to the house. Karen and I are going by the club on the way home from here to get a Club Card application. Gives you a discount for the internet. So after we get signed up and buy a modem we should be good to go.

Karen had a bunch of neighbor wives over for margaritas and I am trying to finish up my distance education hours so i can recertify my CADAC (Certified Alcohol & Drug Abuse Counselor) . I some how crammed in 30 education hours in the last two weeks.

It's starting to drop out of the 100 degree days in southern Turkey now. Once we get some snow up in the Tarsus Mountains it should be really nice. Unfortunately, this is the time of the year all the farmers burn their fields and the air is REALLY bad in the afternoon.

Hope to write more soon.

Dwyer's Update

Life is great with Katie. We need 72 hour days but life is great. Just a few updates. We sadly said goodbye to The Matriarch of Incirlik Mental Health, Major Alicia Edwards. She is headed to Misawa, Japan. We received an opening at The CDC (Incirlik Day Care) for Katie, so Karen will be going back to work in early September. We are tentatively planning to get internet services in the coming weeks so hopefully some of our friends and family will hear from us more often. I'm trying to accumulate 15-30 CEUs online in two weeks. It's really tough with trying to work, teach guitar, and have time for Katie but my CADAC expires in September so I'm up against the wall. Can't wait to get the CEUs out of the way. And the strike by Turkish local nationals was averted on base so we will still be able to buy groceries and baby supplies- that's always a good thing. See you soon.

A Day In The Life of Katie Dwyer

For those of you that want to watch Katie grow up before your eyes: http://adayinthelifeofkatiedwyer.blogspot.com

MArk it to your favorites Grandma and Grandpa.

The Return From Germany

I know everyone knows we have made it back to Turkey with Katie, but I haven't had a chance to describe the flight yet. I really try to avoid sounding negative out here. Hopefully, this will only sound funny now that it is over. Here is the story of the the Dwyer's flight from Ramstein to Incirlik.

Let me start by saying I to fly. I used to love to fly. But since 911, it is such a hassle and the airlines provide such crappy service, it's not worth the money any more. And it's such a long ordeal. I don't think it's fair for an airline to say a flight is, for example, 3 hours if you have to arrive at the airport 3 hours early and it takes a minimum of an hour to get your luggage and depart the airport. Well, with Karen and I, our flight adventure started several days before the flight. We flew The Patriot Express or The Rotator, as some people call it. This is a fairly regular flight from USA to Incirlik with a layover at Ramstein or sometimes Ireland. The DoD contracts the entire plane and staff with Orion. We flew what is known as Space Required. This means we have a lower priority than someone moving from one assignment to another but a higher priority than people who are trying to fly Space Available. Space A is essentially catching a free government flight for personal travel. Now, one of the requirements to fly Space R is having official orders saying someone is paying for the flight. Well Karen was on roundtrip orders and I was on roundtrip orders. But Katie had no orders. Incirlik's aerovac office was required to "amend" Karen' orders to show we had a new dependant requiring flight. We were ble to get Katie's emergency passport back from Frankfurt on Friday, 18 July. So I started calling Incirlik's aerovac office to get Katie's orders so we could fly back to Turkey on Wednesday, the 23rd. Incirlik kept telling me there was one guy that could amend the orders and he would be back later...which turned into by 4 o'clock...which turned into "call back Monday." So on Monday I called. This time later turned into "after lunch" which then became "...he's actually not going to be in today. Try back Tuesday." In the meantime, I have Ramstein's passenger terminal telling me I had to have the orders in by the day prior to the flight. So when i got up on Tuesday, we had eight hours left for Incirlik to get me the orders. Adn the I still had to GET them to Ramstein. Remember, we were not at Ramstein but at Landstuhl about 5 miles away. I start to call back every hour and I finally reqch the guy and he says, "Sgt Dwyer, don't worry about it. I do this all the time. Sometimes I even get the orders to the terminal five minutes before the flight." Now, the guy cutting me the orders is a great guy. I know him. But I find myself saying, "Well, yeah, maybe you have gotten them there five minutes before the flight before - but Ramstein is telling me that won't work." And Ramstein has the plane! So I was leaning towards their point-of-view. I finally got the orders around 1PM, just 2 and a half hours before the Incirlik guy went home.

So now we rush over to Ramstein to turn in the orders around 6PM the night before the flight. You would think sigh-of-relief and good-to-go right? Nope. They looked at my paperwork as if they had never seen anything like it on our planet before. But after a half an hour they said we were checked in and all we had to do was, the next day, go to a specific counter they pointed out to me and get our seats. The flight would be around 1:50 PM and we were to show at...ready for this...9PM! Almost five hours before the flight.

The 23rd rolls around and Karen and I are out of bed before 5am so we can pack, clean the room, check out, and get to Ramstein. All is well. I go up to the counter and they say, "No you have to go to that counter over there." "Are you sure? We went to that counter last night." So I go to that counter and they say there is no record of us having ever checked in and again looked at our paperwork as if they were written in another language. They finally figure it out and simply say they have redone what must have fallen out of the system. Whatever. At least I can now check my luggae over at the last counter. Until I hear, "There is no record of you having checked into the system." I explain that this would be the third time we have tried to check in the system. This time it takes even longer but when I leave the counter we all have boarding passes so I didn't care what the system thought after that.

So then we cram onto the flight with a bunch of people Incirlik bound and so more that will be continuing on to the Kyrgyz Republic. Finally get situated. We get a row of five seats for the three of us. Plenty of room and katie is being perfect. We ate our meal and were about one half hour into the movie when we hear the pilot say, "Attention. We need to announce that we are turning around and heading back to Ramstein. We have a hdraulic leak that is causing the landing gear not to move automatically. We will lower the landing gear manually so you will hear some noise. Unfortunately, this warrants attention back at Ramstein." Well crap. We were finally three hours from home and now we have no idea when we will get home. Then a second announcement, "We will not be heading to Ramstein. Instead, the US military has requested we land at the former Hahn Air Base." hahn is near Ramstein by the village of Lautzenhausen. When we landed, I heard an officer behind me say he could see a line of hydraulic fluid on the runway as we were towed back to the other end of the runway after landing. This was probably true as a fire truck and two safety vehicles seemed to follow our path scrubbing the runway where we had been.

Once we arrived to the spot where they were going to attempt to repair the aircraft, they had us disembark with our carry-on luggage. We were bused about five minutes away to a VERY SMALL terminal and told we could not leave the area. The plan was to fix the plane before 11PM as the flight crew could not take off after midnight due to flying restrictions. This part was . Some people did very well. A lot of the active guys moving on to deployment just played cards and drank beer. But we had an 8-day old baby! Katie did well but got fussy after a few hours. We went through several feeding and diaper cycles. We started to get worried because there was no place for Karen to pump or breast feed and we were down to only three bottles of formula. And Katie was really starting to fuss. We couldn't get her to sleep because all the other kids on the flight where running around screaming, but we couldn't take her to the quiet area where the soldiers where sleeping because we didn't want to wake them up. I was completely convinved they were going to send us to a hotel when they announced the plane was fixed about 10:45PM. So we made it in the air by midnight and landed at Incirlik after 4 am, 24 hours after we got up to head to the airport for our "four-hour flight."

One other funny note about the flight. At one point, Karen was trying to sleep with her head on a card table in the corner of the room. We had also just gotten Katie to sleep. Well a lady three tables over was playing cards and continuously shuffleing the cards very loudly. No big deal. But I guess her husband and teenage son were getting irritated beccause they couln't sleep due to her shuffleing. So what did she do? She moved over next to us and started shuffleing! Her famil asked her to move because she was too loud so she came nect to karen and an 8-day old baby to keep them awake. We just moved (we moved several times due to other similar incidents). So the funny part is the women turns out to be the wife of a very high ranking Medical Group leadership member. They were on their way to Incirlik! It's going to be interesting when I say, "Yes, I have met your wife. We were on that flight together."

I wanted to document this here. It's not that I'm furious about the whole thing. I mean, it was a pain, but now it's just a good story. I just want Katie to someday be able to read about the ordeal she went through to get back home...or at least back to Turkey. Home will come later.

Two Quick Videos of Katie Dwyer

Video of Katie at Landstuhl NICU a few hours after birth. Watch for the bubble:

"Finally at home in my crib at Incirlik in Turkey! Turkey....where the hell is Turkey? Why am I in Turkey? Listen and you can hear my pacifier click."

Dwyer's Are Back in Turkey

I'll tell the story later. A few pics for now:

Just an hour or so after birth. NICU has placed a bow in Katie's hair and tried to make her comfortable as possible:

First day out of hospital...and first smile! Great to see - gas or not:

First pediatric appointment. "I am really bored and don't want to be here." Just prior to this shot Katie had tried to lift her head and look at Karen. This caused her to look like she was rolling her eyes and then she fell into her favorite contemplative position:

Our flight home from Germany was diverted in mid-air due to an in-flight emergency. They landed at the former Hahn Air Base and we had to sit in a SMALL terminal for 6-8 hours. Karen and Kattie trying to get some sleep on the floor:

"Finally, back home and in my brand new crib!"

Kitty and Katie get along just fine. We never leave them alone and always supervise interactions just to be sure:

Taken today:

Katie Marie Dwyer - Director's Cut

To start with, we want to make sure everyone knows Katie is just fine. She has been released from the Landstuhl hospital and has been staying with us in lodging since Thursday night. I have a ton of pictures but will again have to wait for posting as I can not load from this computer at the Landstuhl library. So here is the story of Katie Marie's birth...

Karen and I checked in to Labor and Delivery around 5:30 PM on Sunday, 13 July 2008. Karen was scheduled to be induced. Now, I want to say before I start that EVERYONE we dealt with concerning the birth was fantastic. but there were some interesting moments that we can laugh about now. To begin with, when we checked in, we still weren't sure if they were going to induce with a gel or a a "fully bulb" or "fully bowl" - I'm not sure how you pronounce it, but basically it's a little balloon they stick up a pregnant women's hoo-ha and slowly inflate to induce labor. Karen was reluctant to go the hoo-ha route. So we get settled in the room and we hear this guy outside our door say, "OK I'm going in - wish me luck." Then this 18-year old kid walks in and says "I'll be getting you started." So we are thinking he's going to insert the balloon. Karen says, "Have you ever done this before?" The kid answers back "Well, I did one earlier today." Fortunately, we learned he was only talking about starting the IV - but his experience wasn't much better with the IV. He stuck Karen two or three time and could not find a vein. Then the nurse came in and tried - same results. Turns out Karen has small veins up by the wrist and they had to call the anesthesiologist and have them find the vein. During this time they also checked Karen's dilation and told us they preferred to use the gel and not the balloon. Karen was agreeable to that. So they got the gel in, started the IV, and also started Karen on Patosum (spelling?), a medication that also helps increase contractions. This is when it got interesting.

Karen wanted to wait as long as she could for the epidural. When you get the epidural you loose all leg movement. So for quite a while we continued without the epidural. The only problem was we expected to get some sleep. However, they would come in and do a check on Karen every hour or so, and when they did the internal checks it made her have to go to the bathroom. So neither of us slept more than 10 minutes the first night. As daylight rose on the 14th, Karen's contractions became more intense and she finally reached around 4-5 centimeters dilation. Around this time Karen asked for the epidural. I think they tried 2-3 times at this point. But the first insertion didn't seem to go where they wanted and when they finished they were still uncertain if they had a good spot. The epidural is somewhat of a chance procedure if I understand it correctly. Once they get through the cartilage, it's kind of a roll of the dice that the wire will go the direction they want and evenly distribute the medication. Karen's hit her left side perfectly, but she still felt everything in her right side. As the contractions became stronger, they tried different thing like rolling her to one side to get the pain meds to shift. Nothing seemed to work and it got to a point in the afternoon where she was feeling every contraction intensely. They offered to readminister the epidural but Karen was reluctant to go through all that a second time. She settled for having some form of alternative narcotic administered through the epidural. That also had no effect. I don't remember exact time but I remember thinking Karen went through four hours of intense contractions every sixty seconds without the epidural working. Finally, she said she didn't think she could take much more and asked for the epidural to be reattempted. It was much more difficult to go through the procedure because Karen had lost feeling in one leg and was much more exhausted at this point. But she had to sit up straight on the side of the bed for the epidural to be administered. But we managed to pull it off and this time she was feeling nothing in about a half an hour. We were actually able to snooze for 10-20- minutes at a time for about two hours now. They told us Karen would deliver "...sometime tonight."

Well, she almost made it. Doctor Sewell said Katie didn't want to be born on Bastille Day. The labor started getting more intense and Karen was up in the straps pushing. Very exhausting but no pain. I saw her head about five minutes before she came out all the way, and I remember thinking, "Well she is smaller than I thought." But that was because of the head compression. After, Katie went back up inside, Karen continued to push without getting results. That's when the dod said he might have to consider the vacuum after another 10-20 minutes. It only took karen a few pushes after that comment. When she came out the second time, she kept coming and coming and then I though, "Oh she's actually bigger than I imagined." In reality Katie was quite small at 6.5 pounds but it sure is a lot to come out down there. She has very long legs and big feet. She was born on 15 July 2008, at 4 minutes after midnight.

Earlier we asked what would happen when Katie came out. Would they just hand her to mom and then clean her, or clean her and hand her to mom? The nurse told us they would clean her a little and hand her to mom unless there was a need to address something first, which sometimes happens. We knew something was up when we started seeing two to three other people show up and set up at the side. Then we heard Dr Sewell say, "The chord is around the baby's neck. I had to cut the chord but be sure to make note of that." She was literally white when she came out and didn't cry although I could see arm and leg movement. Then I heard little cries as they took her to the warming table and began to work with a manual oxygen pump and clean her up. The table was only about ten feet from Karen so she could see everything. They seemed to be trying to clear her lungs and getting her to breathe OK. It all happened so fast it was hard to have time to really think. Then they asked me to cut the umbilical chord, which I did. But that made me think everything must be going OK. Then the NICU doc walked over to Karen and said, "I'm going to make this fast. You can kiss her and then I'm going to be gone." And Karen did. And the doc was - gone. In the 5 seconds it took me to decide whether to stay with Karen or go with the baby, they literally had her down the hall and hooked up to tubes and were working on an IV.

It was all very scary but I was able to watch and stay with Katie. About two hours later Karen was able to clean up and make her way down by wheel chair. It was very hard for Karen. They had Katie on breathing assistance, warming, and an IV. Then they had Karen move to the Mother/Baby unit around 4 in the morning. At this point we had been up for almost 48 hours without ever sleeping more than a half hour. I went to back to our hotel room which is less than a quarter mile from the Mother/Baby unit.

I got 4 hours sleep and went back over 9am. Karen had already gotten up and had the nurse wheel her over to NICU. She was able to hold Katie. When I got there we went up again and this time I was able to hold her as well - that's the picture in the previous post. Things were looking much better for Katie. All the tubes had been removed from her nose and she was maintaining her own body temperature. I don't remember a lot of details from this day except that in our mind this was the day after Katie was born, but in reality it was the same day. This really made us loose track of getting sleep. I do remember that we again slept apart on Tuesday night, meeting up again on Wednesday morning.

On Wednesday, they moved Karen and to her own room where I could spend the night with her in a chair. And in the afternoon the moved Katie down to the unit with us! There where and are still things to watch for but we were very happy to have Katie with us. They explained to us that babies are very adaptable during birth. When a chord gets wrapped around a babies neck, they instinctively know to let there lower body organs (liver, kidneys) take a hit so they can protect the brain. They think this is what Katie did. They believe her liver experienced a bit of shock but that the brain was just fine. When she came out she had a hard time breathing but was able to recover from that and they don't see any current problems with the liver - but that will continued to be monitored. Hearing and vision test are just fine. She is a little low on iron right now and receives an extra .3ml per day.

Wednesday night we again got almost no sleep. We were finally all together but in a 15ft x 15 ft room with a bed, a lounge chair, a bassinet, a sink, and a computer stand. It was crowded. I finally left Karen and went across the hall to family lounge and watched TV all night. Luckily, on Thursday morning they said they would release Mom and baby in the afternoon. Good thing. Thursday became really frustrating. I don't blame anyone. Everyone was just so concerned and trying to make sure we were OK. What happened was we would get seen back the lactation nurse, the attending nurse, the Labory and Delivery unit, New Parent Support Program, the technicians for vitals. And they were all so adamant, "You have to feed her every two hours!" But we couldn't because they kept coming in. Finally, I had to say, "Look you all have to stop bothering us - you keep telling us to feed her every two hours but it's now been four because we can't get any privacy." I think that was the trigger that made them rush getting us released, since all tests on Katie were good. So we all ended up free together for the first time around 5PM on Thursday back at the hotel room.

Katie's first visitor outside the hospital was Karen's boss from Edward's Air Force Base, Tom Burkett and his wife Karin. They gave us a card and Katie a pink blanket that Karin calls a "snuggle blanket - because it is cold in Germany." It says, "A star is born."

Katie's first trip was to the Landstuhl dining hall on Friday for lunch. On Sunday she also went to Ramstein's Chili's, the Ramstein BX, and the Vogelway Commissary. We received Katie's emergency passport and Birth Abroad certificate on Friday. Hopefully, Katie will be flying to her new home at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey this coming Wednesday. Pictures to come.

Katie Marie Dwyer

No words needed - "just pure joy" Karen says. Stay tuned for the director's cut.

Trier in the Rain

We did make it to Trier today. Probably our last sight-seeing for some time. We saw the Roman ruins from over two thousand years ago and a beautiful Church that was started around 300AD. More details and pictures some other date.

Karen's final NST check was fine and we rest tomorrow and check in on Sunday evening. One and a wake-up. We'll keep you posted........

Katie's Arrival Approaches

I was joking to Karen that if you look at our blog, it looks like we are on a giant vacation. Let me assure everyone there is a lot of other stuff going on. Our storknesting sponsor, Robin, has gone exceptionally above and beyond in getting us out of lodging and showing us the area. But we also are spending a lot of time taking care of the things that need to get done.

So today, I'm including just some of the things we are working on a daily basis on, such as...documents. Document, documents, documents! We have to apply for an emergency passport for Katie, a birth certificate for Katie, and a social security card for Katie. Plus, we also have to file a notice of birth abroad and get all of this expedited for through the American consulate and returned as quickly as possible after the birth. The American consulate gladly charges us $150 for that privilege - seems like it should be free for service members on a government directed move overseas. Then, once we get Katie back to Turkey we have to give Turkey $85 to allow Katie to be in Turkey. We have to pay close attention to all these document dates because Turkey is known for giving out one year residency permits that expire just before families are scheduled to leave Turkey forcing the families to purchase a second residency permit they only need for a matter of days to weeks.

Karen is also continuing with regular fetal monitoring at NST. They check the baby's heartbeat and movement along with Karen's blood pressure. All have been fine including Karen's blood pressure which has actually been excellent lately.

We also work on things such as preparing the labor bag, reading up on parenting, and taking care of other necessities. For example, last night Robin and Andy had us over for dinner but we also took the time for Robin to show Karen how the breast pump works and answer any questions Karen had.

On days we stay at Landstuhl, we sleep late, go to NST, each lunch, do our laundry, and try to keep in touch with those we can. Today we see the doctor at 1500 and will ask some last minute questions we have thought of. Then Karen has an NST on Friday. On Sunday, we are back in the evening for Karen to be induced. We don't expect anything to happen until Monday though. Karen and Katie will stay in the hospital a minimum of 48 hours. If all goes well, we would hope Karen and Katie could be released by Wednesday and that we receive our documentation back by Thursday. This would allow us to take the rotator flight back to Turkey a week from this Friday - however, more than likely we will have to wait on some paperwork and would be looking at the following week. We are hoping we can catch a rotator back because this allows to land at Incirlik and not have to catch a civilian flight into Adana.

If we are on base we can chose between three of Landstuhl top 5 dining choices: the Chow Hall, the Community Club, Burger King, Sub Way/Anthony's Pizza, or The Cappuccino Shop...actually those are ALL the dining choices. But we make do and the Chow Hall is quite good for my taste buds.

Tomorrow, the tentative plan is for our Storknesting sponsor to take us to Trier after Karen's NST appointment. Trier is the oldest city in Germany and is located close by near Luxembourg. It was established by the Romans over two thousand years ago.

This gives you a little "behind-the scenes-look" at how we spend a lot of our time. The hospital has fixed some of the computers in the cyber-lounge. Now there are 6 working computers instead of 2. So, hopefully, I'll have a few more posts before Katie arrives.

Dwyer Pictures From Germany

Karen on The Rhine River.

















Karen at the castle overlooking Landstuhl.














Drinking a meter of beer at the Kaieserslautern street festival with our Storknesting sponsors, Robin and Andy - no Karen did not drink.











Eating authentic German food in a small village near Vogelway.

The Rhine River

Katie Marie Dwyer continues her vagabond fetus travels - this time exploring the Rhine River for a second time with Daddy Dwyer on hand. Our Storknesting sponsor Robin and her 8-month old, Eve, took Karen and I on the Rhine River cruise again yesterday. We went by car about 50 miles north to Bingen-Rudesheim where we drove the car onto the ferry at Bingen (western side) and crossed over to Rudesheim (eastern side). There are no bridges anywhere to be found on this section of The Rhine. We actually never passed a bridge as we traveled north. The view was amazing - can't wait to post pics. There were at least thirteen castle's along the way. Everything looks like Disneyland except it's real - and it goes on forever. The first bridge was well north of our destination. At Rudesheim we boarded the tour boat which then proceeds north while stopping at most villages along the way. We got off several stops to the north at St. Goar where we had lunch. I had wiener schnitzel, which was essentially a thinly cut pork steak. After lunch we boarded the train and proceeded back down the river on the western side. We exited the train back at Bingen and took the ferry back across to Rudesheim, where the car was parked at. While we waited for the next ferry to get the car back across, we had apple strudel with ice cream and went in the Kathe Wohlfhart store. If you like Christmas - you will LOVE Germany. After all, a huge portion of those American Christmas traditions come from Germany. Kate Wohlfhart represents everything that is related to a German Christmas. You must check out their web site: wohlfahrt.com. Click on the "English" button for translation.

At the end of along afternoon, we crossed back over on the ferry to Bingen and drove back to the KMC (Kaiserslatern Military Community) where we had an authentic German dinner in Vogelway. I had jagerschnitzel and potatoes. The jaegerschnitzel was essentially a thinly breaded pork steak covered in a mushroom sauce. It reminded me of the breaded pork chops my Grandma Sprenger (Mildred Sprenger) used to make. I also actually walked up to the bar and ordered a beer with very little rehearsal. I don't know the spelling but I said something like "Ish mushta ein heffenveizen bitte."

Katie and Karen did quite well. Karen probably walked a good mile. We got a picture of Karen under Kathe Wohlfhart sign - "Kathe" is a German variance for "Katie." We are now scheduled for inducement on Sunday evening. Nothing is expected to happen until Monday. We still have a few more questions which we will be asking the doc this Thursday. We will be sure to keep everyone posted.

Where Are the Pregnant Karen Pictures?

OK whoever asked this hasn't been reading the blog very thoroughly. The only computers we have access to are government computers and they do not allow downloading. Unfortunately, it may be a while before anyone sees pregnant Karen pictures. We will get them up as soon as we are able. And also, we have very limited telephone access - if you don't hear from us it's not because we aren't thinking about you. We miss everyone! Happy 4th of July ! ! ! !

Karen Dwyer - Pregnant Castle Conqueror

Karen climbed a castle in Turkey during her first month of pregnancy and now she has climbed a castle in Germany in her ninth month of pregnancy! Not bad. Karen finally got over her cold today. We ate lunch at the Ramstein O Club and went out to Vogleway Where we bought three German Nutcrackers. Then we came back and found our way to Nanstein Castle (I've also seen it called Sickingen Castle - not sure which is correct), which overlooks Landstuhl village. Karen made it all the way to the top. I have to pull pictures from the web though - no way to download at this point. If you want to read the history of the castle, I found an excellent site by someone named Keith Laney at http://www.keithlaney.net/Legendary_Castles_of_the_Palatinate/Nanstein/castle_nanstein.htm

Another interesting bit of history is that Lanstuhl Regional Medical Center, or at least the land where it is, was developed by The Third Reich as a Hitler Youth School campus in the late 1930's. Supposedly, there are still some buildings left from that but I haven't figured out exactly which ones yet.

Tomorrow we see the doc again and should get a more exact idea about what will happen when. We are not sure if they will want Karen to keep coming in for monitoring as her blood pressure has been perfect the last two times they checked. We will also try to get as much paperwork done as we can tomorrow. there is so much paperwork. Birth Abroad documents, social security card documents, passport applications etc.

A picture of Landstuhl taken from the castle:

See Where We Are Staying

I realized that you can actually see where Karen and I are staying at in the picture of LRMC. If you look at the clump of trees in the bottom left corner of the photo and work you way up - the first building you see up the left side is the building we are in. We are actually in the bottom-right window. To get to the library where I am at right now, I walked up to the middle of the photo and straight up the road in the middle of the photo that shoots toward the bottom of the photo. The library is up that road. computer access is really strict here. I went to check Facebook and I guess the Army doesn't allow that. I got a pop up window saying my attempt to log onto Facebook has been logged and will be reported to the commander. I guess that is now part of that permanent record "they" start keeping on everyone in kindergarten. So there may not be any photos until we get back. karen has a bad cold today so I am going to wonder around and figure out where everything is on base.