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.