1 down...

Latest news...Cheryl, my friend down the street (in green from baby shower pic below) who was due on the 1st, 2 days before me, just had her baby girl yesterday. They're estimating about 40 hours of labour for her...she's a rockstar! Big learning from it all, ditch the birth plan and let the doctors use their magic. Cheryl's mom arrived in town about 14 hours before baby Ella was born, the joke was that Cheryl was keeping her in till Grandma arrived. My mom arrives tonight so nothing should be stopping baby Connor from arriving now...

Last Ultrasound...

Here's the last fuzzy black and white ultra sound pictures, if you look closely you'll see a cute face. Next ones should be of the real thing...

Baby Shower

Some friends in the compound (Liz, Kelly, and Jamie aka part of phase 1 of the Al-Malki Compound baby boom) got together to throw a baby shower for the "phase 2" pregnant ladies (Cheryl's in green and due 2 days before me, Sheri's in black and due on St Patty's day). We had a wonderful afternoon with tons of presents and a little harassment of the father's to be. Now Steve and I are trying to figure out what additional piece of furniture could possibly fit in the room to hold all this stuff...
Also be warned that you never know what you'll end up with when you invite southerners from Louisiana to a baby shower. This was definitely Steve's favorite gift - mossy oak overalls and one-zy (that's forest pattern hunting camouflage for the the rest of us)

Happy Birthday Steve

This year we took the excuse for Steve's birthday to have a nice dinner out at the new Sharq hotel which is part of the Ritz family. The food was wonderful and the entire staff made a point of coming by to wish Steve (or Sir Steve as they said) a Happy Birthday. Much more civilized than all that silly singing. They also through in a delicious chocolate cake with sparkler for free.

I was actually impressed how the small the bill was until I remembered that there was no bottles of wine like our dinners used to be.

Also couldn't resist this picture. Mav has had to find a new lap now that mine is getting smaller.

Few more pics of New Years...

Since our camera was on the fritz that night we didn't get any of our own pictures, so Steve took these from some of the neighbors Facebook postings.

Not sure what this was about...I think Steve was triple fisting and needed some assistance.

Happy New Year!

Rather than spend a couple hundred each to celebrate at one of the local hotels the Al-Malki compound group decided to celebrate within walking distances of every one's homes (even though there is 3 designated drivers in the group...at least for another month or so). The party was great and even Athena (the dog) has a hangover - so many people to throw the ball for her she's moving a little slow this morning.

Couldn't resist posting this one of Steve and Javier....

Happy NEW YEAR

And those who've been requesting an update and asking various questions about the baby I'll give a quick summary.

Due Date - Feb 3, but at this point it could be anytime. It's a boy, we've had 3 scans confirm it and will get another next week. Name is still under negotiations but we're getting close. And NO ONE gets to find out until he arrives. Mom will be arriving Jan 27 for her first visit to the Middle East and to welcome her first grandchild. All docs appt have been fine for the baby, but Steve and I are experiencing the administrative skills of this great country at it's finest (that's oozing with sarcasm if anyone didn't pick up on it). Last appt took 4 hours. Brief summary of the timeline for those who might be interested-

8:30 Arrive for 9:00 appt, get paperwork in order and pay bill

9:45 Ask reception what's taking so long, answer - doc hasn't arrived yet, they're gonna call her cell. Maybe she forgot to set her alarm or something

10:00 Doc arrives, we're told it'll be another 15 minutes

10:45 Finally see doc, she explains there was an emergency, apologizes for the delay. We go over birth plan, give copies of marriage certificate and passports. It's illegal to have a baby in Qatar if your not married so very important to have that certificate. Doc wants to hook me up to the CTG machine to see how things are going.

11:00 Someone already in the CTG room, we're told to go to the waiting room until this person is finished.

11:30 Steve goes in to find out why they haven't called us, someone else in now on the machine. I go back to speak to the nurses and completely loose my cool (love those extra hormones) since we've been there for over 3 hours now...go to the bathroom to collect myself. When I come out the nurses have me sit in the docs office so we are sure that we're the next ones on the machine.

11:45 Get hooked up to the machine, get scanned - nurse says everything looks great and the baby is very active (which I could of told them), wait for the doc

12:30 Doc finally arrives, comes into the room and starts yelling at the nurses. Apparently the husband of some Qatari lady had taken her file, gone into the docs office and basically cornered her in there asking questions and not letting her leave for over an hour (since we last saw her). Doc is mad at the nurses, nurses are yelling at the reception staff and everyone is blaming each other for this guy barging in without an appt. (This is a common occurrence here, apparently someone has told the locals that it's perfectly ok to ignore all rules that may apply to others so that you can get what you want NOW)

1:00 finally leave and head to work

Looking forward to the next appointment in a week!

This isn't meant to scare anyone, just venting a bit. The medical services we've been receiving are great and we really like our doctor - this is just an example of how things get done around here. Sometimes living in Doha is the ultimate test of your patience.

Here's to a New Year that goes better than how the last one ended...