20 Weeks

This week I'm 20 weeks pregnant!! That means I'm halfway there, and Maya is the size of a banana! Yipee! Last night I had my first really phsically uncomfortable-I can't sleep because something big is happening inside my body moment. I don't know what it was, but I was having a pain in my lower left abdomen that just wouldn't let up. I consulted my pregnancy Bible ("What to Expect When You're Expecting") and found that it was probably stretching ligaments or something. Or maybe it was that banana-child poking me in the side! Who knows. I'm guessing though, that this is probably just the beginning of many many sleepless nights this girl will cause! Speaking of sleepless nights, I have actually been struggling with sleeping, so please pray for us (when I toss and turn Matt tends to not sleep well either). I don't know if it's the Narcolepsy or having too much on my mind, but either way, I seem to sleep okay in the late night hours, and then toss and turn all through the early morning hours.

Bathing Beauties

If you think this picture could not have been taken in the Middle East, you would be wrong. Welcome to my world. It is a world of contradictions. Bikini clad women who have been the recipient of plastic surgery abound. And so do women covered from head to toe in black fabric, even covering their faces. I have decided the best comparison that I can make is that my city is either like the LA or the LasVegas of the Middle East. This picture was taken at a beach club where you pay about $7 for entry, and you then have access to the pools and the ocean for the day. There are some beach clubs that are for women only, so that covered women can go there and unveil, knowing they are safe from the chance of any men seeing them in their bathing suits.

My Sweetheart!!

Urine Collection

Being pregnant cross culturally has had some interesting moments. Like when our building guard told me that I look worse now than I did before, pointing to the break-out's on my face. Or the time when said guard proposed that his unborn son marry our unborn daughter. Or then there was the time when my Arabic teacher's dad (a man a little younger than my dad) came across the room to me and kissed my belly and talked to the baby (this is a Muslim man who lives in a very conservative part of the city). There have been some wonderful strange things that happen as part of being pregnant here too, though. We get to have a sonogram every month. Just because. Seeing our baby as she grows every month is so sweet!

Recently though, the strangest cross cultural pregnancy thing is that I have to do urine collection. And by urine collection, I don't mean that I have to pee once in a little cup. I mean that for an entire 24 hour period I have to collect ALL of my urine!! Do you have to do that in American? I don't think so! Or I've just never heard any pregnant women talk about it, but I really think I would have heard of such a thing before now! My Doc even said that if I am going out, I need to go before I leave the house!!!

While we were in the Dr's office, I completely forgot to ask the question, "WHY?" and like a good Arab, believed that the expert was in charge and it didn't matter why. So I proceed to the hospital lab to give them the lab orders, and to get a bottle about the size of a large bleach bottle to take home, to fill with my urine!!! Do these people know how often pregnant women have to pee? Who are they kidding! And what I really want to know is how much does my urine change over a 60 minute period? Why do both pee's need to be collected, if they are only 60 minutes apart?

Ladies who have had babies, I need your feedback, is this normal??

It's A . . .

Drum roll please . . . We are having a GIRL!!! She was upside down, showing her stuff for the sonogram. Goodbye shyness, hello wild child!! When I called to tell my older brother we were having a girl, he had this advice as a father of two: "You may have a girly girl (like his first daughter Olivia) or you may have a wild animal in a little girl's body (like his second daughter Annalee). I don't care which one we have, we're just pumped that she looks healthy and things are going great with the pregnancy! I've also started feeling her move! What a crazy feeling that is!! We've decided to name her Maya Grace. Maya is the Arabic word for water, and when we picked that name we were thinking about john 7 where our Master tells: if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me. . . streams of living water will flow from [her]. Her middle name is Grace, after my grandma on my mom's side, who I never met, but who passed on a heritage of faith that outlived her years. We are thrilled! Thanks for rejoicing with us!! I was thinking yesterday about water and how it's very hard to hold water. I thought specifically about sand, and how when you pour water into sand, it just sort of runs away from you. Then I thought about this from a parenting perspective and how we are just dust (sand), held together by his power, and we can channel water, and point it in the right direction, but we can't control it. What a lofty and important job parenting is. Don't hold on, don't try to control. Direct and channel! Whew! We sure have our work cut out for us! I also liked the thought that when you try to hold water in your hands, it doesn't stay for long before it leaks out, but there is an after effect-your hands are wet. It is our prayer for our daughter that she would embody the springs of living water and leave things "wet" wherever she goes. We are so blessed that He chose to give us this precious gift!

Fireworks!

The 4th of July was a funny kind of day. I spent most of the day cooking special "American" foods (baked beans with real bacon bits , courtesy of my dear sister in law nikki, and BBQ sauce that i had to make myself; deviled eggs with little American flags stuck in them that I actually made myself; and 3 flavors of homemade ice-cream) for the evening party, while other people went to the beach and played (ironically i was afraid i would overheat at the beach--and did not consider the same hazard in my kitchen). So when evening came and the bathing boy came home to pick me up for the party we headed over to some friends' house to celebrate. We ate LOTS of yummy food, played Settlers of Cattan (will I EVER win that game?) and then we decided it was time to shoot of the 2 fireworks we had. Now, that is easier said than done when you live in a city, in an apartment building, surrounded by buildings. National people here shoot off fireworks ALL THE TIME. For weddings, for elections, for whatever. They shoot them in our street so that when they shoot up into the air and then do their pretty little razzle dazzle they are just about level with our 8th floor apartment. But we were a little nervous about where we could shoot our fireworks. Plus there were quite a few of us, and in general, we try not to travel around in big obvious packs of Americans. But for this we made an exception. After much discussion, we trouped down (the 10 or 12 of us) to the corniche, which is a big sidewalk boardwalk along the water's edge. It was swarming with the usual saturday night crowd, because it's the only place kids can go to ride bikes or for people to go and walk where there is a continuous sidewalk. So we ask a guy who is standing there if fireworks are allowed. And of course, he's like, "sure". But we are still nervous. No one wants to take the responsibility of being the one to light the cannon-thing, because we're still really apprehensive that this is not an OK thing to do here. We are being very American and assuming that there are rules against this, and that we will be fined or punished. All of us, except my husband, who fearlessly squats down to light it. Someone points out that he is lighting it, and I point out that he readily jumps from airplanes too, but I wouldn't advise that as a good idea either. . .
The main reason we are nervous is because somehow we have to keep the zillion skating, biking, and running children that are in the vicinity from going toward the firework-cannon thing after it has been lit. This is no small task. So the area seems to temporarily clear a bit, Matt lights the wick, and for about the next 45 seconds or so (?who can tell, time flies when you are gazing up at exploding fire) we are thrilled by our little firework. It seems to shoot up high enough that no sparks actually fall on any of the surrounding people--this is good. After it ends, in typical American fashion, we all clap. This is quite possibly the funniest moment of all because I'm pretty sure that more people stared at us for clapping, than those who looked at us funny for shooting off fireworks amidst a huge crowd of people on a public sidewalk! Apparently in this world, fireworks do not merit applause.

With that great success under our belt, we proceed to firework number 2. About this time I notice 3 approaching police cars with their lights flashing, and I prepare myself mentally to be arrested. Only they keep right on driving by us. It really IS legal to shoot off what the carton described as "flaming balls of fire with returns" in the middle of the cornice. After that relief, we light the second one, then we ooh and aah and clap, i think someone may have hummed some John Phillips Sousa and then we clap again, get stared at again, and gather our very conspicuous group, and traipse away back to the cultural safety of our baked beans and ice-cream. It was way funnier in person than I can describe here, mostly because we stuck out so badly, but for this one day, we pretty much ignored it and let ourselves be as American as we could, just for a few minutes.