Having Babies Over Here

A good friend of ours just had her baby this week and it was lots of fun to go and meet her for the first time. It was also lots of fun to observe some of the cultural things that are connected to having babies here. When we went to the hospital, the first different thing that we noticed was all the way down the hall, outside of every new mom's room, there was a balloon statue kind of thing, tall enough to touch the ceiling. In addition to the huge balloon sculpture, there were flower arrangements that words cannot describe. Sitting on the floor in vases, they came up to our thigh or waist! One arrangement was made to look like a baby bassinet--they were simply extraordinary! EVERY room had 3 or 4 really fantastic arrangements like this. (except our American friends' room!) The next thing we noticed was that as we walked by the rooms going to our friend's room, every room had about 8 to 12 people inside, maybe more. Each room was just overflowing with family members, and although i didn't actually see it happening, i'm certain based on other experiences I have had here, that most of them were pinching the babies cheeks, and pretending to bite their cheeks (common way to show love and affection to those you think are cute or adorable here). The final funny thing was the mandatory plate of baklava that should be in each room, to feed to the guests that come to visit. That's not a difficult thing here, since all the sweets shops and bakeries sell it, but kind of interesting cultural phenomenon. When we arrived, the nurses had taken the baby away to change her, and after about an hour of waiting, daddy went to check on bringing her back into the room. After a second check, one nurse asked the other which baby, and the second nurse responded, "azhnaby", which means, "foreigner". I guess her blue eyes and blonde hair were a clear enough ID marker that everyone knew by looking at her that one of these things is not like the others. In whole, the visit gave me new incentive to keep hanging in there through the continued misery of what i would like to officially re-name, constant sickness, instead of the very misleading morning sickness. God willing, we too will have a baby to show for all of this vomitting, and hopefully a miracle will occur and time will start to fly. . .