Countdown!

Ever since we've reached week 37 of pregnancy, we've been a bit more relaxed about it all as by then, you were fully formed and ready to come out into the big, wide (wild!) world! So, with just over one week to go there is not much else we can do but wait. Luckily for us it is the festive season which means that there is plenty to keep us busy!

Christmas is a fairly simple one with your uncle Matteo that came over from Italy to visit us. He brought us loads of presents, including a very trendy set of baby clothes that he asks if can be the first clothes you wear after your birth! On Christmas eve we have a nice dinner of the biggest Salmon your dad has ever seen in real life, followed by an equally big roast beef lunch on the 25th. Both sets of leftovers will be enough to last us for days!

We've kept in contact with our NCT group, and received the good news that the group's first baby,William, son of Tara and Simon, has been born. According to due dates you should be next, but we all know how unreliable these dates can be!

On 30 December we visit the midwife for the last time before your due date. Due to the holidays, this is not our regular midwife and as she inspects you she finds it difficult to ascertain if you are in the right position or not. This is a bit of an unexpected shock for us, as up to now our midwife has been so convinced that you are indeed in the right position! Thankfully a quick scan can be fitted in the next day and to our big relief they can clearly see that you are well in position for the big day!

On 31 December your nonna Mariapia arrives from Italy. She will be with us in the hospital to welcome you for the first time and it is clear to see that she is going to be one proud grandma!

New Years Eve is spent with Fabio and Kate Mozzicarelli, yet more of Alessandra's Italian friends! Ruth is with us to see in the new year and over a good dinner the usual speculation takes place as to what the new year will hold for us. Well, this is something that not even Ruth's traditional German New Year's Eve future predicting game can accurately do, however, we know that this will be the year that is going to change our lives forever!

Bump's growth phases!

The relationship that a woman has with her body during pregnancy is, especially for men, a strange one! At first she is inspecting on a daily basis if she can notice that she is "showing". At this stage there can be a certain pride in how long she can go without showing any difference.  Once she can notice a definite swelling, she can be very surprised that no one around her notice anything, sometimes refusing to acknowledge how difficult it is for other people to comment on a woman's shape, especially if they don't know she is pregnant!
During the middle phases there are the moments of anxiety brought on by fears that the bump is too small, and that baby is not growing enough. Finally, towards the end she can't stop talking about how enormous this ball is that she is carrying around, and how on earth is that supposed to come out!?

Below are the different phases through which Baby Bump Iolanda has grown, culminating in the last picture taken the day before she was born.

11 September 2010

15 October 2010

8 November 2010

11 December 2010

3 January 2011

Mom's last day of work.

It is Friday 17 December 2010, two weeks before your due date and your mom is still hard at work... for one more day! Throughout her pregnancy she has been really well and did not even take one day off, now however, it is time for her to stop working and focus all her energy towards you and your imminent arrival!

Alessandra works as a Project Manager at the Queen Mary University of London and all her colleagues organized a nice afternoon tea with cakes to say a final goodbye to her. A big banner above the doorway wishes her good luck for the big, beautiful adventure that is awaiting her!

She is planning to stay on maternity for 9 months and to return around September 2011, but it will be as a very different person, as a mother first and foremost with very different priorities. For now though, the end of her working time is signalling that your birth is just around the corner, which mean that all her time and energy will now be devoted to you, and you alone!

Your room.

Your room will be the smallest of the house but then again, you will be the smallest little person in the house, so this makes perfect sense! Ruth is one of your mom's oldest friends here in London (they met whilst working at the Frederick Gibberd's Architectural Partnership) and is very good at painting. So, we ask her if she would be interested in decorating one of the walls of your little room, and she happily accepted.



The result, after three weekends of painting, is great! The scene is dominated by a big tree with lots of little animals around it and on the hills. In the distance is a very nice little (German looking) village that makes you wish that you can live there!

Next on the list is the curtain, which is made by Mia (girlfriend of Heino's friend Laurence) and it compliments the room very well as it adds more colour and light to the room.
A final touch is a colourful tapestry that your Nonna Mariapia brought for you from Guatemala, and  a set of hanging ladybirds for good luck from Marzia and Federico.

All in all we think this little room is now perfect, all it needs is you to come and enjoy it!

Getting Ready.

As with most things that you haven't done before, getting ready for a baby is quite tricky as you can't really grasp the magnitude of what is about to happen! It is therefore quite late in the day when we finally get to purchasing all the little things that will be necessary to welcome you into our lives!

One of the biggest expenditures, and most important purchases, is the pram/buggy/travel system that will be needed to transport the most precious of cargo's around in! Luckily for us, Heino's doubles tennis partner, James Wright and his wife Sue-Ellen, offered their second hand Bugaboo buggy and changing table to us for a very reasonable price. This solved the problem of having to choose one out of the multitude of options available, plus we know it works as it has been tested out for us!

For the rest of the things we visit the Colliers Wood shopping centre, where we get a very nice Moses Basket (with the Jungle Family theme to match your room!) from Mothercare, along with a little mattress for your changing table and a baby monitor. From M&S we also buy one set of new born clothes as well as a little Snow Suit. We know we already got some clothes for you from our friends, and probably will get loads more, but with this (and your first pack of nappies!) we finally feel that we are now ready if you make a very early appearance!

One last visit to Argos give us a nice chest of drawers with round feet and round handles, which according to your mom suits a baby room, to store all your little things in and all that remains now is to go home and put up our very first Christmas tree in our new house!

Antenatal Classes.

These classes are something that were relatively unknown to your grandparents and in essence they are designed to up skill new parents in what to expect, and more importantly, what to do and how to prepare for a new baby. In England these classes are given for free by the good old National Health Service, or for a fee, you can attend the classes of the National Child Trust (NCT). Your parents, being very eager by nature, decided to attend both!

The antenatal classes are broadly divided into three sections: the Labour Workshop, Breastfeeding Classes and Parenting Classes. The class of the NHS is given by a qualified midwife in the St Thomas hospital, where you will be born if everything goes according to plan.  It is very informative and especially the Labour Workshop gives you a very good idea of what can be expected from the birthing process itself. After three hours of hearing about contractions, epidurals, gas and air and third degree tears, it is safe to say that we are aware of the fact that it is not going to be easy!

The classes given by the NCT broadly follows the same script, however it is given by a volunteer parent who obviously went through this whole process herself. The difference is that it is based in your area and attended by people local to you who will all go through the same experience. Your dad loves to say that the NCT is essentially a  dating agency for expecting parents!

Our NCT group consist of seven couples, all living in the Clapham area: Tara and Simon, Rachel and Mark, Sinead and Liz, Isabelle and Steve, Lone and Jon and Rachel and James. Even though we only spent a little time together, it really seems that we all "clicked" quite well and we really hope that we will spend a lot of time together in the future once all the babies have arrived. However, it remains to be seen who will stay in contact, and who won't.

Baby Shower.

A Baby Shower is an American tradition where all the friends of the new mom get together for a little party before the baby is born. It is here that little presents are "showered" onto the new mom, and of course where wise advice is given on exactly what to do with the new arrival!

After a vague conversation between Heino and Alessandra, Heino decides to ask your mom's good friend Ruth if she will help him to arrange a sort of surprise Baby Shower. In secret all her friend's e-mail addresses are taken down and forwarded onto Ruth, who does all the arrangements with the invitations, cakes, other food and even some games!

Alessandra and Ruth

So on the afternoon of 5 December 2010 the guests including Ruth, Charlie with her two daughters, Julie, Sharon, Monique, Francesca, Agnese, Ania, Jennifer and others turn up at our house. By this stage it was not much of a surprise anymore as one of Alessandra's friends e-mailed her the day before to say that she could not make the shower!

The house is all festively decorated with pink balloons, a pink table with pretty much everything else in pink as well! You get your first little presents which include sleep suits, little jumpers, blankets and little socks. It is hard for us to imagine that a little human being can be so small!

One of the games is to guess the circumference of your mom's bump, and then to cut a piece of string to this length. This sounds easier than it really is, and in the end Francesca won by a whisker! Ruth also bought a very nice notebook in which all the guests wrote a little message for you, which can only be opened on your 18th birthday. A very nice idea, but let's have a look first if this book will survive the next 18 years!

It is a very nice afternoon, and it is very clear that there is already a lot of affection for you!

Agnese, Francesca and Alessandra.

Holiday in Cyprus.

To say that your parents like travelling is a mild understatement! Apart from at least on city break per year, they also try to visit at least one new country properly every year. This year, due to work schedules, we can only go on holiday in October.

This is logistically a bit of a problem as it has to be in Europe in case you make an early appearance, However, they desperately need some sunshine as well, which is quite hard to come by in Europe in October! In the end the island of Cyprus is a very good solution as it is only a three hour flight away, has European health care standards and most importantly, lots of sunshine even this late in the year!

Despite the average 28 degrees sunshine, it also has a very good mix of beautiful landscapes, interesting archaeological sites and stunning beaches! To top it all, you are behaving very well in your mum's tummy and she carries you strongly up and down ancient ruins, to the famous Baths of Aphrodite's, into the Tombs of the Kings, along the various Troodos Mountain Churches and finally (to your dad's delight!) to the amazing beaches of Agiya Napa!

For your parents, who have both grown up in sunny countries, it is very important that you finally get to have some proper sunshine. The nice tan on the bump will have to last you all the way through the cold, grey English winter which will greet you when you finally come into the world!

Second scan in Italy, 23 September 2010.

As mentioned before, your mom has a group of very dear friends in Italy. This means that she goes home quite often for birthdays, weddings and increasingly baptisms!
Her next trip to Rome is for the wedding of her friends Barbara and Emanuele, but is also a good opportunity for her to get you scanned again to make sure everything is fine. For good measure a standard blood test will be done as well, just to make double sure!

Seeing you on screen is always moving, and this goes with big relief as you are very thoroughly checked with all positve results. Right at the end it is also again confirmed, you are a little girl!

With this reassurance, it is time for her to relax and enjoy the beautiful wedding that is just outside of Rome in Grosseto. Due to work commitments, Heino could not come to Italy on this occasion, so Alessandra goes with (well you in the bump!) her friends Paolo, Anna and their little boy Flavio.

It is the first time that her friends can see a little bit of a swelling on her. They all seem a bit unimpressed by the size of the bump, claiming that it looks like a "typical girl bump"! Alessandra's mom pertinently expressed her desire for a more prominent bump, however Alessandra, knowing that she is the one who has to lump it around, knows that it is prudent to be careful what you wish for!

Kicking around in Riga!

Your mom started to physically feel your presence inside her around July already, although it is difficult to say exactly when as it feels like something splashing around in water and therefore making it difficult to say if it is really you or not! She could clearly start to feel your little kicks from outside in August, but for somebody else to feel it, takes a lot of time and patience.

Feeling a baby's kick for the first time is a really emotionally moving experience, so we remember exactly the first time Heino could feel it. It was during a city break to Riga, the capital of Latvia over the August Bank Holiday. We try to visit a different city every year and previous ones include Marrakesh, Oslo and Budapest.

Riga will however, always be a special place for us as it is here that we, for the first time, made your acquaintance in a more physical way!

Second scan, 23 August 2010.

This scan is a very important one as they will now check that all your organs are developing properly and therefore your mom is understandably a bit anxious! After the usual wait we are showed to the little room and everything is prepared for us to see you again.

The midwife doing the scan starts to check out all your organs, which are all declared in place and growing properly. To our big relief we could clearly see the four little chambers of your heart, and that they are functioning well. A quick check from the midwife to make sure that we want to know your sex (to which the answer is yes!) and we are told that you are a... GIRL!

It is all over a bit too quickly for our liking! Some of our questions were answered a bit vaguely by the midwife as well, and overall the verdict is that we are not too pleased with the scan. So it is decided that we will try to arrange for another scan to be done when your mom goes to Italy again. Also, we want to make sure that you are really a girl, as it has happened before that the midwives got the sex of the baby wrong, or that the boy bits just develop a little bit later!

Our next trip to Italy is in two weeks time for Alessandra's grand mom's 90th birthday, but this is too quick to try and arrange a scan with Alessandra's uncle Augusto, who is a doctor as well. For the time being we can only trust and hope that everything is indeed fine and growing as it should be!

Your great grand mother Delia's 90th birthday party, 4 September 2010.

Your name.

Choosing a name for a baby is a very difficult task at the best of times. However, when you have to choose a name that can be pronounced easily in Italian, English and Afrikaans, as well as being spelled correctly, it becomes a nightmare!

So, it was a bit of good luck then that your mom, as a young girl herself, used to love the Italian book "Jolanda, daughter of the Black Corsair" by Emilio Salgari. Even then she liked the name a lot and that made it a relatively easy choice for us. Even better luck is that your dad liked it as well, primarily because it is a nice sounding name in most languages, and more importantly because it is not a very common name, especially with the Italian spelling of I-O instead of J or Y! During the year of your birth, the most commonly used girl names were Olivia, Ruby and Chloe, but somehow we just couldn't picture you as any of these!

We really hope that you will like your name as well, especially as it felt so right for us!

Waiting for the second scan.

The first NHS scan was done at 12 weeks into the pregnancy. Now the next one is not scheduled until 28 weeks, which means 16 weeks with nothing to do but letting you grow deep inside mummy's tummy!
Luckily summer arrives in England as well, which means lots of barbeques in the garden and at friends places.

And so it is time for another little lesson about your parents: your dad is a proper carnivore who just loves any dish that has lots of meat in it! Therefore, a barbeque (or a braai as it is properly named in Afrikaans) is one of his favourites! He is also happy to declare that the braai and garden passed the test and is ready for you when you are with us over your first summer!

 You'll also learn that your mom has a huge group of friends in Italy that are all very close to each other. It is then some of these friends that also come over to visit us here in London, starting with Alessandra's childhood friend Silvia.
Marzia and Federico stayed with us for a whole weekend and all are very excited about the prospect of a new addition to the family!



Ale & Silvia









Marzia & Fede







The other big happening of the summer is that your dad won his tennis club's annual tournament in both the singles and doubles format. This is quite significant as he is often reminded that once you arrive, there will be very little time for tennis!



Alessandra with Heino's cups!





English scan.

It is 18 June 2010 and time for the first scan in England. Obviously we've met you before when we had the first scan in Italy, but this is the first scheduled NHS scan and as the previous one was such an emotional experience, we are very excited about seeing and hearing you again!

It is also the first time we get to see the St. Thomas Hospital where we are booked in to give birth to you. As experienced sightseers, your parents are very impressed with this hospital's location right on the river opposite Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament! The hospital itself is newly refurbished and seems quite up to the task of welcoming to the world our little princess Iolanda!

The midwife is a nice lady of foreign origin (as are your parents and most people in London!) who does a good job of pointing out all the different parts of your little body that is already developed. We again hear the beating of your heart and again we are moved by the effect it has on us!
Overall everything seems to be fine, and it is confirmed that the expected date of arrival will be at the end of this year, or very early 2011.

First appointment with the midwife.

The first appointment with the midwife is the start of the antenatal care of the NHS. The National Health Service is a fantastic organisation that essentially means that all healthcare, including your birth, will be free of charge (apart from the monthly tax and National Insurance that your parents pay of course!) It will be interesting to see if the NHS in its existing form will still be around by the time you have to give birth to your children as it is, along with other public institutions, facing a massive onslaught of budget cuts!!

Anyway, so Alessandra goes to the health centre that is (literally!) just around the corner from our house on 15 June 2010. This first appointment is all about a long conversation about the medical history of both sides of the family. At the end of this it is assessed as a risk-free pregnancy, which means that for now Alessandra will not see a doctor, but only a midwife. This of course is massively different from both the Italian and Southern African systems where everything pregnancy related is doctor led!

It is also here that Alessandra receives her Maternity record, which is really a big yellow book which contains all the info regarding the pregnancy. The midwife is quite clear that this book has to be carried by Alessandra at all times in case she has to go to the hospital unexpectedly. Naturally it ends up in the bookshelve, only to come out for the next appointment!

This next appointment  is scheduled for 24 August, and for now there is nothing to do but wait for the little fagiolin to grow!

First visit to Italy.

With your existence now confirmed, it can now officially be classified as your first visit to Italy! We spend a few days on the island, Isola del Giglio, and as with most places in Italy, it is beautiful!

The flat that we rent is just few meters from the sea, and your dad is hopeful of a nice relaxing time on the beach. And so it is time for the next lesson about your parents: mom Alessandra doesn't stop! Apart from exploring the village, we rent a boat to explore the whole island and even trek up the mountain to the little village of Giglio! A small concession is made to Heino when she agrees that we can get the bus back to our flat!

Back in Rome it is time for the real purpose of our visit to Italy, the wedding of Alessandra's friends Daniele and Ilaria. The great news about you is given to all her Italian friends, and predictably they are all absolutely delighted! Alessandra's good friend Emanuele, is even the first one to buy you little presents!

Group Picture

 You are however, not the first new arrival amongst this group of friends as there were little Flavio (son of Anna and Paolo) and Viola (daughter of Pasquale and Alessia). Apart from these two there are also Luca and Michele, all little people who will one day be your little Italian friends!


 

with Pasquale,Alessia and Viola.



A toast to the bride and groom: Viva gli sposi!!

First scan and the "dum dum" of your little heart!

The last three weeks just dragged by so slowly, but finally it is Saturday 5 June and time to meet you!

It means an early rise on our holiday, but we are absolutely fine with it as we go with your Nonna Mariapia to Iperione in Rome. It is here that she has been working every Saturday, for as long as we can remember, as a doctor. In order to see you clearly on the scan, your mom needs to drink a lot of water, which very nearly lead to a little embarrassing accident in the waiting room!

And then we see you for the first time! This, together with hearing your little heart go dum dum, is an almost indescribably moving experience! You are only a few millimeters long, the size of a fagiolin (bean) and we don't know if you are a boy or a girl, but none of this matters even a little bit. We are already so in love with you!     
The initial due date is set as 31st December 2010. It feels like an absolute eternity, especially as we know it will be a time full of changes, anxiety and awe of the amazing experience ahead!

On the way back home we meet up with Alessandra's lifelong friend, Silvia. She is every bit as ecstatic as we are. If anything brings home the magnitude of what is happening, it is seeing other people's reactions!

The afternoon is beach time! Iolanda, you'll have to learn from the start that the Italians are absolutely addicted to the sea! But, it is also a bit of practice for us as we are meeting up with Sabrina and Raffaele together with their one year old son, Edoardo. We share the good news with them as well and the rest of the afternoon is spent playing around with little Edo in the sand.

Doctor's appointment.

It was very easy to say that we will make an appointment with a doctor, however, we are not registered with one! After 10 years in London for your dad, and 5 years for your mom, we've had the good fortune not to have needed one.
So, firstly it is a trip down to the doctor's practice to get registered. Clearly the nurse at the reception does not believe us when we tell her that we've not registered with any GP's previously!

Eventually when Alessandra gets an appointment she is met by a very nice South African lady doctor. After she enquires what she can do for your mom, she explains that we've done a pharmacy test that was positive, but would like confirmation. "Oohhhh!"... she exclaims... "congratulations! You are pregnant!" Not believing what she is hearing, Alessandra wants to know if there are any other tests required? Nope, it seems that the doctor's have more faith in Boots the Pharmacy than what we have!

Afterwards they discuss which hospital should they register us with for the birth, and it is decided that it will be St. Thomas's Hospital in Central London. With a cheery instruction to wait for the hospital letter which will tell us when the first scan will be, the visit is over and Alessandra is shown out of the door.

This is not what we expected! On the movies it is all about doctor's in white coats taking blood tests just to afterwards inform you, conclusively, that you are pregnant. Not a £2.50 stick with two pink lines on it!

So, Alessandra decides, even though it is very early days, to give the good news to your grandmom over the phone. Again, this is not the ideal way to do it as she would've preferred to do it personally. Practically it is for the best as she can then arrange for a proper scan to be done when we visit Italy in three week's time for the wedding of Alessandra's friends, Daniele and Ilaria.

For the mean time though, there is nothing to do but wait...

Two lines!

For the last few weeks we've had the suspicion that you might be with us already. So, today, Sunday 9 May 2010, is the day to find out! For lunch we meet up with an old friend of your dad, Gudrun and her new boyfriend. It is really agonising not being able to tell anyone about the possibility of being pregnant, but this would really be to tempt fate!

After lunch we quickly pop into the pharmacy Boots in Clahpham Junction to buy the normal off-the-shelve pregnancy tests. It is a very long bus journey home as we are so excited and simply cannot wait to have certainty at last!
After a quick trip to the toilet the big moment is here...and the test shows a clear, positive TWO LINES!

Overcome with emotion, we decide not to get too ahead of ourselves. Out comes a second test and again appear the two lines! It is clear, we are going to be parents! Again we remind ourselves that it is just a pharmacy test and agree that first thing on Monday we will make an appointment with the doctor to get it properly confirmed.

For the moment though, we are out of our skins with excitement! It calls for celebration, and as alcohol and champagne are out of the question now, we can think of only one suitable alternative: a nice cup of tea!

Settling in.

To say that we are happy with our house is an understatement! Suddenly we have wonderful little problems like not having enough furniture... especially as we've moved from a one bedroom flat to a three bedroom house!

Slowly though we are starting to settle in and make it our own, enjoying every second of it.

The house is located between Clapham Common and Clapham South tube station, in the south western part of London. Further out are the areas of Balham and Tooting, making it a nice green, leafy area with Clapham Common (a common being a park where your dad is from!) and Tooting Bec Common nearby.

Right, time for the next lesson about your parents: gardening, for the beginning at least, will be a bit of a challenge for them! This is because your dad grew up in what is practically a dessert and your mom starts most things very enthusiastically just to suddenly lose all interest! This means that your very non-green-fingered dad is left with all the gardening to do!

 

2010 is also a memorable year for another reason: your granddad Gianfranco is turning 70 this year! Below is a picture of us at his birthday party which was held in Ristorante Al Crivelli in the village of Rho, just outside Milan.
Look carefully at the picture, especially your mom's flat tummy. Deep inside is something none of us even knows about it... YOU!

New House

Iolanda, today is a big day! It is any new couple's ideal to be in their own house before they start to plan, or indeed, form a new family. And we are amongst the lucky ones that received the keys to their very own house today! However, as with most things, it did not come without its share of sweat, struggle and the occasional swearword!

The process of looking for a suitable abode started  around March 2009 and believe me, it is not an easy process! All we are looking for is a nice two bedroom property, with a little outside space, decent sized rooms, not too far from the city centre and obviously at the right price. About 40 properties later we've pretty much seen it all: nice but too far from the centre, rooms too small, bathroom next to the kitchen, street outside too busy, too far from the tube etc etc!

Eventually we find a nice little two bedroom flat in Vauxhall. The owners seem very nice, and although it is smallish, it has a cellar for storage and a small little garden at the back. Best of all it is in zone 1 and you can see the London Eye from the tube station! Alas, it is not to be. The owner turns out to be not so nice at all, and the little cellar that seemed so convenient proved to be the biggest stumbleblock as it is not actually a part of the flat!

So, it is back to the estate agents and house viewings on the weekends! One or two other potentially suitable flats come along before we finally find a house that we think will be perfect for us three! It is everything we wanted  and more: not too far from the centre, walking distance to the tube, your own little room and a nice little garden for you to play in!

Well, so it is then that today, on the 5th February 2009, your mom and dad, with the biggest smiles ever, step into our house for the first time! But obviously the adventure is only starting now. The house needs a lick of paint, the movers need to be booked and most importantly, we need a fridge!

Compared with the process of looking for the house, these practical things are easy though, and before we know it, it is the 16th February and we are all in!

On our first night in the new house, over a glass of champagne, we reflect on the last year: all the properties we've seen, the countless calls to the agents, lawyers, banks and mortgage brokers. It is now very easy to agree that it was indeed all very worth it!

There are many things that you will learn about your parents. For instance, your dad has a bit of his German ancestors in him. It is with this typical practical consideration that he confidently declares that now everything is in place, baby will come!!