Your birth.

You, Iolanda vonWielligh, were born on 4 January 2011 at 3.48am at St. Thomas Hospital, right under the shadow of  Big Ben!

Jennifer Terrell, the midwife, had to do the initial  cutting of your umbilical cord in order to hand you over to the midwife who gave you that very first rub with the towel. Heino, however, afterwards cut your cord to size and straight from there you are handed to your mom who put you to her chest. This is the most beautiful moment as the three of us get together for the first time after we've waited for you for so long! We just spend some time admiring you, how cute and perfect you are and it was clear to all of us: all that we went through was perfectly worth it!

Minutes later it becomes clear that there is a problem with your mom's placenta not coming out in the natural way. To aid this process, she is moved to the bed whilst your dad holds on to you  for the first time! Once Alessandra is on the bed, you are taken to her breast for your first ever feed!  

                                                                                                                                                                                    

   

Next on the list is to get you weighed, and you pull the scale down to a very healthy 3.250kg, or 7.15 pounds. With this out of the way it is finally time to get you dressed in your very first set of clothes, given to you by your uncle Matteo!



A cuddle with your nonna.



Unfortunately the situation with the placenta has not improved at all. Jennifer once again calls on another midwife for a second opinion, and the two of them decide to try and pull it out with the umbilical cord. Nothing! The only result is for this midwife to end up with the umbilical cord in her hand as it tears away from the placenta!

This means that your mom has to undergo a small operation to manually remove the placenta. It is a very simple operation, but it requires Alessandra to have an epidural, something that she has worked so hard to avoid! Even more heartbreaking, it means that she has to leave you so soon when the only thing she wants to do is to hold you close to her!

It also leaves Heino and your grandmother behind worrying about all the things that can go wrong. Fortunately nothing goes wrong and about an hour later your mom is brought back from theater, minus the naughty placenta!

Once again the three of us are united. Because of the operation it means that you and your mom have to spend the night in the hospital for observation. Nobody seems to mind though as the most important thing is that we have a beautiful, healthy young baby with mom recovering well!