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.