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!