Ginevra

This morning, Lara, Remo's sister, (finally) gave birth to a little baby girl. We welcome Ginevra (Italian version of the Celtic name Guinevere) and congratulate Lara on becoming a 'mamma'. Congratulations also to myself, since I am now officially a 'zia' (Italian for 'aunt'). Hurray for all of us!!

Visitors

From the moment Tosca was born, we have had some visitors. Some visited us in the hospital, others drove/flew all the way to our house in Ceranesi. Some stayed for 1 week, others just for some hours. But they all came to see our little girl and they all came bearing gifts ;-) A big thank you to all of them!!!

The one who was waiting the most for Tosca to arrive was Auro. He helped me prepare all the baby clothes and tested some of the other baby things to make sure they were comfortable enough ;-)

After his first visit to the hospital, Auro had already memorized the way to my room. Here you see him caressing his little sister for the first time. Also now he still uses every opportunity he gets to touch her and give her many (wet) kisses!

The first one to arrive at the hospital was Patrizia (the cousin of Remo's mother). She was so fast that she actually visited me an hour after I had given birth and I was still in the delivery room! (This photo is taken in the house, not in the delivery room!)

Second one to arrive at 'the scene' was Remo's mother. Tosca is her 2nd grandchild and she is currently waiting for the 3rd one to be born (Remo's sister)!

Remo's mother had just left (she stayed with us for a week and helped us out with cooking, cleaning and unpacking some of the boxes) and we had our first visitors from Belgium: my father and my aunt! They also stayed with us for about one week and besides putting up with my postnatal tiredness and mood swings, they helped a lot in improving/cleaning the house.

Tosca sleeping through our lunch in a restaurant close to the house.

The (for the moment) last visitors arrived from Belgium last Saturday and stayed only for 1 afternoon! My cousin Kim, who is the proud 'padrino' of Tosca, flew to Italy just to meet his godchild! A short, but very meaningful visit!

Tosca

On Sunday (the 27th of February) morning (09:29 to be exact), our daughter Tosca was born in Giannina Gaslini Hospital in Genoa. The contractions started around 3:30 in the morning (our 3rd night in our new house) and at 7 we decided to wake up Auro. We arrived at the hospital by 8 and only one hour and a half of excruciating pain later (during the weekend there are no anesthesiologists present to administer epidural anesthesia) Tosca was caught in the hands of the obstetrician on call Elisa. Tosca came out healthy and cried immediately. She was measured to be 50cm long and weighed 3130 grams (which, besides it being also the postal code of Begijnendijk, the village where I grew up, is also the exact same number of Auro's birth weight!).