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!!

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!).

Final countdown

Seventeen days left... that is what the baby ticker on this blog says today. A little longer than 2 weeks before the baby is due (that is if she decides to come out around that date... Auro was born 5 days before his due date). That is not much longer. On the one hand, that makes me happy, because I can't wait to loose the extra weight I've been carrying around and I definitely won't miss the back ache and the 'lightly' swollen legs by the evening. And of course I can hardly wait to hold my baby in my arms!

On the other hand, however, 17 days is a very short time to do all the things we still would like to do before our baby girl arrives. All the baby clothes are washed, there's a cradle, a baby bath tub and even a car seat waiting for her, but... we still need to move everything to our new house! As probably only some of you know, we have recently bought a house just outside the city of Genoa. We started to look for a house last summer and in July we found one that we liked. A funny anecdote is that on the day we saw the house for the first time, I wasn't feeling too well. I was nauseous and dizzy and had no idea what was wrong. It was only a little later that I found out that I was pregnant! Because there were a lot of complications with the purchase of the house (that is also the reason why I have never mentioned it here), I still can't decide whether I should see the fact that my morning sickness started exactly on that day as an auspicious sign or not. Anyway, the deal was finally finalized in December and the previous owners moved out at the end of January. 

As, apparently, is rather normal in Italy, the previous owners stripped the house of virtually everything (from thermostats and light switches to the toilet seat!), so we have a lot of preparing to do before we can actually move in. The biggest thing so far was finding an affordable kitchen. While I'm writing this, Remo is unloading the truck that delivered the kitchen and has started  painting the walls of the room in which the kitchen should be installed this weekend.Since yesterday we were finally connected to the gas network (and therefor now have a working heating system). The plumber installed the water outlets to connect the washing machine. Our bed was delivered this morning and tomorrow they should bring the sofa. Now all we have left to do is buy some cheap foldable chairs and a temporary table and we are ready to move in! I'm hoping we can move next Tuesday. Keep your fingers crossed!

Growing

On the 27th, we again traveled to the airport of Pisa and, unbelievable but true, after a delay of only 1 hour, our plane actually took off! Less than 2 hours later we finally were in snowy Belgium!

The next day, on the 28th, I had an appointment at the hospital for another ultrasound. Accompanied by my 3 men (my son, my husband and my father!) I stared at the black and white image of the healthy and ever-growing baby-girl inside of me.Even though I look as if I'm carrying an enormous baby, they estimated her weight to be a little less than 1,5 kg (which is a normal weight at 30 weeks).

Profile of the baby's face

Pink!

On Tuesday, we finally managed to fix an appointment with a gynecologist (I'm already in my 23rd week and the last time I saw a doctor was in August). So yesterday, we went to the hospital for another ultrasound. I don't know if you can make anything from them, but I post some photos here anyway. The two photos on the top show the baby's head and the one on the bottom left either one of the arms or a leg (it all looked a lot clearer 'live'). I have no idea what the one on the bottom right is supposed to be. But.... everything is OK!!! The baby seems healthy, is growing well and weighs about half a kilo by now. (I'm not going to tell you how much I weigh by now!)

Anyway, and this might be the news you are really waiting for, near the end of the examination, the gynecologist confirmed that the baby that has started kicking in my belly is clearly a girl (her words: "una bella femmina")! I don't have to tell you how happy I was to hear that after all the blue clothes, toy trains and toy cars, we will also have tiny dresses, dolls and flower necklaces. Hooray for pink!!!

Surprise

Well, I hope this still comes as a surprise to at least some of you, because most of our relatives and friends have already heard the joyful news: we are pregnant again! I've known for a while now, but I have waited to tell you until now, because morning sickness prevented me from sitting in front of a computer screen for longer than 5 minutes. In July I was feeling so nauseous and tired that I even went to stay with my in-laws, so they could help me take care of Auro.

Anyway, I'm feeling a lot better now (not completely nausea-free however), which means that I should be about 3 months along. The doctors also confirm this, though the due date is still not very clear. According to the gynecologist's calendar it should be around the 6th of March. The ultrasound scans suggest it might be a bit earlier than that. 

The first ultrasound scan was done here in Genoa when I was about 7 weeks pregnant and shows a tiny little bean of about 10mm big. 

For the 2nd ultrasound I went to a clinic in Cesenatico. By that time I was 12 weeks along and the little bean had grown arms, legs, fingers, eyes, a nose... and was already 54mm long! Even though it is the 2nd time for me, it feels as magical as the first time to see my child growing inside of me, so I hope you will forgive me if I will try to keep you posted ;-)