Day One.

So I finally have a moment to sit down and talk about the last few days.

Neither Gian or I slept much Thursday night;  he got home late (well, early, since he's been on nights for a week) and then couldn't sleep, and I had such anxiety of course.  Five o'clock am came very quickly!!  My sister came with us to the hospital (which was hysterical, as she had to nestle herself between the two carseats in the back seat of the CRV), as she really wanted to be there for the actual birth.  Such a trooper at five am!!

We went up to maternity, Hol went to the waiting are (where she was able to watch cable, a real treat for her) and Gian and I got check in.  I have four lovely bracelets now for the occasion.  I waited with the fetal monitor on, which only built up the anxiety.  By the time they wheeled me into the OR I was a mess!!  But my doctor was awesome - I seriously love her and recommend her to everyone - and the anesthesiologist was very bubbly for an early morning spinal.  The spinal was quite different from the epidural, by the way.  I could still sort of "feel" which I couldn't do with the epidural.  VERY strange.  So up went the curtain around 8:15, incision at 8:20, and baby girl Delfini was born at 8:34.  Gian got to announce it, and we both looked at each other, like, Really?  no way it was a girl.

You can tell from the lack of name that we really thought we were having a boy, and hadn't put as much effort into the girl's name.

I was in recovery for a couple hours before getting moved to my room, which coincidentally was the same room I started my labor in with Stella two years ago.  How funny to come full circle.  In recovery, we started discussing names.  No decisions as yet, though.

My parents came by just after lunch with Stella;  how funny to see her around the room and to look at her new sister!  She just sort of kept looking at Angela with this awful frown on her face.

Still no name.

We had gone through various versions of relative names from Gian's side of the family, including the forerunner before the c-section, Giuseppina (which would have had Josie for a nickname or Pina, in Italy)... but that got chucked out after all, and we went back to the drawing board.  We kept two family names in the end - Angela, for Gian's dad (which would have been Arcangelo had we had a boy, as a middle name) and Lucia, for both Gian's mom and his Saint Day, Dec. 13.  We had originally shied away from names of relatives who were not grandparents and such (Angela is also the name of Gian's close cousin in Italy) but we really liked the connection to his father.

His father really liked it, too. :-)

So today was once again a blur of feeding, sleeping, changing a poopy diaper, and visiting with family.  One of the highlights of the day was napping around 4:30 - me, Angela, and our nephew Luigi, each in our own bed (Lou was on the pull-out chair). 

The other highlight was getting a photo of the entire family with Dr. Bhangoo, who delivered both of our children.  (photo to come, I promise!).  It worked out that she is on call this weekend, so she dropped by to say hi while my parents had Stella here.  I think it's really cool that the same doctor delivered both children, and that they have a picture with the first person they met in their lives.

Ready for Round 2?  You bet.