Welcome to the World Baby Girl!

our sweet little angel

Dallin and I went to bed on March 28th like we had any other night during the past couple of months. I fluffed up my five pillows (two for my head, a body pillow to lay on top of, one pillow to support my huge pregnant belly, and another pillow for between my knees) and we said our evening prayers and went to sleep.

Earlier that evening we had gone out to dinner with our friends, Jake and Kristen, on top of Monte Berico. We talked to them about how excited we were about our baby girl coming so soon. We were growing impatient even though we had a whole week before my due date, but we speculated that she would probably come late, and wouldn't be here for a couple more weeks. Dallin joked that I should walk home down the mountain that night to help induce labor.

In bed Dallin was sound asleep faintly snoring, and I was just on the verge of entering my dreams, when suddenly I realized I was completely wet. I felt like someone had just popped a huge water balloon on top of me. It took me a couple of seconds to realize just what had happened. My water had broken.

I shook Dallin awake. He is such a deep sleeper, it seemed like it took me forever to wake him up. I just kept saying, "My water broke! My water broke! My water broke!" and he kept saying "What? What? What!?!!". He finally woke up and went into panic mode. He called the birthing center to ask them what to do. I started frantically packing a duffle bag to take to the birthing center. I was going to pack our bags earlier that day, but I had conveniently decided to push it off to the next day. Then I jumped in the shower to try to clean myself up and grabbed a towel to sit on in the car.

In about 20 minutes after my water broke, we were in our car driving through the winding, cobbled streets of Vicenza to the army post where the birthing center is. I knew that there wasn't much reason to hurry. I wasn't feeling any contractions or anything and I knew that our little girl probably wouldn't be coming until at least the next day. I told Dallin that, but he was still in panic mode and was driving our car like an ambulance, racing through the streets, running red lights, and flashing his brights for other cars to get out of the way. I was a little more scared about his driving than actually having the baby, and prayed that we would get to post in one piece!

We got to the birthing center and one of the nurses took me in to test if my water really did break. Anyone could see that it had-- water was pouring down my leg-- but I guess it is their procedure. They found that, indeed, my water had broken and I was admitted into the center.

We got settled in my room and waited a bit. This is when the first of many panic attacks occurred. It finally dawned on me that I was going to have a baby. Not only was I nervous about all of the pain that was ahead of me, but I was also overwhelmed by the fact that when this was all over in a day or so, I would have a tiny person in my arms for whom I and my husband were responsible. The pressure was mounting and I started to feel queasy and light-headed like I always do when I am faced with these kind of situations, and of course I started crying. The nurse got me some water and Dallin tried to comfort me and I finally got over the first meltdown.

It was about midnight and I still wasn't having any contractions, but my doctor wanted to hold off on any drugs to see if my contractions would start on their own. The nurse advised Dallin and I that we should try to get some rest because we probably had a long wait ahead of us. Yeah, like that was going to happen. I tried to sleep, but I probably only got a few winks. I was too nervous and excited to settle down.

I woke up the next morning around 5 am to the nurses inserting my IV. I was starting to feel faint contractions, but the doctor said I should start on pitocin because my labor wasn't moving along fast enough. When your water breaks, you need to try to have the baby within 24 hours or else there is a high risk of your baby or you getting an infection. So we tried to speed things up. The contractions definitely started coming harder after the pitocin started. I tried to get some more rest and ignore them.

Over the next morning I spent my time eating popsicles and jello, drinking water, going pee a lot, and watching crappy AFN TV. My contractions continued to increase in intensity as did my pain. My pain was still pretty bearable at this point but still somewhat intense to me. I thought I had to be getting kinda close, at least half way there. My nurse checked my dilation and I was at 1.5 cm... wah wah wah. Hmmm, I thought, This really is going to be hard.

I knew I didn't want to get the epidural yet, but I asked the doctor when I would be allowed to get the epidural. He said that I could get it whenever I wanted to, but he suggested that I wait until I was at around five centimeters so that my labor could continue to progress at a good rate.

I encouraged myself that I was going to make it that far. I wouldn't wimp out and then cause my labor to slow down too much so that I needed a ceserean. I did not want a ceserean. Then my nurse made a great suggestion. She rolled out a big rubber exercise ball, or as they call them in the birthing center, "birthing balls". She said that by bouncing on the ball that I could help my labor move along faster and also help me to manage the pain of the contractions. I bounced on that ball for about SIX hours. Dallin looked at the monitor that measured my contractions and helped me to breath through them. Between contractions I focused my concentration on the crazy British music videos that were playing on the TV. I also looked out my window and watched people walking and playing on the football field that is right next to the health center. There was a little girl, about four years old, running back and forth across the field. She was so cute and I loved watching her play. I thought about how I was soon going to have a little girl too and she would at some time be able to run around and play just like the little girl I was watching. That little girl running across the field really kept me motivated to get through the contractions so that I could meet our little angel who was coming to earth.

Then came time for another meltdown. The anesthesiologist came in and said that he had some bad news. He said that my blood sample that had been taken earlier revealed that my platelets were low. They were so low that he said that at this point, he would be unwilling to give me an epidural because of a risk of my blood being unable to clot, and complications arising from that. He asked if I had ever had trouble with my blood not being able to clot, but I had never had any sort of trouble like that. He said that he would take another sample and run a more detailed test to reveal more information to see if I would be able to have an epidural. When the anesthesiologist left, I had another panic attack. How was I going to get through this without an epidural? I was already feeling a lot of pain and I wasn't even half way there. I had thought about going natural before, but I was pretty confident that if I had to use pitocin that I would want to have an epidural. Pitocin just makes everything much more painful. I was freaking myself out. How the heck was I going to be able to endure the pain of pushing a BABY out of my body? Dallin tried to calm me down. It didn't work. I started feeling light-headed again. I begged Dallin to give me a blessing and I prayed constantly during the next hour while the anesthesiologist was again testing my blood. He came back with good news. He was going to allow an epidural! Hooray! I was so relieved.

I bounced on the ball for a couple more hours until I just couldn't anymore. I was just too tired. So I laid in my bed for a bit. At around 7 pm on March 29th I decided that I wanted to start my epidural. I think I started it right at the right time, because as the anesthesiologist was doin his thing, my contractions suddenly started to get really intense and my labor started to speed up. The poor nurse who was holding me up was probably working really hard as I was yelling in her ear "Ow! Ow! Ow!" and squeezing her hands. I just wanted to hug her, to help me feel better. The epidural was a success and I was finally starting to feel some relief. The nurse checked my progress and said I was at around 5 cm. I made my goal. Now I could relax a bit and wait for my little girl to make an appearance.

I was doing fine for a while and then meltdown number three happened. I had fallen asleep a bit and when I woke up, I realized I couldn't feel my legs. I knew that it was normal for my legs to be numb when I was using an epidural, but I was still freaked out by it. I started getting nervous and started thinking, What if something went wrong, and my legs became paralized forever? I know, its silly. I was extremely tired and not in a well state of mind. I was freaking out, when the anesthesiologist came in to check on me. I voiced my stupid concerns and he asked if I wanted him to turn down the epidural a bit. I said sure, I'll give that a try. Dallin urged me to relax and I soon noticed the epidural fading in strength. The anesthesiologist had turned my epidural down from a 10 to a 6, whatever that means. I started to feel some more pain than I wanted to. I called the anesthesiologist back in, and somewhat embarassed, I asked if he could turn up the epidural a little bit more. He turned it up to an 8 and I soon felt some more relief and also felt better about the numbness in the lower half of my body. It was probably a good thing that I had this meltdown though, because I don't think I would have felt an urge to push if my epidural had remained at a level 10. I was very numb and couldn't really feel anything or even wiggle my toes very much.

A couple more hours went by, and though they didn't let me know, I think the doctors and the nurses were getting a little worried because my labor still wasn't progressing very fast. My nurse, a very sweet little southern lady, came in to see how I was doing. She jokingly started talking to my belly. She said, "Little girl, I need to have a talk with you. I know you don't want to but, its time to come out now. You've got to git on out!". Haha! She told me to let her know if I started to feel lots of pressure and the urge to push. I guess my little baby heard what my nurse had said, because just about five minutes later I started to feel that intense pressure and the urge to push! I called my nurse back in and she checked to see how dilated I was. Nine and three quarters centimeters! We were amazed at how much progress we had made in such a short amount of time. My nurse called in my doctor, Doctor Silver, and all of the other nurses prepared for the birth.

In the past Dallin always had said that he didn't think he would want to watch much of the birth. I started reading parts of What to Expect While You are Expecting and he would freak out saying, "Ew. Ew. Ew." As the nurses and my doctor were scrambling about, my little Southern nurse ordered Dallin to lift one of my heavy jello-like legs while she held up the other. Dallin was going to be involved whether he liked it or not. And I think in the end, he was happy that he got to see what was going on.

The pushing part of my labor took a lot less time than I expected. I thought that because I had been in labor for so long that I would be pushing for an hour or so. But I only had to push for about 10 minutes! It was so wonderful to completely enjoy this pushing process. In the movies it seems like it is so intense. The mother is cursing and screaming and sweating. Kinda scary. But because of the epidural, I was able to sit back, listen to my doctor and nurses when they advised me to push, and use my strong abs (haha) to push that little girl out. It was an amazing experience when my doctor told me the top of her head was coming out and that she had a lot of hair and to know that my little girl was so close to entering this world and being in my arms. 

Then at  2:57 am on March 30th, 2012 Siena Elizabeth Rosdahl was here, all 7 pounds and 6 ounces of her. It looks like she got the Rosdahl height because she was 22.5 inches long (in the 97th percentile)! Doctor Silver pulled her out and made her wave her hand at Dallin and said, "Hi Dad!". This kind of freaked Dallin out because she looked pretty hideous with all of that gray vernix on her and she wasn't screaming yet. But sure enough she would be.

I continued to birth the placenta while the nurses examined my sweet Siena. They gave her her Hepatitis B shot and the antibiotic ointment in her eyes. They cleaned her off a bit, wrapped her up, and handed her to Dallin for their first father-daughter snuggle. I will never forget the sweet image in my mind of Dallin holding his little girl for the first time. He was just looking at her so lovingly with tears pouring down his face. It was so sweet.

first family picture with Siena Elizabeth Rosdahl

After I got a few little stitches and was cleaned up it was time for a mommy-Siena cuddle. It's weird because I don't really remember looking at Siena for the first time. I think I was so tired and overwhelmed with the whole process of labor and the fact that I was the mother to this little girl was blowing my mind. My nurse suggested trying to breastfeed. That was an epic fail and the beginning of a challenging breastfeeding relationship that would not resolve itself for a few weeks. I had read all of the books and tried to prepare myself the best I could, but I couldn't figure it out. I was too busy concentrating on not breaking this tiny little body in my hands. We decided to try breastfeeding again later.

It was then time for me to get some rest. Meanwhile, Dallin continued to fall more in love with Siena and then helped one of the nurses give her her first bath. The next day we got moved to a new recovery room and I continued to... recover. Over the next two days, I rested, had lots of visitors, skyped with faraway family and friends, continued to learn how to breastfeed, and just stared at our beautiful daughter. The nurses would always offer to turn the TV on for us in our room, but we always said that looking at beautiful Siena was enough entertainment for us. We loved her fuzzy head of jet black hair, her cute button nose, and sleepy eyes. We marveled over her tiny, but long fingers and soft downy skin.

First look at the world!

all clean after her first bath

He is wrapped around her tiny finger.

sweet sleepy bundle

burpy time.

This is still one of my favorite pictures of Siena. It gives a glimpse of Siena's adorable personality even just a few days after she was born.

Finally it was time to bring Siena home. We packed up all of our stuff from the birthing center, did our discharge briefing, figured out Siena's car seat, and then we were off! We had officially entered the joyful, scary, challenging, and rewarding world of parenthood.

little cheetah baby ready for the car ride home!

All ready to go!

Siena Elizabeth from Dallin on Vimeo.

This is an awesome video my husband made that beautifully documents Siena's birth.

In Napoli where love is king...

Before I moved to Italy, one of my favorite singers, Dean Martin lead me to believe that Naples was a beautiful and romantic city. He sings, "Write to me from Naples / I love you and Naples..." and "A girl went back to Napoli / Because she missed the scenery...". Sorry Deano! Naples is probably the dirtiest city that I have been to in Europe. Luckily, I wasn't expecting much, because my friends who had traveled to Naples warned me about it. But there is one thing about Naples that is beautiful-- the PIZZA! Mmmmmm. The pizza is enough of a reason to go traipsing around this dirty city. You can find good pizza most anywhere in Italy. But the pizza in Naples, the birthplace of pizza as they say, is just magical. There is nothing else like it.

We visited Naples on the same day we went to Pompeii. After spending half of the day in Pompeii, we hopped back on the Circumvesuviana train line (the commuter train that runs between Naples and Sorrento) and in 30 minutes we were in Napoli. We were hungry for lunch so we hurried on over to one of the famous pizzerias in Naples, Pizzeria Trianon. It was such a delicious lunch. I got the classic Margherita pizza, and Dallin got his old standby, Diavola, or as the Americans call it-- pepperoni. Within 5 minutes our pizzas were served to us, piping hot, fresh out of the wood-burning oven.

YUMMO!!!

After lunch, we went on a walking tour of Naples. It started off with a woman warning us to keep our belongings, particularly our camera, close to us because of the thieves. Lovely...

Typical neighborhood in the Spanish Quarter of Naples.

Me standing by Napoli's harbor, with Vesuvius in the background.

This was the only somewhat pretty area of Naples. This is the Church of San Francesco di Paola in Piazza del Plebiscito.

This is the Galleria Umberto I, a 100-year old shopping mall.

This statue of the Nile marks the center of Old Naples in the Spaccanapoli neighborhood. The cornucopia symbolizes the abundance of the city of Naples.

After finishing our walking tour, we headed back to Sorrento. We didn't want to be caught in the dark in Naples and run into the Mafia. Dallin could probably outrun the Mafia, but my pregnant lady waddle would have given me some troubles. 

The next day, which was the last day of our trip, we returned to Naples to visit the Archaeological Museum. This museum houses the original art and artifacts that were excavated from Pompeii.

This is the Toro Farnese. It is the tallest ancient marble group ever found, and the largest intact statue from antiquity. Michelangelo helped restore it.

An athlete.

After exploring the museum we worked up an appetite walking to our main attraction in Naples-- L'antica Pizzeria da Michele. It is here that we consumed what Dallin and I both agree was the best food we have ever tasted. Notice, I said, "food". This was not only the best pizza I have ever had, but the best thing I have ever eaten EVER! Legend has it that pizzeria was actually invented here at Antica Pizzeria da Michele. That's why it is the best.


It was crowded when we got there, so we got in line...

This was the crowd at 3 o'clock on a Sunday, so we knew it had to be good.

After about a 15 minute wait, we sat down...

Notice the picture of Julia Roberts on the glass by the pizza chef behind me. She ate here in the movie, Eat, Pray, Love.

Right next to the oven so we could see all of the action.


We ordered. There are two choices: Margherita (tomato sauce, mozzerella, and basil) or Marinara (just tomato sauce).

And then our lives were changed forever...

It is torture looking at this picture. I want another one of these so bad. The crust is so perfectly tender, the sauce is a perfect balance of tangy and sweet, the cheese is stretchy and salty, and the spiciness of fresh basil tops it all off. Mmmmmm mmmm. So yummy!

After the best meal ever, we headed to the main train station where we caught our bus to the airport. We then flew back to Venice on Easyjet and made our way back home. It was a great trip. The perfect way to celebrate the end of being just a twosome. This was our last hurrah before the arrival of our sweet baby girl, and then our lives really did change forever... :)

The City of Ash

I have always been intrigued by the tragic story of the city of Pompeii. Once a thriving port town of 20,000, Pompeii was frozen in time one day in A.D. 79 when Mount Vesuvius suddenly erupted. The city and surrounding areas were covered in ash, preserving many of the cities buildings, as well the remains of Vesuvius' victims.

On our third day in Southern Italy, we visited Pompeii. Walking around Pompeii was like stepping back in time, and through our explorations we gained an amazing perspective of the Ancient Roman life.

Each day the streets of Pompeii were flooded with water in order to wash them. Raised stepping stones like these allowed pedestrians to cross the street without getting their sandals wet. The gaps between the stones were wide enough to allow chariots to pass through.

These plaster casts of Pompeiians were so fascinating to me. While excavating Pompeii, archaeologists would discover hollow mounds. The archaeologists would pour plaster into these mounds to create a cast. The plaster would take on the shape of the ash-covered victims, filling in the gaps between their skeletons and revealing the victims' shapes during the last moment of their lives. It was eerie to see these people frozen forever in their dying moments.

Me examining the plaster casts.

This is one of the rooms in Pompeii's public baths, called the tepidarium. Bathers would undress, stretch, and warm up in this room. The small statues divided the clients' lockers. I was amazed at how well preserved the stucco work was.

This area was similar to our fast food restaurants we have today. Pompeiians could come here to get a quick bite to eat. The holes acted as thermoses and used to keep soup warm and wine cool. I decided to get behind the counter to take a picture because I love to cook.

Pompeii is absolutely huge! We only checked out the highlights but there are tons of unmarked ruins, like these that used to be old apartments and residences.

This aqueduct arch had a hidden water tank on top in order to give the residents in the neighborhood adequate water pressure.

Baby was kicking.

More random ruins.

Strolling the streets as the Ancient Romans did. I really had to watch my step on these cobbled roads. One little slip would strain my pelvic muscles and really hurt! I felt bad for the pregnant women of Pompeii.

These grooves in the road are from the chariots.

This was Pompeii's forum, the commercial, religious, and political center of the city. This is the least-preserved part of the city. Normally, you can see the ominous Mount Vesuvius smoldering behind me, but on this day, it was covered up by clouds.

The Amalfi Coast

On the second day of our Southern Italy trip, we explored the Amalfi Coast-- specifically the towns of Positano and Amalfi. We started off our day with a yummy breakfast at our hotel then we walked down to the bus station. We were kind of bummed because the weather in Sorrento was rainy and pretty crappy that day. We were debating going home early because the weather was forecast to be bad the rest of the weekend too. But we stuck it out, and we were glad we did! The weather forecast was inaccurate and we didn't see rain the rest of the weekend.

We hopped on the bus that travels along the Amalfi Coast. What a crazy ride! We were traveling on these narrow winding roads on the edge of the cliff all the way down the coast. I really had to put some faith in our bus driver!

We first arrived in beautiful Positano.

It was a beautiful town, however because we were there in February, it was quite dead! I am pretty sure we were the only tourists there. All of the hotels were closed and under maintenance. We walked through town down to the beach and then walked along the beach to this old fort that was a lookout point to spot Turkish pirates coming Positano's way.

The lookout point.

Pretty tiled dome of the cathedral in Positano

We then searched for a restaurant to eat lunch at. It was like trying to find a needle in a haystack! We walked all over town and every single restaurant we came to was closed! We finally found one and got some yummy pasta with a view of the sea. After lunch, we walked back to the bus stop and hopped  back on the bus to continue our journey down the Amalfi Coast.

Ya, this a two lane road.

We got off the bus next at the town of Amalfi. While Positano felt very resort-y, Amalfi felt more like a real town and actually lived-in. We got some gelato and then took a stroll through town.

Amalfi

Dally standing on weird concrete things.

Me being sassy and pregnant.

gelati!

The Amalfi Duomo

Main street Amalfi

After exploring Amalfi we hopped back on the bus and returned to Sorrento. It was a lovely day exploring the Amalfi coast!

I think this is the only picture from the trip that we took with the two of us together, so I had to post it!

Southern Italy and Lovely Sorrento

Dallin and I had been wanting to go to Southern Italy for a while. We finally decided we couldn't delay our plans any longer, because our baby girl was going to arrive soon and we didn't know when we would have another chance to make the trip. So we bought Easyjet tickets for President's Day weekend.

On day 1 we flew from Venice to the Naples airport. From Naples we took the Circumvesuviana train to Sorrento, a lovely town on a peninsula on the Bay of Naples. We decided to make Sorrento our home base for exploring this region of Italy. When we arrived in Sorrento we walked to our bed and breakfast, Casa Dominova and settled in. Casa Dominova was great! The room was clean and comfortable; the location was very central; the breakfast was very substantial; the owners were friendly, and the price was right. You can't ask for anything more for just 35 euro a night!

After settling in we got some lunch and then explored the town of Sorrento.

Piazza Tasso, the main square in Sorrento.

Under this pavillion is where the Sorrento Men's Club meets. No women or cell phones allowed, just Italian men chatting and playing cards.

View from Sorrento of the smoldering Mount Vesuvius across the Bay of Naples.

Sorrento's marina.

We unfortunately didn't take many pictures of Sorrento because we just explored it on our first day and then the rest of the days we only saw it in the morning and the night, coming to and from our daily adventures. But Sorrento served as a great home base for us, with many quaint squares, shops and restaurants. It kind of reminded me of an Italian Danville by the sea.