Nick and Jen Lloyd

We’ve been skyping away showing off little man. But I think the photos sometimes do a better job…too cute. See for yourself.

 

So you may notice that I never mentioned little man’s name during the telling of his birth story. That’s because we really didn’t know yet what it was. We had it narrowed down but had not quite decided. But then about 20 hours after he was born Nick informed me that his name was one that we had already eliminated. He said “Jen, his name is Declan. I don’t know why, I can’t explain it, but the only thing that I can only call him is Declan.” I was half asleep and said “ok”.

So his name is Declan Patrick Lloyd. Declan because we like it. Patrick in honor of my mother, sorry Mom, I’d wait for a girl but I’m afraid it might not happen!

Here are all the boring details, and the best part…photos.

My whole pregnancy I was totally convinced that this baby would be at least two weeks early, if not more. I had many reasons for this, including that Jonah was two weeks early and that the doctors were concerned that because of my medical history that I would not be able to go full term. So while my due date was technically December third, I told pretty much every one that I was due at the end of November. The last few months I had lot’s of contractions, adding to my belief that this baby was well on it’s way. Then, on November 18th, my Mom arrived, two weeks before the due date. And my contractions stopped. On November 19th I had a doctors appointment and I was 2 cm and not at all effaced. Not promising. I seriously was starting to believe the baby was never going to come out. So my Mom and I putted around, trying to keep busy and see some of Italy until my appointment the next week.

November 27th at 3 pm I had a doctor’s appointment. 3 cm and 70% effaced. The doctor stripped my membranes. My Mom said that would take effect immediately but I didn’t feel much for several hours. Then at about 7 pm I started having regular contractions. We put Jonah to bed and sat down to watch a show at 8pm. By the time the show was over I was pretty sure I was in labor, with contractions being 4-6 minutes apart and getting stronger. So I finished packing my hospital bag, called a friend to take Jonah and headed off for the hospital on post.

We arrived at the hospital at 11:30 pm, I was admitted after they checked me and said I was 5 cm, 100% effaced. Then the fun began. And no, I’m not talking about labor. I’m  actually talking about putting in my IV. A nurse came in and tried my right hand and quickly blew the vein badly, it really hurt. Then she tried my right inner elbow, and once again painfully missed. She wimped out and sent in another nurse. He attempted what he called an “old fashioned” stick, mid way up my right forearm. It hurt badly and I was getting really tired of being poked as my contractions were getting stronger and I needed to focus on dealing with them. I started crying and scared him off from trying again. The doctor arrived at this point and found me in tears, I was so embarrassed. Here I was crying over the IV and I was about to give birth with no pain meds, I felt dumb. They sent in a third nurse. She came in and attempted a spot midway up the inside of my left arm, this one was the worst of all. I’m pretty sure she stuck it straight into a nerve. I began crying uncontrollably this time, I had had it. She tried to keep it there for awhile because I guess she did get it in the vein but it kept hurting really badly so she finely took it out. I had a hard time calming down after that because I knew they would have to try again. I also knew that it was getting closer to time for this baby to come and I really needed to focus on that to get through the contractions. They gave me a break for a little while to calm down and then sent back in the very first nurse, armed with smaller needles. Instead of trying to get the blood draw from the IV she did that separately. With a smaller needle she got the IV in my left hand and took a blood draw from another spot on my inner right elbow. So all together they stuck me six times and it was nearly 1:30 am at this point.

Pretty soon I felt the urge to push. They checked me and said I was still at 9 cm and needed to wait. Each contraction after that I had to really focus on relaxing so that I wouldn’t push. They checked me two or three more times after a few contractions would go by and I would start telling them it was time. Each time they told me I needed to wait. Finally I told them I couldn’t wait anymore so they said ok and the doctor got everything in place. I have no idea how long I pushed, it wasn’t more then a half hour, but it was longer then the eight minutes it took me to get Jonah out. At 2:04 am he was born, 9 lbs 2 oz and 22.5 inches long. He was a dark purple color and I kept asking why but everyone assured me he was fine. I remember feeling kind of out of it at this point, just really tired. It took me awhile to come to a little bit and feel excited about our perfect little man.

It is amazing how quickly these little people do wrap you right around their little finger. It didn’t take long to fall absolutely and completely in love with this little man.

First meeting with big brother went really well. Jonah still needs to work on being gentle, but he does love him and even asked if we could take him home with us. So we did.

 

My Mom got here early just in case baby boy decided to make an appearance. So we had some time to kill. We went downtown Vicenza and saw the market, went to Nove to shop for ceramics, went to an Italian cooking class and walked around the beautiful city of Verona. Sadly Nick and I were slacking on the photo taking, but we did snap a few in Verona with the Ipad. It was the first day of the Christmas market in Verona so we sampled a few goodies and enjoyed the decor.

Mom in front of the Roman Arena, notice the gladiator

Mom with Juliet…she wouldn’t rub her breast for luck though

We had a nice quiet Thanksgiving with just us and Grandma. We made too much food and then we proceeded to eat it and feel grateful that we have plenty of everything we need…food, love, clothes, toys and so much more. We are especially grateful to have my Mom here at this time, she is always a huge help, thanks to my Dad for giving her up for a whole month!

We even made a HUGE turkey which my Mom helped me turn into Turkey enchiladas the next day. I’m pretty sure that is everyone in my family’s’ favorite part of thanksgiving…the enchiladas in the months following.

Some of you have seen on the news the pictures of people swimming in San Marco square in Venice. It’s true…we got bit flooded over here. Vicenza even got it pretty good on Sunday after lot’s of rain, the river runs through downtown and therefore often times overflows during rainy November. It was so bad on Sunday that they shut down most areas of downtown.

The flooding in Venice is fascinating to me. Last weekend they had record flooding so we decided to go see what Venice was like underwater. When we went though, it was completely dry! I had to do a little more research to better understand the “flooding” of Venice. It’s not just a flood, it actually has to do with the high tide, rain and drilling offshore. Basically, as I understand it, recent years of offshore drilling have increased the frequency of the “aqua alta” (high water). When we get a good amount of rain and the high tide comes in, the low parts of Venice get a bit flooded. But it goes back out with the tide. So once I understood this better, I realized that you can’t just go see the flood in Venice, you have to be there at high tide.

So on Monday, we caught it. It wasn’t as high as the record breaking one the day before, but it was fun regardless. Jonah was in heaven splashing through one big puddle in the main square. It was over his rain boots, so we had to ring him out afterwards. Our friend Giovanna tagged along, and Nick was there, just behind the camera.

Pork burritos and pineapple tiramisu. It’s all about the food for this guy. Happy Birthday sweetie. We love you. (And yes, Jonah is pretty much always in his undies at home…he likes to dress and undress himself as he pleases and when we’re home, we allow it.)

We had the opportunity to go to an olive oil producer (Bonamini) and help with their olive harvest. Jonah loved using the little rakes to rake the olives right off the tree.

Then we lifted up the nets that covered the ground and poured the olives into big crates which where then taken into the processing plant to be made into yummy olive oil.

I love that my three year old LOVES olive oil. It’s so cheap here too. I don’t know how we are going to afford all of our new habits when we go back to the states.

After months of waiting we have finally welcomed our new arrival….

And no I’m not talking about the new baby. I’m talking about our very first brand new car. We had quite the time getting our hands on this “baby”. Our other car unfortunately gave out on us and being in Italy made it nearly impossible to try to save her…so she had to be crushed. We weren’t even allowed to take any of the brand new parts we had recently put in her due to the fact that the Italian government allows us to bring our cars in without paying an import tax, therefore they don’t want us possibly making money off of something without having paid taxes on it. Buying an American spec car in Italy is pretty limited.  You choose between lemons and brand new cars. So, rather than deal with another lemon, we sprung for new.

Tribute to the “white car” or “Takyra” as I once named her. She almost made it to 200,000 miles. I bought her my sophomore year of college from my Mom. She made the 12 hour drive from Provo to Moscow countless times. She helped me move countless times (you’d be surprised how much you can pack in there…) She had been to almost every state I think, between driving up and down the US on the West side, and driving West to East, East to West and West to East again. (Across the country three times!). She even made across the ocean to Italy, all around Italy, Germany, Austria, France and Switzerland. She was very reliable until about her last year…when the problems came one after another. Here are a few pictures I found of her…

Moab, Utah with my Sophmore roommates

 

Mesa, Arizona. Working at Anasazi.

Road trip across the country with my Dad when Nick deployed.

Any how, the new car or “Elmo” as Jonah calls her, took about three months to get here. Originally we were supposed to be getting a black car, but for some reason it needed a new paint job and a new window (no idea why a brand new car would need new parts already…) and was going to take another month or more…so we switched to the only other available Ford Focus which happened to be race red. This whole process really took the fun out of having a brand new car…we are just glad to have transportation before our next “new arrival” arrives.