My Last Trimester in Rome

Bouna Notte Roma!!!

Well this is my last email from ROME. This last week has been a lot of tears and lots of pictures. It is back to $3 cappuccinos. We leave tomorrow afternoon. We will be arriving in LA at 3:30 Sunday afternoon the 19th.

To sum up this experience...I received much more than I gave and I am leaving with more than I came with...an 8 lbs baby boy to be exact and some wonderful memories of a wild two months.

I know we all get a lot of emails about stories that happen to other people but I feel obligated to send a final email to the people I know to let you know that good things really do come from bad circumstances and not just to people you hear about but people you actually know.

A lot of things had to go "right" in order for us to leave tomorrow healthy and o.k. So many things had to go right from so many various people and groups. Simple acts that happened to me that let me know everyday everything was going to be o.k.

To name a few,...from the very beginning...the concierge Markus at the Hilton who told the taxi to send me to Gemelli Hospital the best hospital when I went into labor and then later made sure we were o.k. and helped with our stay at the Hilton. The ob/gyn who delivered Nicolas who spoke no English and looked like a grandma herself...stroked my leg after every time I pushed and said "BRAVA BRAVA" so slowly and calmly in the most soothing voice and she was so calm as I cried [not really from pain but shock} and for those thirty minutes that I delivered Nicolas...I really was o.k.

The hospital who did an outstanding job and have become personal friends at this point. The American Women's Group who provided me with company that made a very abnormal experience seem more normal and bearable. My friends at home who sent me emails and talked with me and sent me baby clothes and other stuff...how many people give birth prematurely in a foreign country and yet have their very own NICU nurse as a friend that could explain everything to me...I did. Now how perfect was that?

How did it all come together from different points and places and it all worked out?
So many moments stick out in my mind. I arrived on December 8th and gave birth on December 11th to a 3lb boy and now I go home Febuary 18th with an 8 pounder.

If anything had been different I might not have this perfect result I do now. A lot of ordinary people did some ordinary acts of kindness that led to my perfect result and all I can hope for is that some day I can do some simple act of kindness to someone else that will be part of a culmination of many other ordinary acts of kindness that will lead to someone else's perfect result.

I walked around Rome for the last time tonight as I finished the laundry at the landromat and I realized I am actually going to miss this place. Because in the end, everything went right. Life did this to me but life also took care of me too. I started to think about how I would describe Rome and what it was like but really I cannot. But something Dr. Pappacci said to Nicolas on his last check up this past week sticks with me and may say it best. She took him off to the side while the rest of us took pictures and spoke to him in half English and Italian but I was listening and she said...Nicolas this was your "destino"...to be born in Rome...because Rome is where you find three things...LIFE...FOOD...and FAMILY...and you have been given them all. "Auguri Amore Auguri" [best wishes my love best wishes] you are our family now,

posted by Tonto @ 6:52 AM