11 weeks (Italian Style!)

Hello my friends! I'm still in Italy and although I managed to read your blogs I didn't comment much (please forgive me!) and didn't post anything of my own news.

Everything is great, the trip was no bother at all for little Oliver who slept practically all the time. I was very lucky that I didn't have to bring any gear with me, car-seat, stroller, swing-chair etc were all kindly offered by my sister's friends and my parents had bought a travel-cot. I carried Oliver in my fab sling and off we went.

The first night at my parents' was a bit rough but after that he settled in like he'd always been here! The torticollis is definitely improving, we do a bit of exercise every day but it seems that he's turning the head to the left in a more natural way on his own too. Still hates tummy time and still absolutely adores bath time. I suppose you can't win everything ah! We bought here and inflatable baby tub which will double as small pool this summer, it's fantastic, I'd never seen one before and totally recommend it!

Oliver loves to splash, shake his legs, stretch and generally moves a lot when in the tub so with this one there's no risk of him hitting a hard surface with his head! It fits in the normal tub too.

The Snuza is a great peace of mind, it was one of the best thing I bought for sure. I forgot to mention that last week, when we were still in Ireland, the AngelCare did alarm one morning...it was only the first "bip" (15 seconds of no movement) after which I clearly heard Oliver taking a deep breath! So I have to remember to mention this to the paed at the 12 weeks check-up. Likely to have been a one off, but still. There are cases of sleep apnea in Mike's family, so better to keep an eye on it.

And I went to see my "old" psychologist and it went really really well. She also said that the way I feel is totally "normal" after all I have been through. It was to be expected in fact. So we started working on my anxiety and I am already much better. Interestingly, she explained how bleeding gives the impression to the body that it's dying and so there is this connection between life and death linked to Oliver's birth, even though rationally I never feared I was dying, but that Oliver could have died. It's only at the subconscious level, but as Oliver was part of me, I tend to focus at the moment more on death than life and this causes my anxiety. Time will be the best healer as the cells "forget" the scary scenario and reprogramme themselves to focus on what every organism does best which is living (and think positively about life). She recommended to keep supplementing my diet with iron (even though my heamoglobin is back to normal) to speed up the process. She actually used this phrase after I described my last 4 years "you swallowed a lot of death". Scary! But it will get better and better. I'm glad I went. I'll go again when I came back in May and meanwhile she gave me her Skype address if I need it! Ah...technology.

Mike then arrived on wednesday and we celebrated our fourth anniversary on thursday. What a journey...Three years ago we were in Japan having our belated honeymoon and it's absolutely shocking what has happened there. My friend and her family in Tokyo are ok but she said it's horrific. Japan, you can do it and will get through this. Last year on the 16th I had my life changing hysteroscopy and this year we brought our miracle to meet his great-grandmother. Life is certainly full of twists and turns.

Only 3 more days and we'll fly back to Dublin....bohoooo! Already missing the fab food...just as well I'll be back here in 6 weeks! I'm checking out now, love to you all my cyber-friends.