Our Journey to Parenthood – Part II

This is a humble effort to frame our journey of 37 and a half weeks into closer to 3500 words. The idea is to share our experience and joy with our well-wishers as we truly believe that the joy doubles when it’s shared. The entire narration is divided into four parts to make the reading as less boring as possible. Further more, there are breaks within the four parts to offer ease at reading. Please do share your feedback below the post that it stays here with the blog.

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After leaving the Gynecologist’s clinic we decided to park ourselves at the Park restaurant, not the one on the Park Street. It’s a humble eatery in Serampore, a suburb town of Kolkata. We were hungry and had reasons to celebrate. We wanted to be away from the crowd to spend some exclusive family moments. Maa and Ruhi seemed still in a haze of happiness, trying to come in terms with what they wanted to hear for so long. I was no different. We needed to break the news to someone. The joy doubles when it’s shared. The break came on its own. My very special friend Sreerupa’s USA number was flashing on the handheld display. She called after an unusual interval of few weeks.

‘Hey, what’s new?’ – She asked with her usual, unmistakable energy and enthusiasm in her voice.

‘You are going to be a Pisi (Aunt from the paternal side in Bangla)’ – I said.

‘Come again’ she continued with surprise.

‘You heard it right Sreerupa. Ruhi is pregnant’ was my confirmation.

‘WHAT?’ – She screamed in joy.

Our joy not only doubled but multiplied many times by the night. Maa shared the news to my mother-in-law and her mother to begin with. Moments later our phones became busier receiving congratulatory calls. News spreads really fast.

The first trimester of the pregnancy brought a lot of changes in Ruhi. There wasn’t any change in the physical appearance but internally there were many. My late father-in-law used to call her cat because of her love for fish and the eating style of fish bones. She would make many cats feel embarrassed by the magical display of eating the fish so neat that nothing is left for even a cat to touch those bones. Our that very beloved cat developed strong objections to the smell of fish and anything non-vegetarian when they were cooked. So came the restrictions to enter kitchen and be around it when fish, meat or eggs were cooked. She would run to the wash basin now and then to vomit. She became quieter and started looking tired. Her pulse rate became faster. I was extremely concerned and Google made me realize that she is absolutely fine and just adopting to the change for her journey to the motherhood.

The respect for a mother comes naturally to us but I guess the amount of it increases significantly when a man gets to see his wife dealing with her pregnancy. It indeed is not easy. It takes a lot to become a mother – much more than what we perceive before we get married. The level of difficulty to bear the child increases with each passing days. The various hormonal changes make the life of woman very different and difficult at times.

People who are fond of movies love to re-live ‘filmi’ moments. Ruhi is a die-hard SRK fan and can watch anything that smells Bollywood. I am a decent admirer of smart movies – be it a Bolly, Tolly or Holly, may not be in that exact order. Ruhi used to, at times talk about eating a lot of ice-cream when she conceives. Fortunately or unfortunately we didn’t really get the opportunity to re-create Preity-Saif moment of ‘Salaam Namaste’ as doctor strictly advised my Preity to avoid sweets as much as possible and keep the blood sugar level as controlled as possible to avoid related complications. So asking for ice-cream in the night was out of question.

We had our own set of special moments. We named the embryo Junior Tarafdar and quite expectedly had no clue whether it’s a female or male. The first scan of the embryo on 14^th April was extremely exciting. It was an amazing feeling to hear the heart beat of our Junior for the first time. It was much faster than the normal. There are theories that if the embryonic heart rate is under 140, it’s a boy and our Junior did suggest with 160 that it’s a girl. We never took the theory seriously but were surprised to see it worked on our baby.

I wonder at times at the order of nature. It’s so well designed. It gives us 40 weeks to prepare ourselves to graduate to a newer responsibility. It allows us space to re-order our emotions and create connect with the new member. I think many of us start thinking like parents even when the baby is in the mothers’ womb. This wait and growing bond with the new life make the event more special and there is an instant connect when the baby is born.

The graduation of becoming parents takes place quite effortlessly. The lady who used to be dead scared about needles suddenly became quite brave to surrender to battery of blood tests that were prescribed. Rickshaw was a strict no for Ruhi to avoid jerking. Thanks to our great roads. We walked to go to places close by and the pace became much slower. Both of us adopted ourselves to the safe slower pace without any conscious efforts. That’s the beauty of pro-creation, I guess. We automatically tune ourselves to celebrate life and to create it.

Ruhi has been an extremely obedient ‘patient’. She followed all the instructions of doctor quite thoroughly and may be that’s the reason got permission to fly towards the end of her first trimester. She left for her parent’s place and I felt as if I’m seeing two people off at the airport. Junior was already an integral part of our life.

End of Part II. Part III and IV to be posted soon.