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.
Our Journey to Parenthood – Part III
Our beloved cat came back to her normal affection to fish and non-vegetarian food items by the time she entered her 2nd trimester. She came back home after 22 days. We both were eager to feel our Junior. It was in the 5th month we got the pleasure of feeling the baby for the first time. Just a mild vibration – she felt it within and I by touching her bump. A priceless moment. Parenthood is, I guess, are full of them.
My partner started enjoying her pregnancy way more than the previous trimester. She continued going to school and Junior started becoming hyper active when Ruhi would take her scheduled classes. Only time would tell whether our Junior enjoyed being part of the classroom session or hated it. The reasons of the hyper movement while inside the class is still unknown J
Ruhi surprised everyone by remaining super normal and adequately active. She did not do anything that the doctor had asked her not to and did everything that she was allowed to. Only Maa’s list of embargos increased with the advancement of her pregnancy. We enjoyed being in the public places and do normal things. Ruhi never tried to hide her bumps or felt embarrassed going out in the public. I respect and admire that spirit. It’s such a nice phase of life. We did have our share of roaming on foot be it evening walk or checking out on the local Durga idols. Pregnancy allows a couple to come closer, emotionally and take the commitment of being together to its next level.
If our Junior develops a knack for Bollywood, no one but us are to be held responsible. It used to be an exciting affair to watch movies in theatre with the Junior inside. We did watch a couple of them, ‘Mere Brother Ki Dulhan’ being the last one.
The suspense to know the gender of the baby is a great fun. Various traditional theories would suggest their own findings and trust me they are utterly bogus. I was more than vigilant to spot the gender in the second scan but couldn’t and left it there to wait and be pleased at the gift of nature. The second scan to eliminate anomalies did intrigue us by seeing various tiny body parts of the baby. Ruhi and I were smiling like babies. It gave us the first visual image of our bundle of joy.
I found the only advantage of knowing the gender of the baby helps in deciding the name. It straightway reduces the efforts by half. Google has made the process of sourcing options of names much simpler these days. With more options comes more confusion. Our family has a tradition of naming all its boys names that start with the letter P. Very few girls have names starting with the letter P. We didn’t want to be biased. I downloaded more than 800 names of each gender and kept it stored in my handheld that we could take a call even sitting in the hospital.
Our Journey to Parenthood – Part IV
Women are luckier in regards to getting gifts. When we get married, gifts are showered to the girls and when they get pregnant the same is repeated. Two baby showers were due - one from my Maa’s side in the 7th month and the other in the 9th month of pregnancy from my Mother-in-law’s side. My Maa surprisingly gathered some extra energy to manage the show. She surely with some external support would prove to be a great event manager. It was the first big get together at home after my marriage. We enjoyed all the attention together and only Ruhi all the gifts. My Mother-in-law joined us before the ‘saadh’ scheduled in the 9th month. It was another opportunity to feast with our well wishers. The theory of sharing joys applies every where.
I don’t know what the exact reason was! Was it the attention of our well wishers or something else! To our surprise, Ruhi managed some additional glow to her beauty. Does the joy of motherhood do the tricks? It’s indeed great seeing a girl graduating to a woman by participating in the process of creation of life. I salute all the mothers.
We had only one disturbing observation in our journey. While accompanying Ruhi to various places during her pregnancy, I realized the sensitivity of the people by and large had a great shift. Great shift for the worse. We saw our parents would always leave seats for elders, pregnant women to offer them comfort and so were we taught to practice. I did take notice of most of the people that a pregnant woman with her heavy bump trying to keep balance in public transport or any other place does not urge them to offer their seats any more. I felt really sad. What are we practicing!!! What are we teaching our children!!!
It was 8th October. We went to the clinic for Ruhi’s last scan for the baby. The scan report was fine and did not suggest anything to worry about. Ruhi was keen for a normal delivery. Not that our contemporary pregnant company in Mumbai, Aishwarya had any role to play there. The number of visits to the gynecologist increased. This is the time of the journey when it seems that let the baby come out fast and be there in front of our eyes. It starts to feel that the wait is too long. But that’s how it’s engineered. We realized quite clearly that in private space the doctors would not really be keen to facilitate a normal delivery. After all it takes a lot of time for the doctor to deliver one baby, normally. We had to prepare our mind for a c-section. We can pursue the doctor to an extent and not beyond.
No false pain, no complications and just the doctor’s suggestion got us packing for her admission to the hospital. It was two and a half weeks before the scheduled date of delivery. The doctor asked whether we have any preference of time for the operation. The answer was a polite no. The doctor sighted the reason of decreasing level of fluid inside for the operation though. We never argued his observations. He is after all a very nice man to deal with.
Ruhi was admitted to the hospital on 29th evening. She was absolutely normal and as excited as we all were. That sense of night before the board results came back to us. The only expectation that we had, the only prayer that we had is of a safe delivery of her and a normal, healthy baby. She was given a sleeping pill to avoid anxiety before the D Day. We spoke on phone in the night before she went off to sleep. I thankfully managed my sleep without any pill.
30th October, 2011. A red letter day in our life. The lazy I who seldom wakes up early unless there is an early morning flight to catch, got out of bed before the alarm rang. I landed at the hospital before the permissible hour to meet ‘patients’. The door of Ruhi’s cabin was closed. She was changing to wear the dress for the operation theatre and was preparing to change our future for ever.
It was time to leave her cabin and start waiting out-side of the OT for the first sight of our new member in the family. Maa, Mother-in-Law, Dada, my brother-in-law Riku and I saw her from a distance before she entered the OT. Partha’da, the consultant doctor asked me – ‘Hey what have you ordered for? – a boy or a girl?’ I smiled, ‘Please go get us a normal and healthy baby, fast J’ was my response. He soon disappeared behind the closed doors of the OT.
The wait seemed eternity to all. All my family members looked extremely nervous and tensed. I chose to remain engaged in light discussions to ease their tension. Did we hear a baby’s cry!!! After a while a junior doctor appeared from the OT with a baby in his hand, wrapped in a cotton cloth. He declared ‘It’s a girl’. We saw an angel, our gift of life.
Every one came rushing to the baby cot. The only centre of attraction was the yet to be named, few minutes old baby girl. Jet black hair, pink skin, red lips, wide eyes made her look like a doll. She was crying and actively moving her tiny legs and hands. She captivated everyone’s attention around her. She took my heart away. I wanted Ruhi to join us fast.
I was waiting. After some time she was brought to her cabin.
‘So, the brand new Maa, get prepared to deck your baby up. Get all the hair bands, hair clips for her’ – I greeted her. She was always slightly inclined for a baby girl. According to her the joy of getting a girl ready is more than a baby boy. She finds the dresses of boys boring. Few of the reasons to be more inclined towards girls.
A broad smile on her face and twinkle in her eyes were the only response. Sometimes eyes speak louder than the spoken words. The baby was sleeping in her cot. I sat by her bed. Our family members had already spent some time with the new born and brand new Maa by then. They left us alone in the room. The nurse too probably wanted us to spend some quality moments together. We remained silent and were watching the baby from a distance. We were soaking the unexplainable feeling of being parents.
It indeed was a perfect ‘filmi’ moment. If we could frame it, the caption would read ‘U Me Aur Hum’…
