The birth story

A greater writer perhaps can, but for me, it is quite impossible to put down in words what I went through on that day. So I will just stick to chronicling the events. 

On 28th morning, I woke up. I felt fresh and new. I listened to my flute tune, showered and put on make-up carefully. The trademark lipstick was a must. How could I leave that out from my birth experience :) And then waited for Sippa to get breakfast. He took forever and scared the shit out of me. And why? Because he was getting flowers! Lovely and yellow, just as I liked them. How I loved him for that. I ambled out to receive him, ate like a pig for what felt like the last time, and got ready, really ready. Amma and Appa arrived, nervous and prayerful (really, there is no other word for it) and predictably, their nerves steadied mine. 

We all left with great fanfare, flowers and all, after a happy photo session. At the hospital, while Appa began rapid reading his verses or whatever he was reading, a heart monitor was strapped to me and I could hear and see goatu's heartbeat. 

Soon, everybody was herded out and a mint-fresh nurse was sent in  - to shave my private parts. Yikes. Who are those people who get those Brazilian waxes done? Awful, painful, embarassing and I uttered not a word. The indignity done, I was asked to change into hospital overalls  -- the ones handed to me had a bum button missing so basically I was expected to walk in uncaring and so I did. Then at the appointed hour,  I was wheeled inside the OT and on my way, I could see Sippa nervous but determined not to show, Appa and Amma nervous and determinedly showing and an assortment of baby pink nurses. From the wheelchair I was herded on to the hard surgery table and there came the nicest doc I have met in while. He exchanged pleasantries with me and nicely told me the epidural is going to pinch like hell and I am going to feel both hot and cold at once. 

I steeled myself, reminded myself that I am the lipstick girl and nothing is going to make me yell like a donkey. Whatever it takes. The nice doc was super surprised that I stuck it out - believe me, nothing feels as good as a compliment does, when you are lying prone on a cold hard table with your back feeling like it has been just under a truck and you are determined not to spoil it all with an almighty screech. 

After that epidural, things began to get iffy for me. I remember looking out for Sippa, asking the doc where my husband was and I wanted him to be there and then suddenly, I saw what looked like my husband in some kind of a blue fancy dress. And before I could digest his presence, I could hear a strange yowl from somewhere in the room. A staccato cry very unlike how I imagined babies cry. And then the nice doc told me 'it is a girl baby'. Now Sippa tells me immediately after that I told him we will name her Alinah. But I remember nothing of that. In fact, I felt nothing. Perhaps all my dreams, all my preparations and all my anticipation had coalesced into nothingness. I am not surprised. Life has a way of making you go still.

I only remember the yowl materialising beside me, a tiny pink and white bundle. All I remember is the hair - loads of it and me hesitating to kiss its forehead because of my lipstick. My hesitation caused all the staff to titter and joke about henceforth telling moms to go easy on the lipstick in the OT!

The haze that had begun enveloping me right after the epidural completely took over after that. I vaguely remember the nice doc telling me I should nod off. Not that I needed any encouragement. I  lost all sense of time though I believe I slept off for not more than 15 minutes. Like in a dream,  a nurse brought in my baby for its first breast feeding and sadly, I remember nothing of it. She latched her to my breast, she took her away. 

The haze receded and I saw my goatu. Really saw her. Saw her big black eyes, her well-formed eyebrows, her big nose, her bow lips and her hair. Her bleachy white hands and legs and how tiny she really was. But then, the pain hit me with all its brutal force. Post-operative pain is rarely talked about - I guess only experienced. It meant I spent the two days in the hospital, swallowing pain and painkillers, breastfeeding every half an hour or so without a clue about how much milk I was generating or whether I was generating at all and feeling very unreal, elated and nervous all at once. 

I cannot really say if I bonded with my baby in those two days. I was so overwhelmed that I was underwhelmed if that means anything at all. But on the morning of our discharge, when our tiny goatu was weighed and we realised she had become tinier and I looked down at my dry and already sore nipples, I felt the first twinge of motherhood. 

It had begun. 

Weeks 33 to 38: Colour me yellow

Winter dawn

a butterfly wakes up

in my dream      

                          

                               Chenou Liu

The last weeks of pregnancy - do I even remember them now as well as I did nearly a year ago? Perhaps not.  I open the laptop with great excitement and trepidation. I have not written a word since last November. Do I even remember how to write? Do I remember how the qwerty kept pace with my thoughts? Well, we will soon know. 

I am sitting down today to write down a chapter that was both a beautiful end and a glorious beginning. Too many adjectives you say? But life has been a series of adjectives the past one year -- how else do you describe your state of being when a dream that you have seen often and in several forms through many years comes true spectacularly - in exactly the way you had imagined and more! It humbles you, it makes you grateful and yes, it makes you reach for hyperbole. 

But I am going ahead of myself. 

Back to December 5. It was one of the last scheduled scans before the big day and our goatu was unwilling to show its face in the 4d imprint - in a determined show of defiance it had closed its face with its fists - now I know a precursor of things to come! It had not turned yet but I was not too worried at that point. I assumed that eventually it will - I was all ready for a normal delivery. 

Ah well. It did'nt turn. Instead, it locked its hands in front of its face and perhaps to make doubly sure, locked its feet as well. Complete breech, the doc said. There is no way it could be a normal delivery - in fact it was to be an elective C-section - essentially I could choose my date and time. And I did. Weekend because it would make things easier for Sippa and a 'good' star alignment because somewhere I do believe in astrology, protests from the logical part of my brain notwithstanding. 

I wanted the pain before the pleasure - the screaming, gut-wrenching, god-cursing pain. But that was not to be.  Me, the real me, was glad enough that my baby would be with me in 2013 - my year, my magical year. So 28 December it was; 2 pm because it was the doc's half-day. This is how the universe conspires, I suppose. 

Strangely enough, now that we had decided the time and date, I spent the remaining two weeks hoping I would not suddenly break water. The mind is such a funny place - it now wanted the baby out only on the 28th, the desire for normal pop-out quite forgotten. 

And then one night, I saw a dream. Or a premonition. Or a prediction.  Call it whatever you will. I saw that I had had a girl - with big grey eyes - Sippa was holding her and exclaiming how beautiful she was - and we were calling her Alinah (the name I had liked the most in my list of names for girls). I woke up with a start and I knew then, though I never said anything aloud, I would have a girl. I knew it just like how that day in April I knew I was pregnant. It was eerie and yet, very real. Our goatu would be a girl. Just like the sunshine-yellow butterfly that fluttered out of its dark crusty shell attached to our front wall. I don't know why I connected that butterfly with my baby. It so happened that I saw it fly out -- happy, free and yellow. May be it was the yellow that did it - reminded me of the sun. 

I leave you with the tune that mesmerised me in my last weeks of pregnancy - it was one of those pieces that occupies every fibre. 

Weeks 26 to 32: All the reasons to believe

in tickly-toe grass

a buttercup offers up

yellow nose kisses

                     

                               Betsy E Snyder

I often wonder 5 to 10 years from now, how will I recall these past months? I suspect my eyes will swim with the memory of impending motherhood with its particular enmeshing of anxiety and hope -- indescribable really.

I might recall the inexplicable peace that comes with the responsibility of another being inside you and grasp in air for memories, so many of them micro moments....think too much, hold too hard and they vanish. If English has a word for it, am unaware of it. Urdu sure has. Kasak. In the very word is a sense of gossamer; a sublimity that demands respect. Indeed,  this blog is me simply exercising my boy-scout tendencies to help me grasp those inevitably elusive butterflies, tighter, later.

I will remember Sippa pacing up and down discussing nappies and flannels and baby wools; I will remember his warm heavy hand on my lower back, its gentle pressure reassuring, guiding and loving whenever we went out -- the best kind of pampering is always unspoken.  I will remember being woken up with divine back massages and an amused but resigned smile whenever I demanded and got a massage. I will remember the chaat sessions, the mutton and fish cooking on Sunday mornings and most of all, the joy on his face to see the joy in my eyes not wavering from the food on my plate.  I will remember the sweet treats, some demanded some bought as a surprise...the bikajis' laddoos and jalebis, the introduction to kachoris, the pastries....the Foodworld aisles jokes about Nutella and Milkmaid-consuming behemoth (nevertheless, they went inside the trolley without much protest :p)...

Seems we are (again) getting lost in food. I will also remember the many admonitions, the many discussions about parenting, the planning of the new flat...a happy coincidence we will be welcoming the baby and the flat at the same time!

I will remember my parents' extreme anxiety, their eagerness to make me do nothing, their compulsion to cloak me in their protection, their spilling-over love that in these months seem to have turned more blind than ever...but can one really complain about being loved? Not within me, I cannot. Maybe I will understand it all a bit more once I become a full-fledged mother myself, at least that's what my mother keeps telling me. I will also remember her amusing efforts at appearing experienced and wise and trying really hard to recall her long-forgotten pregnancy; and I will not forget my father rushing out literally at my command to get me badam halwa, jalebi, laddoo, sapota...there we go again!

Whatever I had dreamt of pregnancy and impending motherhood, reality has been one up on it. It makes me want to cry and laugh at the same time. It makes me feel inordinately blessed. It makes every ache, every throb, every impending pain, everything worth it.  It makes me feel like a woman, all woman. 

 

I leave you with two songs this time... the first one's poetry describes it all and the other because it totally 'gets' kasak. 

 

 

 

Weeks 22 to 25: Mango grove unfolding, leaf and twig

one step farther
than I wanted to go
spring wind

                              Jim Kacian

The haiku has been chosen with care this time. The lines, as a good haiku should, seem to be trusting minimalism to convey overwhelm. Propelled as if by the spring wind or the madness of the season itself, you go a step farther than intended and not unhappily; exhilaration propelled by happiness tinged with moonshine, that's what the poem tells me -- a not unwelcome loss of control.

And that in a nutshell is how I felt often in these weeks. I have already stepped into the 26th and somehow, have been postponing updating the blog. Maybe the psychological barrier of 25 had to be passed for the words to get unstuck. Or maybe I am again finding excuses for laziness.

Be that as it may be, the giddiness is now firmly inside, right above the pubic bone. It is unnerving how much he or she (oh dammit...he it has been for me and I am not going to be politically correct here... if he turns out to be she, most welcome darling, but for now, he it is. There, I said it.). Ah, back to what I was to say. It is unnerving how much he rules me already. No more fluttering, now he rolls and kneads and turns over and he feels like a wayward rolling pin beneath my tummy skin. I complain to husband about it not striking him to move up a bit...he can you know, there is lot of space in my ever-growing belly but nope, the cheek wants to stick to above the pubic bone only except for the occasional tingling kick at my poor sore ribs; but then, when he is quiet for an hour, I fret. I get slightly cranky and seek attention. I yearn for a hubby-pamper session. If that is not forthcoming, I sulk and admonish, 'come on goatu, move it!' He obliges and often, and that is enough for that rush of renewed happiness -- aaaaaaaa I am pregnant, aaaaaa there is a baby in there, moving, eating, hiccuping, crapping and aaaaaaa I am all ready to forgive the entire world again.

Meanwhile, I have updated my knowledge about the actual labour session (means I have read and reread obsessively) and the more I read, the way it has always been with me, the more intricate my imagination gets about the pain, the more ready I feel...I was always a sucker for pain porn I tell you, despite all my moans and growls for all my little aches and pains. I sometimes think I would have made a good nurse.

And meanwhile, I also got the all-important scan done and there were no surprises there... all my daydreams of  cleverly figuring out the he and she business were nipped in the bud as the over-polite but nice, rotund doctor simply did not take the probe between the legs.

And meanwhile, I continue to eat or plan to eat or think about food and if nothing else works, dream about food. I am getting more and more carnivorous by the day -- my tongue tingles at the thought of beef and mutton rounded off by a rich Indian dessert. Kababs, curries drowned in cream and floating on oil, marinated for long, chewy but not rubbery, releasing its juices at the right time, juices that I can swing around the tongue before swallowing the morsel in. And then round off with a thick, creamy rabdi. See, food porn too. Crap. Sigh. Utterly propelled by forces unknown to me... is it a wonder I keep stumbling? I did say, the haiku was chosen with care. Spring winds may blow hard but always smell good. :)

*** The title has been borrowed from A K Ramanujan's poem 'Connect!'

I leave you with the song for the occasion...the ever trippy Dev Anand catching butterflies and concocting a recipe for heady love. 

Weeks 17 to 21: Nothing prosaic about it

Lights out 

... the firefly  

inside

             ...Peggy Willis Lyles

There is so much to write and so much to express; it is all a bit overwhelming. It successfully keeps me away from penning it down. I think of what to write and how to frame the words when the dogs howl and sleep is nowhere near. I convince myself that I am not being lazy, just confused. I end up not knowing the truth. I try to formulate that entire buzz into coherent thoughts while cooking – I only end up burning the onions. But, like always, a stray dream came to my rescue. Today morning, I dreamt of fully-formed lines of bad poetry; lines happy to embrace all my zig-zag-ness. So here it is. Bad poetry is really always more than what good prose can ever hope to be :P

You are pregnant, the mind, the body (and the doctor) says

She is ‘carrying’ is what my father says

We are expecting a baby is what the husband says

We will be grandparents is what my mother says

You have a bun in the oven is what my friend says

You are preggie is what the Yankee website says

This is to tell you what nobody says

sometimes it feels like the world itself is within

other times, it is just another hollow ball of fear

sometimes, I fall in love with myself anew

other times, I get anxious about all my greys

sometimes, I walk around carefully, afraid to trip

other times, I am even more klutzy than ever

sometimes, I admire my slowly rounding belly

other times, I shrink back from the mirror

sometimes my back screams in protest

other times, it groans just for attention

(which it gets from a doting husband

what’s the harm in adding)

sometimes, I feel like I can climb a mountain, waddle and all

other times, I cannot even wiggle a toe

sometimes, I cackle at the oddest things

other times, I bawl even louder than soap heroines

sometimes every song holds a special meaning

other times, even music is alien

sometimes I feel like making love all night

other times, I want to simply curl over

sometimes, I want the whole world to know

other times, I want to hug this little secret

sometimes I feel I can forgive the whole world

and welcome it with a crushing hug

other times, I want to be left alone

just alone, just alone

sometimes, the wait feels magical

other times, I want the baby to be here now.

sometimes I wish fervently it is a boy

other times, I dream of colourful hair ribbons

sometimes, I look into his eyes and want all of him repeated

other times, I want the baby to be all like me, just like me.

sometimes I feel I will be the best mamma ever

other times, the very thought makes my hand clammy

sometimes, it all feels too momentous to contain

other times, I want to pretend it’s just another year

sometimes it feels like the beginning of a story

other times, it feels like the end of a long chapter.

sometimes I get lost in these whorls

of sometimes and other times

that’s when from under the lining of my skin,

there comes a little tap

a feather-light drumming of life

a butterfly eager to flutter

then I know, all over again.

I crave all the sometimes and

even love all the other times

I simply don’t want to be anyplace else.

As always, a song for the occasion and one for the road.

 

Weeks 9 to 16: All things seem possible in May (and June)

Butterflies flit, in a field

of sunlight, that is all

                        - Matsuo Basho

And suddenly the rains stopped, the clouds became fluffy white and the sun was out. No not really. Not so easily in these parts in late May. But that is how my insides felt. Without any outside affirmation of any sort (the doctor's visit was another week away and I was still feeling like wrung-out jeans on a clothes line), I felt OK. Totally there. All there. From somewhere there rushed a warm gush of confidence and contentment. I somehow knew all my fears and anxieties will be just that; the nuchal scan will be completely fine. Aren't there moments in life, too fleeting to comprehend and yet brimming with magic, when you simply know. I had one of those. 

After which, my body seemed to naturally respond to this state of mental well-being. Miraculously, the gagging stopped one fine day. My appetite returned in full force, so much so that some afternoons, I spent circumambulating the refrigerator. If I looked long enough, I could even spot a tiny tummy (er...the pregnancy-related tiny...I had a substantial tummy even before...so yes, the difference could be only made out by dreamy eyes like mine). 

The day of the scan finally arrived and just as predicted, the little thing in there was happy playing truant with the radiologist -- somersaulting just when she wanted to see its nasal bone and making me drink gallons of water and showing up in the right position just when I felt like an about-to-be-pricked water balloon. 

It is rather disconcerting to have that stone cold gel applied just above your pubic bone while an emotionless monitor displays new life inside and husband watching everything, rather shyly. Or was that the beginning of reluctance? But then, who said pregnancy will not be disconcerting. 

And so, I could finally burst out with the news to the one friend I really wanted to say it to. For she was the only one in this whole wide world, who knew it from the time this baby was conceived in a shining corner of my little brain nearly two years ago. Needless to say, she was suitably excited. 

But I confess, the thing that gets me most excited, sometimes I suspect, more than actually being pregnant, is watching the husband pacing up and down, planning for the baby, teasing, laughing, cuddling baby thoughts and smiling that guileless smile when I spell out my random dreams. Is this the same man who frowned at the mere mention of a child?

The world indeed is "mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful". Touchwood.

I leave you with a classic varnam in the most joyful raaga of them all - Mohana and a jing-jang version of Mohana raaga, which was serendipitous. But first the original. 

Weeks 2 to 8: May fever

the planets aligning
       I rearrange
my night

                     Francine Banwarth

Suddenly, it seemed like I had to do everything at once; feel everything at once. Now that the many pregnancy home tests all seemed to be in the pink, some more and some less, the brain began to believe the crystal glass of my two-month old dream encasing all the beautiful flowers of this planet was broken. The heart knew only to thump. It never ever thumped like this; not even during orgasm. The monstrous thumps sounded in my ears, eyes and the ribcage. And it would soon be followed by my much-wished for puking session. Nothing seems to be staying inside and every meal was followed by this terrible anxiety...as if I was caught in a whorl that was choking me. It came closer and closer and got darker and darker till light broke through in the form of my vomit. Very poetic I know. 

It sounds fake when recounted but in the first half of the month of May, it was as if all my intuitions, my instincts, all the miraculous unknowns that make up our mind and soul seemed to have caught fire. I could predict my own pains seconds before they occurred. I knew which kind of heartbeat increase meant I would puke badly and which simply meant I was suffering from extreme anxiety. I knew when my hip would start protesting and when the tailbone told me it was time to go back home from office...simply abandon and sleep NOW! I simply knew what was inside me at this point was very very delicate and I shouldn't be on a bike or go anywhere.  (This apparently was true enough, for I was advised 'rest rest and more rest' when I eventually visited the doctor). 

I had been taken over. Gladly. 

There were a million things to do of course. The hospital had to be decided even if the hands were clammy about was it too soon to do so; advice had to be asked from a distant cousin despite all misgivings because there was no one else to ask and I wasn't ready to tell anybody. Eventually, I did both and a positive blood report stilled the thumping somewhat. The already superstitious soul had turned madder. Every visit to the loo (that meant every half an hour) involved peeping into the panty with trepidation. Was it clean? Whew, it was. Every song chosen randomly on the phone or the ipod had a 'message' for me. Every crow that flew in a pair brought a smile just as a lone crow made me restless. Everything HAD to be right. I should do nothing wrong. The pressure to ensure so was unbearable if not for the intrinsic joy behind it -- that simply paled everything else. 

And then the dreams began. Grandparents visiting me in our old house, the ghosts of my and my husband's ancestors weaving a protective web made of gauze around me, the horrible night when I felt somebody who wanted to steal my baby was walking outside our room and deliberately wearing anklets to let us know she was there and the recurring dream of light breaking through, slowly, surely and deliberately in a dark, dark cave full of icicles. 

I was always a sucker for symbolism and my raging hormones were dunking me in them. 

'Deep Blue' by Bhaskar Chandravarkar from the album 'Sound of the seas'