So where were we, my little package of brightness? Can you believe that it took me TEN days to get back here to finish the previous post!?! Where does my time go? There are so many moments of our time together everyday that I want to capture and freeze on this blog, but enjoying you and our precious moments together always takes a precedence over spending time on the blog recording those moments. Now though, I’ve handed you off to your father, and I have a few key points that I am going to jot down and rush back to what I do all day … run after you. Yes, literally, RUN after you. Cuz babe, you are now on the move!

Sixth month was big for us. You decided that you’d given your Mum many nights of good sleep (being that you had been an excellent night sleeper since birth) and, now, you were going to spend your days and nights practicing what you thought was most fun: rocking back and forth on your knees until your legs gave. I remember the feeling of joy seeing my little baby girl who couldn’t even flip over 2 months ago, now on her tummy, raising herself up on her fours, and wanting to move forth and reach every piece of plastic in sight so she can munch on it. It took you nearly a week to get that first step going but then it was no stopping thereafter.

You are on the move now. You have been since the 30th of December, 2011. You are now pulling up to stand too. It won’t be long before you try to walk. What the heck! Stop growing up so fast! Give me more time to enjoy each stage, yeah? Wait, no. I do want you to grow up so I can go out with you … take you to the park … go to the museum with you … take you shopping … go to the library … yep, all of that cuz we can BARELY do that rite now. Cuz my darlin’, you STILL need a nap (wait, your signature CATnap) every 2 hours. And you still hate your carseat. So, we are still homebound, unless I don’t mind a screaming baby in my backseat wanting to break free from the straps that hold her down. Another few months, everyone sympathizes with me, and I sigh with expectation of freedom. :D

Also, what’s up with all the feistiness, dude? At your sixth month doctor’s appointment, you fought with the nurse when she tried to take your measurements. No kidding. You kicked her so hard that she said that she’d never had a six month old bull fight her like that ever before. Shame on you. Really. I’ve never been so embarrassed by you before. Not even when you refused to smile at a stranger we met at a grocery store after I gloated to her that you had no stranger anxiety.  Which actually you don’t. You don’t have any stranger anxiety with anyone who looks brown. Not joking. Not with desis. Not with our Mexican friends. But bring forth a white person, your tears come down pouring faster than water out of our kitchen faucet. I am not joking at all, child. You are a racist. Yep, you heard right. Admit it before you kid yourself more. :| And nope, you do NOT get it from me. Haw!

Despite all that there is wrong with you (as reported above), I want to eat you!!!!!!!!!! Only because you are my offspring, I think. Plus you are kinda cute. Just a tad. Very little. Umm ok, a lot. :D I LOVE dressing you up in your little girly cuuuute clothes! I never thought I would but you are bringing out the girl in me. I can’t wait for you to grow up and I can’t wait to dress you up more. You are my little doll who lights up any outfit that I put on you! With some outfits though, you transform from a baby to a beautiful little girl who I always want to hold close to my heart, and never let go. One day, you will transform into a beautiful young woman from a little girl, and then a grown woman who will have a family of her own. It scares me sometimes that I won’t always be there with you to protect you, to hold you when you cry, to comfort you to sleep, to kiss you when you laugh, to hug you when you want to be hugged, to make faces at you just to make you smile, to tickle you to make you giggle, and most importantly, to let you know that you are precious. My heartbeat, always remember that you will always be Mommy’s #1. Even when Mommy is really old.  :)

My darling, I hope to see you grow  to believe in yourself especially in your strengths as a woman. Always remember that there is nothing in the world that you as a woman cannot achieve if you set your heart at it. Never let anyone make you feel insecure about your womanhood. Use your femininity to your advantage. Never be ashamed of it. Be proud. Be confident. Hold your head high. Never apologize for being beautiful. Love yourself unabashedly but never let that translate into haughtiness. Know the fine line between confidence and arrogance. Tread it carefully. Be kind to others. Always lend others a caring ear. Open your heart to those who love you. Open your heart to those who need your love. World is a beautiful place, and you, my dear, have an advantage as a woman to be completely emotionally in tune with the intricacies of our network of relationships that we spend our lifetime engrossed in. Enjoy that. Immerse yourself into the world of emotions, soak up what you want to retain, let go of unnecessary burdens, and live your life as it resides in the mind of a fairytale writer.

And all this time, do remember that Mum loves you the most. You are her princess in every fairytale that she dreams of. You are the princess who every prince of the world desires but it is in your hands to decide whether you want any prince and, if you do, the choice will always be yours. You are your own fortune maker, and I shall live to see you live my dream.

Mommy AND Daddy love you more than the world ‘love’ can express. You know that but never forget it. Loads of hugs, my alora. May you always giggle and laugh as you do when Mommy plays peek-a-boo with you. May your face always be lit up as it is when you stand up holding on to your crib rails. May you always smile and make my heart melt into mushy little pieces that I have to scoop off the floor every night before going to bed only to restart the process the next morning all over again.

I love you.

xoxoxox!

Mumumumum (as you say it now) :D

My jaan … my reason to live … my angel … my child

I never knew love until I loved you. I could be majorly sleep deprived, and my legs could be killing me from running after you all day but I still find me waking up from deep sleep and sprinting to your room at night when I hear you cry. Sure, I mutter words (that I never want you to ever be introduced to) when you wake me up only minutes after I fall asleep, but I run to your room regardless, melt into a puddle of mush immediately on seeing you, cuddle you up in my arms, kiss you multiple times, love you, and put you back in the crib after you have had your mommy fix. It annoys me that you keep waking me but I secretly do cherish our alone moments at night which I know won’t last very long. Today, I sit here seven months after your birth, trying to recall the day of your birth … and it’s a memory that is already so distant now that it’s hard for me to remember everything as vividly as I’d like to remember it. So it really forces me to think that another few years from now when you are a bigger girl, I wouldn’t remember these nights when you keep waking me up every few hours for extra cuddles which I know I sorely need. :)

That doesn’t mean though that i won’t complain. I shall!! Your night wakings have now worsened than they were at newborn stage. …

talking of night sleep, your dad needs to sleep now and I’ll have to finish this letter tomorrow ….  typing at 11 pm lying next to him is not nice … so hang in there … i shall be backkk to tell you all about your crawling craziness and more!! :))

Here is a shot of you for now:

For now, my six month old monkey in her fancy costume being hauled around by mama:

… My dear darling jalebi ke tukde

… Why the heck are you so edible? I am amazed that despite the number of times I bite on your cheeks through the day, they still stay the same. No wonder I am always hungry for more. I never am able to bite enough off to satisfy my appetite. See, now I am talking all mushy again as I always do in these letters. A few hours ago, I was certain that this letter would be nothing but a list of complaints, and then you let me cuddle with you in the evening. You giggled when I kissed you. You screamed with delight when I bit your chin. You bit me back when I offered you mine. All my complaints against you immediately melted away. And I was in love all over again. As I am by the end of every day. Your dad jokes with me that my love for you comes in waves. It’s at its peak in the morning but it goes down as the day goes on, hitting the lowest in the evening before you go to sleep, and begins to go up as the night progresses to reach the peak again by the morning haha. It’s true, my love, it’s true. You test my patience. You keep me on my toes. You don’t let me live the life I was accustomed to before you came along. You’ve wrapped me around your little hand and you gnaw at me all day long as you do everything else at this stage. And I let you. Sigh.

Ok, where are we developmentally? You want to sit up now. You do sit up if I help you up but you can’t get yourself up from the ground yet and that frustrates you. Maybe if you played by yourself more, you might be able to practice this sitting gig and get it right faster but, of course, Mommy’s arms and lap are much more fun. Oh wait, you do play by yourself with your toys if you are well rested and you’ve napped well. But, of course, you still haven’t figured out the napping business either. Mommy has tried every trick in every book written on sleep training, has humbly accepted every suggestion any seasoned mother has offered her, but you’re still a mind of your own …. up and raring to go after a forty minute nap only to be tired minutes later. Let’s pray and hope that by the sixth month, it’ll all turn around and you’d be blessing me with longer naps. Hey, I have every right to dream. You can’t take that away from me. Na No Na No Na Na No! Oh You’ve also got me locked up in home by the way. You H A T E your carseat. You can’t sit in it without screaming for longer than five minutes. What did people say about kids loving their carseat? Ugh, mine hates it, and driving with a screaming kid in the back is never fun. So I stay home. I only leave home when I absolutely need to or I time it such that we only go out when you’ve just woken up and come back within an hour to avoid your tired time when the screaming is the worst.

Yep, I complained. Even though you made me feel all so mushy today, I complained. I have a good excuse though. A real good one. I complain cuz I want to let you know that despite all of the hairloss that I’ve had as a result of me pulling it out every time you’ve clung to me all day, didn’t let me shower all day, didn’t let me get out of the house for days, I love you much much more than I’ve ever loved my freedoms and my life before you came into it. I would be in the midst of a frustrating fit when you smile and my frustration goes melting away for that instant. It comes back of course but so does your smile to melt it away again. :) We piss each other off, we make each other happy, we laugh with each other, we cry with each other, we hug each other, we kiss each other, we lock eyes, we communicate in ways no one else can understand, we get frustrated with each other many times, but still we both need each other for reasons I cannot explain. I need you just as much as you need your mother. I look at you for comfort and love just as much as you look at me for it. We are two people so dependent on each other that I can see both of us struggling for independence from the bond that holds us so tight together that we might find it restrictive many times in our life together. We’ll just have to learn to live together I guess cuz there is no other way about it. Believe it or not, I might complain about your clinginess but I am quite clingy too. :D

This month, sweetheart, has been one of the most difficult months your mum and dad have ever had. This month brought with it news that you might know already if you are old enough to read this letter. The news that will continue to be a constant reminder to us as a family that nothing is permanent. Except our love for each other in a family, and positivity and hope in life. Other than that, we have to live in the present, and we have to live it to the fullest. Tough time comes striking you when you least expect it but you have to face your challenges head on. All of us have our share of struggles to live with, and we will fight and live with ours together as a family. I want you to always remember that you can never control all your circumstances but one thing that you always have under control is your attitude towards life. You can sail through anything in life without much discomfort if you stay positive, if you never give up hope, if you live in the present and never let surprizes in the future overwhelm you. Tough times will come and so will good times. Enjoy the good the best you can, and aim for survival through the rough spots. Strength of character is not just in a tough exterior but it is in your ability to accept your circumstances as they are, cry if you need to, work on a solution to the problem on hand, and be positive about the results of your action that you would take to solve the muddle that you are in. And if you fail, try again. Never give up. Unless of course, if Mommy or Daddy say ‘no’, it is a ‘no’ then. ;D

I’ll wrap up this letter for this month now. Just so you know, no matter what happens, you will always be loved. You are an angel in our lives sent to us to make our lives worthwhile. Without you, the problems that we are facing now would’ve been much worse than they are now. We would’ve been hurting a lot more if it were not for your smiles that cheer us up when we are down. Our positive outlook might have not been this strong if it weren’t for you prodding us on to live our lives as if nothing has happened. You are our strength, our motivation, our guide, our little pari.

Love you sooooo much, you five monther big girl!! You’d be crawling, walking, talking soon …. and I can hardly wait!

KISSES and BITES

Yo mama! :D

oops forgot the pic! heeeeerrreee we go (almooost as pretty as mum haha):

Our lil devil on halloween 2011.

Well, as luck goes, you are the ONLY four month old that I know which makes you the cutest by default (ha ha ha mommy is funny). That matter of sheer chance aside though, even if I did know other four month olds, you’d definitely come out tops, my dear, and THAT obviously is my completely unbiased opinion (ahem ahem).

Sooo here we are again! F O U R M O N T H S I T I S T H I S T I M E W O O H O O O ! Today is your fourth month birthday and, as I look at you while typing this, you are no longer the little alien thing that I brought home from the hospital. You look like an actual human baby now. I sit here in absolute awe that me and your father could create you. I don’t think I’d ever get over that amazement regardless of how much bigger and older you get. This cycle of life truly has left me humbled. You never realise how remarkable the process of creation of life is until you make one yourself, or adopt and care for a little reflection of yourself. I have to reiterate what a friend (who recently had a baby girl) said to me about his daughter: you are by far the biggest achievement of my life. No money, no career highs, no success as the world rates it can match up to the happiness that your smiles and chuckles give me. I am truly blessed, and for that, I thank you.

Just as much as I am amazed with the process of reproduction, I am equally fascinated with the truth that all babies are born with exactly the same wiring. All of them have to reach the same milestones – albeit at their own pace – but all of them go through the same rigour to reach the final target of being able to stand erect on their feet, being able to walk, being able to eat, and being able to grow cognitively to become what we know as a human adult. And still somehow, all of us end up being different than everyone else in the world. Each one of us is unique with our own peculiar traits, likes and dislikes different from everybody else in the human species. Fascinating stuff, isn’t it? So you too, my jalebi, are hitting the same textbook milestones that an average four month old baby does, and I can’t help but feel proud of you every time you accomplish something that you didn’t know the day before.

You grab anything and everything in reach now. Even the most mundane object like a plastic container excites you. And once the same container is out of sight, it does not exist for you. You explore it with renewed interest when I hand it back to you just a minute later. Ah How I adore you! You love eating your hands AND my hands too! You gnaw on them so hard that my fingers hurt after you’re through with slobbering all over them. You’ve also been eating your toes for a while now. So much so that I often joke to you to stop showing me your butt and move on to the next step of sitting and crawling already. Before that, of course, you’ve got to do that rolling over thing. From back to tummy. Even though medical science says that rolling over is the least reliable milestone there is, it’d be nice to see you tumbling around the house before you start waddling. You did roll over a few times (you did quite a few today, I gotta say) but only when you wanted to. Not when your parents wanted you to. Bah! Good. You are your mommy’s girl already. A mind of her own. I like it. Just so you know from the get go, I have an absolute “ja beta, jee le apni zindagi” attitude about this parenting gig. I would love for you to have an opinion on your likes and dislikes. I would love for you to be ambitious and pursue any path that you are passionate about. I would love for you to have a mind of your own and not let society dictate you into a way of life. I would love for you to always smile, always giggle, always chuckle as you do now when mommy hugs you and blows raspberries on your cheeks. :D

My baby, my sweetheart, my tastiest dessert, as I always say, please just stay as you are. I crib about your lack of naps. I whine about you not rolling over when I want you to. But I never acknowledge my luck for having been blessed with a baby as fantastic as you. Honest. I could’ve had an inconsolable crybaby who’d keep me up at nights but, no, I got so lucky with you and I need to acknowledge that. You are calm, playful, happy, giggly baby who is not at all hard to please. All you ever ask for is your food on time, and for your mommy’s and daddy’s attention to play with you. That sure isn’t too much to ask, baby, it sure isn’t. In return, you bless us with such happiness that it doesn’t seem fair. All we have to do is tickle your stomach, and you fill our hearts with your endearing laughter that is so addicting that we keep tickling you again and again just to hear you laugh. How is it fair? You give us way more than we can ever give you. I cannot stress enough on how blessed both me and your father are.

Before you, I was often told by elders in the family that I’d realize how difficult parenthood is when I have a child. I didn’t understand them then, and now that I have you, I still don’t understand what they meant. True that there are nights I wished I was sleeping instead of having to rock you to sleep. True that there have been days when I wanted to run away from home leaving you with your father and not come back for days. But despite all of that, you are exactly what both me and your father needed to make our lives worthwhile. In you, we’ve found the answer to the question that seemed so difficult to answer before you came along. In you, we’ve found the purpose of our lives. Amazing this process of evolution. It makes you want to create life, it makes you create life, it makes you fall in love with the life you create … just to keep our species growing and strong. That is the purpose of our life really. We were here for you, and now that  you are here, we will always be here for you. Our life begins and ends with your happiness.

It is in your smiles that we find joy as we never knew before. It is in your laughter that we find our laughter. It is in your inquisitiveness of the world around you that we find our childhood. It is in your cooing that we find words of unconditional love. It is in your cuddles that we find the warmth, the love, and the contentment of a life lived well. My dear child, may you always be happy and healthy. Grow, prosper, live on … and always remember that no matter where you are in the world and what stage of life you are in when you are reading this, there are always two people waiting for you at home whose hearts beat just for you. Don’t forget to pick up the phone and give them  a call. They are waiting to hear from you. Always. And if they are not available, please rest assured that they will always know that you are thinking of them. Close your eyes, and accept their love for you that will never lessen. Hugs, my angel. Lots of kisses too.

But of course

-your silly mama (and silly dad by default ;p)

(shall post photo later. baby needs to play with her favorite toy: ME ME ME haha)

Here we go:

oooooh I didn’t notice the middle finger until now!!! lol Well on track, mere laal (pun intended haha)!

… the same songs of love that you thought you’d only reserve for your worse half now and forever complete with little pink hearts drawn around forever …

… but that changes …

… after you produce a life …

… with the help of the worse half of course …

… and the songs that made your heart beat for him still swell up your heart with love …

… but the object of your affection changes slightly …

… try as you might, you can’t help but think of the cutest smile that you know of now …

… your heart melts …

… your eyes moisten …

… and you run to her crib to see her sleeping …

… you smile …

… you tightly clutch your heart …

… for if you don’t, you might let out a cry of thankfulness and disturb her sleep …

… taking very quiet steps, you carefully retreat from the room …

… content with knowledge that she is safe …

… and eagerly await the next time you’ll get to feel her warmth …

… her tininess …

… the same tininess that once was a part of you.

:)

First, please be prepared for massive incoherence in this letter because I shall be writing this as I get fragments of time to write while spending time with you through the day. Second, I want to eat you. I do. Gobble up your cuteness. Everyone we meet anywhere and everywhere apparently wants to do the same. You’ve been called cute, you’ve been called pretty, you’ve been dubbed adorable, and I stand there holding you tight as the compliments come and you return the nice gestures with a gorgeous smile. I feel humbled. I feel like I am in a dream. I cannot believe that people are giving so much love to my daughter. My little angel. I run for the closest wooden door, and knock on it multiple times to break any jinxes there might be and to remind me that I am not dreaming. Nothing makes me happier than seeing you be loved by so many generously giving people. May you always be surrounded with such love and happiness.

Now that we are done with the mushiness, down to the technical updates. Today, you have lived your initial 12 weeks of life. Yep, that’s right! Technically, you are three months old today but going by your birthdate, we still have another 8 days to light up those candles. It’s easier for me to keep a track of your milestones in terms of weeks than your birthdate though. So please bear with me. We shall update you on your antics every four weeks of your life in the first year at least even though your father insists that I record all of your accomplishments as they happen. Psh your mother is too lazy for that. You know that. Plus lesser I write, lesser verbose clutter for you to read. :D So here we are. At 12 weeks. To complain about you. To fawn over you. To tell you how great and annoying you are. And yeah, I write this sitting in my recliner besides your crib. You are in your crib rite now cooing to your blanket as if it was a real person. :/ Maybe you are talking to the animals printed on the blanket but ah you 12 weeker, not so smart after all eh? :D :D

Alright, I spoke too soon. I’ve moved you to your swing now. You are swinging away as I speak to you. Telling you stories about world politics. About UK riots that were. About Gaddafi who was. About Anna Hazaare who is. You are listening intently now but I wonder how long I can hold your interest. You can only stay up an hour at a time. After an hour, you must sleep … ha ha which is a story that need be told.

You don’t like to sleep during the day, mera bachha. You fight it as if it’s something you should fear. Is it something you’ve inherited from your mother? Cuz she hates napping during the day too. You poor poor thing. You don’t want to sleep but your body can’t handle you staying up so long. So it forces you to rest it a while but you give sleep a good strong fight every time. You sometimes sleep in your swing after your grandma sings to you, talks to you, pats you, and calms you down into sleep. Too bad her efforts take her 30 minutes and you stay asleep for only 30-40 minutes to repeat the same cycle over again. If not the swing, it’s mommy’s arms that you find comfort and sleep in. I let you play these games all day until evening around 4 when I give you a quick massage and a shower to freshen you up, feed you, and take you to nap with me until 6 PM – 6:30 PM. That is the longest nap you take in the day and I have to lie down with you for the entire time for you to stay asleep. I’ve tried every trick in the book. I’ve listened to every idea every mother has kindly offered me but nothing works with you. And now, after 12 weeks of trying, I have come to accept that my daughter just does not like to sleep during the day and I am ok with it. I hope you will need lesser sleep during the day as you get older and that’d save you the constant fight you have to put up every day.

Despite that small hiccup, you are a lovely little thing really. Your smiles make my day. Your kicks of excitement when you see me, your sighs of comfort as you burrow your head into my shoulder, the way you stare at me as if expecting me to tell you how to be … all of that makes this job of loving you, caring for you, holding you all day absolutely worthwhile. Your grandmother says that you are an angel of a child. Although I disagree with her when she says it, I know that she is right. You don’t even cry when you are hungry. You just look at me with beseeching eyes with your lips puckering up for food. Of course, I melt and your need is met before you have to ask any further. If only, you could sleep … ah never mind, I shan’t complain anymore hehe. Talking of sleep though, I have to take you and rock you to sleep now cuz swing obviously is not doing the trick. Time for a massage and shower.

Awrite, here we are. You are smelling nice, swaddled, and tucked into my arm fast asleep. Ah it wasn’t long when I would lay you down on my chest and you’d sleep. Now I can’t breathe if I were to do that. You are growing up fast. You are outgrowing your clothes almost every week as everyone said you would. You smile all the time now. Occasionally giggle too. You coo. You try to talk back. You like people. You like interacting with them. You put up a performance of a flawless child for every new person you meet. You can’t roll over from your back to tummy yet but you try to sit up. Didn’t I say something about you 12 weeker being not so clever? ;p Grabbing things and taking them to your mouth is the next developmental milestone all of us are eagerly looking forward to. You are starting out on it. In a week or two, I’d have to be careful about everything within your reach. You are now grabbing your feet. They interest you a lot more than any plastic toy does. I wonder though if you’d grow up thinking that feet are supposed to be of a different color everyday cuz I keep changing your socks on you. :/

Ah my little doll, don’t I love testing you, your physical strengths, your mental growth, and your personality. Your grandparents often tell me that you are my daughter and not my toy. Phew. That must tell you how much I enjoy ‘playing’ with you and observing your reactions. The more I get to know you, the more I love you. Perhaps because I see a bit of me in you and a bit of the man I love. I want you to grow up so bad so I can talk to you, wrestle with you, throw you up in the air without you panicking, tickle you till you are breathless from laughter, run with you beating you while I still can, teach you how to ride a bike, cry with you if you get hurt …

For now though, you are my cuddly bear. You are not a fragile little thing anymore who needed my support to hold up her neck. You can hold yourself up now albeit a little wobbly. You really like wobbling your head towards your left side btw. You are getting pudgier so I am not so worried anymore about you slipping down rite from in between my arms. I do miss your tininess at times but I think I am one of those mothers who love their kids more as they get bigger. I can finally truly say now that I am crazily madly in love with you. That was not the case when you were a newborn. I was a panicky new mama: nervous and unsure of how to take care of you. Now we know each other a little better, have somewhat of a mutual understanding and we work it. You convey your needs to me in so many gestures and I answer them as soon as I can, and when I ask you to love me, you respond with your smiles and squeals of excitement. A perfect symbiotic relationship, I tell ya. :)

How did I change? I don’t mind eating cold food if that means I’d get to take care of you faster. I don’t mind eating anything you lick first. I don’t mind cleaning your poo and pee. I don’t mind you drooling all over me. I don’t mind you licking my neck and arms or any body part you come in contact with. Most importantly, I eat karela sabji happily as adults do. :/

Happy 12th week, my child. We made it so far and we have a long long road ahead. I am sure it’ll be a lot of fun with you as my company. I wish nothing but loads of happiness upon you. May you always be loved and always be happy. You brought so much joy to my life that even on my most tired days, I don’t mind rocking you to sleep and holding you in my arms without moving a muscle just so you can rest. Just like now. My arm is asleep, but so is my baby, and that matters more than anything else in the world at the moment.

I love you, my silly little 12 weeker. You might not know your numbers yet but I am certain that you would’ve mastered algebra by this time next year if you keep listening to your father teach you the number line every evening. And don’t you reserve your best smiles for him and his silly stories. I like you more. So you must like me more. Ha! :D Love ya, munchkin. I don’t know when you will read this but when you do, come give me a hug immediately after, ok? If I am not there with you, find my photo and kiss it. Ok, good. Thank you. :P I am not demanding at all.

Yours …
… forever. :)

ps: You got your passport photos done today, and you were fantastic! As you always are in public. Nazar utaaring happening most definitely in the evening today. Kaala teeka and all. Anti-jinx powers, I conjure you now! My baby was on her best behavior in public as usual, and is now fidgeting in my arms as I have to pat her to force her to nap. Ugh.

It has already been two months. You are past the 8 week mark. Although these 8 weeks went painfully slow with our struggles with breastfeeding, and your unexplained fussiness in the evenings, they were the most precious weeks of my life. Motherhood tested my mental and physical strengths pushing me to the extremes but, luckily, both of us did okay. You are doing well. Growing. Happily. And I could not ask for more. Even if there is a part of me that already misses the tininess that you were. It still wants you to fit into your newborn clothes that you outgrew at around the one month mark. It wants you to fit comfortably into the nook of my arm with your body curled up fitting the length of my forearm. … Too bad, the rest of me wants you to get bigger as you should and we are glad that is the case.

Today, at your 8 week milestone (Aug 5), you rolled over from your tummy to back. You’ve never done that before when you have your tummy-time. Earlier, you’d just cry with frustration when you’d had enough. Today, you figured out that you could just roll over to your back yourself and don’t need to cry for someone else to flip you over. And there you were, flipping to your back over and over again each time mommy put you back on your tummy. Sigh. Rebellion already. Also, you chuckled in your sleep two nights in a row yesterday and the night before. I am sure chuckles are to follow the smiles that you are generously blessing us with already. They’ve been coming since mid July but it’s only now that I am beginning to feel that they are more recognition and less instinct. Like the one you gave me today after your bedtime feed. Aw bless! It was a first but enough to make weeks of breastfeeding pain totally worth it!! :)

It is now 5 AM. I was up to feed you at 4 … and then couldn’t go back to sleep. So here I am writing you but feeling sleepy now. So off I go to sleep but not before staring at you for a good few minutes as you lie besides me in bed. You might be growing out of your clothes everyday (it seems) but you are still my little girl. I cannot wait to grow with you, my darling. You already have a personality that does not ask for much but is very clear about her needs, and won’t settle until her needs are met. I absolutely love it. Oh, and the constant boredom that you seem to have inherited from your mother. We – your mother, father and grandmother – have to constantly think of new ways to keep you entertained lest you give us your bored look before letting out a frustrated cry. And hey, what’s with you clinging to your mother? Other people who your mother trusts you with care about you just as much as she does. You must give them a chance, and your mother a break. Hmm break … talking of which, I should sleep.

Here you are, lying besides me, a big girl of two months … I want to pick you up, cuddle you, kiss you, and put you back until next time … but that’d just mean an hour of having to rock you back to sleep. So I’d just let you sleep and watch you from rite here … a few inches away. Aww you are as beautiful as you were the day you were born.

Happy 2nd month, my gorgeous little angel. I love you more than I love your father even, and that’s saying a lot. :) *kissesssss* I wanna eat you!!!! :D

Yours

…

Although I am writing this seven weeks later, the events of the morning of June 10th, 2011 are still as fresh in my mind as they were that morning, and I doubt the freshness will ever subside. I can easily rate my daughter’s birth as the most amazing experience of my life so far. I’ve never felt so strong, so empowered, so confused, so scared, so loved, so overjoyed, so lucky, and so relieved all at the same time. It was an incredible high that I wish upon everyone to experience. I never knew that childbirth – which I feared just as much as any first time expecting mother does – would leave me so pumped with happy hormones that I would override any physical discomfort there was and enjoy the entire miraculous process from the start to the end.

I love reading labor stories. Because they always have a happy ending. Despite the painful screams and tears, every mother ends her story by saying that the agony was all worth it. So when I went into labor, I was determined that I didn’t want the pain to overcome me. Instead I wanted to focus on that last line of every labor story: the pain was worth it. And focus I did. My contractions started in the wee hours of June 9th morning at 1 AM. As a first time mother unaware of what contractions are supposed to feel like, I ignored them as stomach discomfort that is quite common in the third trimester. It must be gas, I reassured myself multiple times before drinking half a glass of miracle juice that every heavily pregnant woman must invest in. Prune juice, of course. I drank it around 3 AM perhaps. It didn’t help. Pains kept coming and going as I frequented the bathroom in a sleepy state hoping for them to ease.

It wasn’t until 4 AM or so when my brain neurons fired signals in the right direction and jolted me into divine enlightenment that I could be having contractions. All my physical and mental senses went into a high gear of awakening immediately as I sat up in my bed. The ‘gas pains’ were coming every 10 minutes and were lasting atleast half a minute. Pati was sleeping in a separate room at the time because he hadn’t been keeping well for the week prior to that, and a pregnant woman needed to be isolated in those circumstances. So there I was, by myself, sitting/sleeping/lying/walking around counting the frequency of my ‘gas pains’ until about 6 AM when I was sure that they weren’t really gas pains after all. The contractions were coming every 10 minutes and lasting 15-30 seconds each. I called Pati and both of us kept a count of the contractions then on for three hours with some app he had downloaded on his Android. :D During this time, both of us got dressed just in case. By 9 AM, the contractions were coming 5-7 minutes apart but they still weren’t lasting a minute as they were supposed to before we headed to the hospital. Gradually by 10 AM, they spread apart to 10 minutes again and I asked Pati to go to work.

After Pati left, I spent the day riding the waves of pain: cliche intended. I had breakfast, watched tv with mother in law, ate lunch that she cooked, sat on a birthing ball, lied down in my bed, sat back in a recliner, listened to music, watched some youtube videos, breathed in and out as deep as I could when the pain shot up, did pelvic tilts, used all the exercises they showed us in the childbirth classes that I’d invested much money and time into, and timed contractions all along. It was around 3 when I called Pati to come home because the contractions were now lasting a minute even if they were still 6-7 minutes apart on average. Labor was progressing and that was a good sign. Pati got home by 4 expecting me to be ready to leave for the hospital. Ha, I scoffed at him, and went on going in circles on my birthing ball.

He had something to eat. I ate something. Mother in law ate something. We timed contractions. And we waited. Around 6:30, I told Pati and mum in law that I’d had enough and I was no longer timing contractions. I was going outside for a walk and to call a friend. It was during that phone call to the friend that I felt that the contractions were coming in closer. I’d barely talked to her for a few minutes when one hit and then another. “I have to go to the hospital”, I told her before apologizing to her for having to hang up. I could feel her “you are insane” look drivel into me through the phone when she told me to stop being an idiot and to rush to the hospital. Rush, we did. We left home at 7 PM sharp and got to the hospital at 7:30. I was deathly afraid of the trip there because friends had said that the ride to the hospital hurts a lot. Luckily, it wasn’t bad at all. We got lucky that it wasn’t rush hour and the trip would only take 30 minutes. I’d calculated that I’d have 5-6 contractions at the most in the 30 minutes ride there. That’s only 5 minutes of pain in total and I’d told me that I’d just be a big girl and bear it. The strategy worked I guess. And of course, I did have a moist heat bag with me which, let me tell you, is a life saver, girls. Moist heat works!

We checked into our hospital room by 7:35. With all the papers in order, the nurse checked me and told me that I was only 1 cm dilated and I needed to be at least 3 cm dilated for me to be admitted. She then proceeded to call my doctor for instructions. My doctor, God bless her, directed the nurse to keep me there for another two hours and see if I progressed. The nurse didn’t seem optimistic at all. “You don’t look like you are in much pain”, she said. “But I am!” I had to say, “I might just be handling it better than you’d expect me to? And also I haven’t slept since 8 AM yesterday morning, how can I go home?” I clearly could not comprehend as to why she would want me to go home. She kept her opinion very clear though, and repeated that if I didn’t dilate to 3 cm in the next two hours, I was going home even if that meant I’d have to come back to the hospital an hour after I was discharged. Bullocks, I murmured to myself, and so did Pati and mother in law. And that’s when the three of us resolved that we were getting to the much needed 3 cm in two hours no matter what even though 18 hours of labor thus far had only gotten me to a meagre 1 cm. We needed a plan!

I remembered reading in Ina May’s informative book on childbirth that in labor and otherwise, your body performs as you tell it to. I have no choice but to try that, I told Pati. He laughed at me. But I was serious. As serious as a woman in some serious pain can be. My contractions were coming every 4-5 minutes consistently and lasting a minute or more at times. I could not possibly go home! The baby had to come. I had been up for 18 hours in pain already. I needed relief. I told my body to open up. Pati laughed. I laughed more. Mother in law joined in. All of us laughed and prodded my body to open in every funny way we could conjure. You are a flower, Pati would say, unfurllllll unfurllll. I’d imagine that in my head and try to pass on the message to the parts that needed to follow the directions. Despite the pain, I was laughing and we were all having a lovely time. As time progressed, contractions kept getting closer and stronger. It’s around then when the laughs stopped and Pati’s coaching of me to breathe in and breathe out began. He stayed strong, encouraged me to breathe in deep, and relax myself when a contraction hit. Two hours passed.

The nurse came in with her pessimistic face convinced to send me home. HA! I was to prove her wrong. I was at 4 cm in two hours. Yeah baby! Yes, I am referring to the baby that was on her way out. We were in this together. Me and her. A team. She was coming! And all of us took a deep breath of excitement and mentally prepared ourselves finally for the outcome that was to follow in a few hours. Now the next step for me was to decide if I wanted epidural or not. I chose to tough it out until 6 cm and then cave in to the meds. I needed sleep terribly. By the time paperwork was taken care of, anesthesiologist was brought in, it was around midnight. I was at 6 cm and my water broke at 12:15 PM when I’d just got my epidural put in.

Epi worked like magic. I must thank my lucky stars that it worked so well. I could feel my legs but couldn’t feel the pain. The doctor who did my epidural insert was the best at the hospital, I was told later. I could not have asked for a better relief of pain, and it did not even hurt when he put it in. My skin that was not numbed did itch for a couple of hours though but that was easy to ignore given that I was no longer in pain and I didn’t have to do yoga aasans to survive the next minute before I was relieved from pain for two minutes again. Had it been noon earlier that day, I might’ve continued with the yoga, but 24 hours after the pain had first started and running on no sleep in 40 hours almost, I needed to sleep. All of us slept, and my dilation progress that was forging ahead at a fast pace stalled itself … maybe because of epidural?!

It wasn’t until 6:30 AM when the morning nurse – a different from the previous evening, thank goodness – announced that I was fully dilated, and she was going to call the doctor and get the room ready. It’s amazing how quickly time passes when you are excited to the skies. Pati went to the car to get a sweater. It was cold in the room. Mother in law went to the guest lounge to allow us our privacy. I just sat there looking at the activity of nurses around me preparing the room, and before I knew it, it was already 7 AM when the lovely on-call doctor from my doctor’s office arrived. Sweeter words were never spoken before she said with her gorgeous smile, “You are ready to push and it shouldn’t take too long.” She left me with my nurse and a nervous Pati to start pushing as she went around checking on her other patients (?!) or clients (?!). We started pushing at 7:08 AM. I say “we” because it seemed like a group effort. With Pati cheering me on one side, and the amazing nurse on the other.

Just as the first two hours at the hospital were full of jokes and laughter, so was this last hour of pushing. Luckily, my epidural allowed me to feel when I needed to push, and Pati coached me into pushing when I said I was ready by reminding me to take a deep breath and telling some silly joke that’d make both me and the nurse burst into laughter. The baby was ready to arrive by 8 AM, and the doctor had her out by 8:08 … all of it while laughing at my silly husband’s silly humor. The laughter that soon turned into tears though when our gorgeous little  doe eyed baby arrived with her eyes wide open, and a cry that was not a scream but a calm announcement that she had arrived. She looked at me straight in my eye as they laid her on my chest immediately after birth. “Oh my god”, I said in shock, “What am I supposed to do with her?!!?!” The staff laughed and said something about her being so beautiful and me holding her or some other suggestions on those lines that didn’t register with me at the time. My life was immediately transformed. For the first time in my life, I was so overly joyed, and yet did not know how to express my happiness. The new addition to our family made me happy but the responsibility of a life fully dependent on me scared me.

7 weeks later, after a tough postpartum phase, I still look back at the beginning of this motherhood journey with such fondness. It is an experience that I would not shy away from reliving. The postpartum weeks, however, are a different story. It is a tough process getting to know this new member of our family. The more we get to know our daughter though, the more we fall in love with her. I might’ve been over the moon when she was born, but I truly started understanding love when her cries made me cry, when her sleep became more important to me than my sleep, when her nourishment mattered more to me than the pain I was in, when her slightest movement in sleep at night woke me up, and when just her one smile makes me want to go through all the discomfort for her over and over again. For the love that my daughter teaches me every day, I’d end my story the same as all other labor stories: 31 hours of labor were definitely worth it and the postpartum discomfort is also worth it! :)

Welcome to this world once again, my darling baby girl. I hope to always make you feel as loved as you’ve made me feel. Thank you.