(i had written this long long ago, just after Aditi was born, but didn't have this blog. Found it now, so posting it here...)
Baby-name sites suggest the meaning of Aditi is Mother Earth, the one with abundant patience and prosperity. But to us, Aditi means Joy. Sheer, unadulterated, pure Happiness. Loads of which this baby has brought to our house ever since she was born...
Aditi was born two months ago, on 25th Sept 2011. So now i share my b'day month with Aditi and day with Nidhi(9th). The nine months of Nidhi's waiting for Aditi was complete at last and i have no words to describe how happy she was to see her little sister!
The best piece of advice i received during pregnancy was from Nidhi, of course. One particularly difficult day in the last month, she told me, 'Just chill, dude, chill'. Yup, that's what i needed. i chilled out and remembered to chill out until Aditi was finally born.
Since i had the tendency to go into pre-term labour, the doctor had asked me to be careful from 7th month onwards. i was taking it very easy, with no walks, no excercise, nothing at all. Just a little bit of easy-peasy cooking and the rest was taken care of by the maid. Santosh took over Nidhi's school-work and my stress-level was kept at a minimum. we crossed week upon week and kept count of the doc-visits, all of which were routine.
Then, dawned 12th sept. the day my mom was arriving from chennai. since she had visited us during 5th and 6th month, 12th sept was the earliest she could arrive for my delivery. i finished my morning routine and received a call from my cousin from a nearby country. Spoke to her for almost an hour, in which i jokingly told her my mom says hope u will be at home and not hospital when i arrive. i had told her no guarantee. Finished the phone call at 10 AM(i spent the whole time relaxing on the sofa with my legs raised up for comfort). 11 AM i started feeling uncomfortable. Braxton hicks, as usual, i thought. the pain started increasing in intensity. i called up santosh. he advised me to pop a vaazhu-guligai(also called my life-saviour during all nine months of pregnancy),to drink lot of water and lie down. Which i promptly did. Felt better for sometime. Then started feeling worse. Had my lunch and laid down again. Lunchtime arrived and santosh picked up nidhi from her school-van and came home. i was feeling OK and told santosh to go back to office after his lunch. then called him as soon as he reached office asking him to hurry home. Regular contractions. the darling guy didn't hesitate a minute. he hurried back home and in no time we were on the way to the hospital. i made my one and only mistake of the day - not take something for nidhi to eat in case our stay was long.
my gynacologist was on leave and i had met another doc in the same hospital. she was due in the hospital in an hour's time and meanwhile the nurse strapped me to a machine to measure the contractions. it was the first time i had seen such a machine and i wasted no time in asking the nurse all abt how to read the measurements. soon, santosh and i were looking at big, giant contractions(at least to our eyes). After sometime, the nurse unstrapped me and told me not worry coz the doc would be in in an hour's time. doc arrived. internal examination(the one exam i fear most in this world!). 1.5-2 cms. Wow, and u didn't feel much pain exclaimed the doc and proceeded to admit me for the night expecting the delivery to take place the next day - it was my 35th week. She also said there is a chance dilation may not happen further in which case i would be discharged the next day. however no food until delivery. thank you so much, for 9th months you r asked to stuff urself and one fine day, 'patni!'.
anyway, to cut a long story short, that night my mother arrived(and only then learned i was hospitalised) and next day she and nidhi waited at home for santosh's call saying 'baby's here!'. No call came, instead i was discharged (dilation remained the same at 1.5-2) and after making sure there is no risk of an infection to the baby coz of the opening, i came home to 2 more weeks of bed-rest.
37th week was complete. Pains on and off, and on again. 25th of sept was here. We drove to the hospital at 8 AM, this time with food, drink, story-books, color-pencils, et al,and Nidhi and my mom too. the previous day evening Nidhi had started crying when i started getting regular pain. so on 25th we made as if it was a picnic to the hospital and all of us tried to be in as good a mood as we could be. the previous night i had urged everyone to sleep well and not slept a wink myself. By 8:15 we were alloted a room(the paper-work having been completed by santosh the previous week itself - i could come anytime and just get admitted and have my baby!).
The first thing the nurse did was ask me to change into a white-colored hospital gown. it was more of a tent than a gown and in my tension i wore it ulta. the nurse corrected me, strapped me to different machines(monitor B.P. and measure contractions) and asked me to relax. a lot many nurses and doctors(dietician, anastesiologist, my gynacologist) came and asked me so many different questions. Lack of sleep and worrying abt the impending delivery, i was deteriorating rapidly. Rather my mood was. health-wise i was in perfect condition. the feeling of what-am-i-doing-here, pls-let-me-go-home-and-sleep was turning rapidly into a panic and santosh could see i was not doing well. he did a simple thing - asked me to just close my eyes and sleep. then he took nidhi away to a lounge. my mom was praying silently nearby. i fell asleep and woke up an hour later. refreshed and feeling better.
At, 10:00 AM a tall nurse(a britisher, all others were indians(mostly malayalees)) came and covered me with a huge acrylic blanket and disconnected all that needed to be and attached to the bed the rest. A male-orderly then wheeled the bed with me and all attachments to the operation theatre. My mom wished me all the best, nidhi sent me off with all the best, bye, see you soon, come back soon... all in loudest voices that i kept replying to until we turned round the lenghty corridor. Santosh walked quickly behind my bed and my mom thought he was going to wait outside the theatre. we had something more planned up our sleeve - santosh was to keep me company during the operation.
And, that is the single decision that i have been the most happy abt in my whole life. Whew, what an experience it was!
I kept watching the lights pass by overhead as the orderly quickly and comfortably rolled my bed into the operation theatre with practised ease. It was like stepping into another world. The first thing i noticed were the bright white lights - the whole place was brightly lit by what seemed like a 100 tubelights. And, the temperature was much lower than the air-conditioned corridor. There was a lobby/reception area where a lot of people were standing arnd talking. All nurses, doctors, orderlies. All dressed in green, including a green cap covering the head. And, remarkably cheerful and talking in what seemed to me like loud voices. there was one guy who was tall and good-looking who opened the double door to let my bed in. Looking all around me, i felt i had stepped into a movie or TV-soap. The good-looking guy was not part of the team that operated on me and i never did find out if he was a doc or a nurse or just a guy employed to open the door to cheer up patients with his good looks!
By this time, i can't really describe the state of mind i was in - on one hand i was worried and anxious abt the impending surgery, on the other there was the excitement that soon we'll have a baby in our hands. i was also trying to look arnd objectively and see if i could identify any person or instrument(no on both accounts) - it was my way of trying to control the rapidly escalating panic that had visited me earlier that day morning.
When we rolled to a stop in the operating-theatre's reception area, only then i noticed that Santosh had followed us in! The orderly asked him if he will be going inside the theatre and Santosh said yes with a smile. Then he showed me something in his hand and made sure i noticed that he was placing it under the pillow on my bed. then the orderly took Santosh to a small room inside to change into what i like to call surgical-greens.
One note abt my dear husband. He is scared of hospitals, doctors, injections, medicines, blood. Scared as in dead scared. Paranoid. he has a phobia of blood and a simple injection can cause him to break out in sweat and raise his BP high(as i have seen many times in the past. whenever he has to take an injection i literally fall on him and hold him down coz i am scared one day he is going to kick the nurse!). During the last few doc-visits during this pregnancy we had learned that husband was allowed to be present during delivery. as soon as i came to know this i told santosh that although it would be nice if he tagged along, there is no compulsion from my side that he shd be present. i left it up to him to decide what he wants to do. he had told me he would come, but i was sure if he changed his mind in the last minute i wouldn't mind.
When Nidhi was born, Santosh was away, in another country. He had left in my 8th month(after being forced by me coz i felt opportunity never knocks twice). although the decision has turned out to be the right one for us coz ever since we have lived here and grown to love this lifestyle, there has always been one regret, that santosh was not right there when nidhi was born(even though the doc would never have allowed him into the operating theatre in chennai). also, until santosh was there with me i was in perfect health. he left for abroad and 2 weeks later i was admitted in the hospital for pre-term labour(my due date was a month and a half away). i have always felt santosh is my lucky charm. of course, he cheers me up at all times and that always helps! so this time when i became pregnant the first thing we decided was Santosh would be by my side always. but never did i imagine that he would follow me even into the operating-theatre!
so here i was lying in my bed looking all arnd and wondering why do theatres have to be so noisy(based on my past experience, when nidhi was born the doc chattered away continously for the 45 mins i was inside the theatre, talking with her colleagues abt going to the market, meeting her friend and other such totally inconsequential rubbish(to my ears) all the while when i kept thinking hello, is my baby ok? can u plz concentrate on me! and, can we have some peace and quiet plz!)
Looking at the smile on santosh's face and the something that he pushed under my pillow, i started calming down. i was immensely happy that not only did santosh stick to his word of staying by me even during surgery, he even did it so cheerfully. While santosh was away, the orderly came back and pushed my bed into the actual operation theatre. i was rolled beside the surgical-stand(although a bed, it was quite narrow and made me wonder again why this kanjoosi and is this the norm all over the world). i was then asked to get up and perform some acrobatics. which means i was asked to sit up and move myself into the surgical stand. This i did with considerable grace, in spite of the fact i was as big as an elephant. but i knew moving myself like this was quite easy compared to the acrobatics i would be asked to perform later, like turning myself once the spinal anesthesia was administered. i wasn't disappointed.
as soon as i lay down on my new bed, i remembered to pick something up from under the pillow on my other bed. This was a very beautiful pocket-sized picture of Lord Krishna. The something that Santosh had given me just as we entered the theatre. It was Krishna as a baby, sitting with a cute smile and eating butter. Who can resist from smiling at this sight! And thus i was also calmed and comforted.
once i lay in the stand, i looked all around me. to my left a couple of nurses were counting and arranging the surgical instruments. behind them was a wall which housed a big clock showing the current time and numerous other clocks showing the time in many other countries. surprisingly india wasn't one of them. Then, straight ahead i could see a white-board with a green(of course) marker pen. a nurse was rubbing out the contents of the previous surgery and writing a fresh list of surgical instruments, with one of the nurses calling out the count of each of them being used. i could see titles like baby-sex, time, weight, etc. being left blank.
A couple of nurses asked me to sit up with both my legs dangling down the stand. one of them asked me if i spoke tamil or malayalam, while another pushed a stand to rest my feet on. My pillow was placed on my lap and i was asked to hunch over it. My blanket was placed in front of me and cellotaped to my gown at the shoulder(i know, i was equally surprised). then the anesthesiologist stepped up from the head of the surgical-stand(no, i won't call it a bed!) and went behind me. This lady seemed like one from a neighbouring country and she was dressed to the nine! Manicured hands, heavy make-up and a branded handbag(when she visited me in my room earlier), she belonged more in a beauty-parlour than in a hospital i thought. also i wasn't happy when i heard her complaining that a previous patient had asked technical questions of the nurse rather than the doc(herself). i could only think no wonder.
And now this doctor stepped behind me and threw open my gown to expose my back. the nurses who helped me earlier had moved away performing other duties. the doctor told me she is going to give me a couple of injections - test-dose and such. she told me to hunch as much as possible and started poking me with needles which i am sure were more than a couple of times than she said. since i had planned 'shut up and put up' to be my mantra during delivery, i didn't say anything and tried my best not to wince. a little while later the doctor started muttering 'can't find the spine' and started shouting at the nurses 'Am i to work alone or what! no one to help me?'. my panic started mounting again and it was all i could do not to shout out 'don't blame ur incompetency on the nurses!'.
one of the nurses started talking to me in tamil(remember she had asked me earlier) and i, in my confused state started replying to her in malayalam. i was asked to hunch in such a way as to push my spine outwards and somehow the thing was done and i felt the sharp stab of the final injection and i was immediately asked to lift my legs up the stand and lie down. all this happened in a rush and i was quickly made comfortable with the pillow placed under my head by the doctor herself. i thanked her and then thanked God silently. the anesthesia took a while to take effect and unlike the last time when i felt my body floating gravity-less from neck down, this time i just felt plain numb. my hands were spread on either side of me and stands put up for resting them. on my left hand and chest were plugged numerous censors which were connected to displays behind my bed. when i was sitting up earlier i had noticed the machines and could identify only one which monitors BP.
at this time, my gynacologist entered. i could not see her, but could hear her voice and imagined her to be perched on a stool while the anesthesia took effect. a strange thing took place when my doctor entered - the whole place fell silent. all the nurses shut up and only one of them was answering my doctor, who was asking something abt the surgical instruments(gloves or sutures or something i forget). for a minute i hoped, i really really hoped, perhaps there won't be any discussion abt markets and friends and vegs and lunches. and, let me tell u, there wasn't! :-)
a little while later my doctor came up to my side and checked if i was feeling numb. on my assent she informed me that she was starting the surgery by 'preparing me'(whatever that meant). i said 'ok, doctor', the first in the line of many OKs whenever my doc spoke to me during surgery. The time was 10:20 AM. Almost immediately i heard someone telling the doctor 'her husband is ready and waiting outside'. the doc asked me if he was planning to come in and i said yes, if it's ok with you. she said ok, but first let me prepare you. then i understood that preparation meant spreading a big blue 'tarpaulin' sheet across my body right up to my face. the excess sheet near my face was folded up forming a blue wall and that was to be the scenery i could gaze on throughout the surgery whenever i faced forward. but, i had no complaints as the scenery on my right-side improved much more just then, as Santosh slipped into a stool placed near my right hand.
My first thought was 'Arre, u look so handsome, u shd've been a doctor!'. :-)) in the surgical-greens, santosh looked like one of those good-looking doctors u find in movies. it helped that he was smiling steadily and didn't look a bit worried or tense. that helped me tremendously to calm down and from then on i didn't feel even a ripple of worry. All that remained was the excitement to see the baby! Many days after the surgery santosh told me he was quite worried and tense, but i had to say that he did an excellent job of hiding it - which was the best thing he could've ever done for me!
now on my left i had the anesthesiologist asking me how i felt and on my right i had my husband asking the same. the anesthesiologist kept asking me if i was feeling any pain and if i wanted to sleep. i refused her a couple of times coz i wanted to be wide awake so that i could see my baby asap when she was born. santosh held my hand and took out a couple of pictures for me to gaze at - Lord Muruga and Ayyappa-Swamy. Unbelievebly it was Tiruchendur Murugan(my fav God in the world) - a pocket-calender given by Chennai Silks. i passed on the Lord Krishna's photo he had given me earlier and santosh held the three pictures out so that i could gaze on them at all times. he asked me if i felt any pain and even though i replied in the negative, he wiped his forehead a couple of times which made me believe that although i was the one undergoing surgery, given his phobia of blood, we were in this together.
Hardly 10-15 mins had passed when the doctor suddenly announced 'the baby'll be out in 2 mins'. i said OK and was totally unprepared for what followed next. There was a splash of blood and lo, the doc held up a beautiful baby facing me above my blue wall(the tarpaulin sheet). 'Wow!' was all i could say while the rest of the theatre erupted in cheer. The sight of the baby all covered in blood and mucus was one i'll never forget in my whole life. What an awesome experience! Santosh and i exchanged looks of relief and started smiling happily. A few mins later on my right-side the british nurse appeared holding the baby in what looked like an old towel. once again, we went 'Wow!'. the baby was abt to be taken for her first bath/cleaning. the doctor and nurse informed santosh that he could go and see. with an 'i'll be back', the new dad vanished from his spot in a second, like the grinning chesire cat in Alice's Wonderland and i was left to contemplate the red dots that had appeared on the blue wall by the spurting of blood. And now the doctor started her actual work and i felt quite a lot of pulling and pushing and tugging. The silence in the theatre continued to be absolute except for a couple of instructions to the nurses given by the doc in a low voice.
i didn't know what to expect next, but a few mins later surprisingly, the chesire cat, i mean Santosh returned and i immediately started asking him if he heard her cry,etc. He told me with great joy that Aditi opened her eyes for the first time and it was him she looked at before anything or anyone! he told me she had his nose and weighed 3.1 kg. We were very happy that the weight crossed 3 kgs (Nidhi was 3.5kgs) what with all the illness(not just the nausea) i faced during the intial days of pregnancy. We both agreed that the baby seemed to look tall, 'a long baby'.
Some time about now i felt a pain in my chest and i got scared thinking i am having a heart-attack. i moved my hands a bit trying to relieve the pain but it was of no use. i started complaining to Santosh abt it while the anesthesiologist noticed my discomfort and said she'll take care. apparently she injected Paracetomal into the IV and in a few mins the pain was less, though not gone completely. i couldn't help my thoughts which started turning filmy 'O God, pls let me live for my baby!' :-)
And then, yet again the british nurse appeared holding Aditi wrapped up and at once she placed the baby with her head resting on my chest. And lo, Aditi turned her head slightly up and gazed at me and i was thrilled! Yahoooooooo, i am a mommy once again! I said to santosh 'she's looking at me, looking at me!!! o god, she's so cute!!!' Then the nurse told me that she's taking the baby away to be kept warm in an incubator and as soon as i return to my room Aditi will join me there and we'll try breast-feeding. The doc informed santosh that if he wanted to go with the baby he could do so. The man performed the vanishing-act yet again (but, not before thanking doctor profusely) and i was left alone to re-live the past few moments when Aditi looked at me for the first time and trying to etch in my mind permanantly the sight of Aditi as she was being held up by the doctor as soon as she was born.
The major portion of the operation was after the baby was out and exactly after an hour since she began, the doctor announced 'Ok Saraswathi, the surgery is complete'. i thanked her very much and told her i also appreciated her whole team in the theatre. the doctor left after telling me that i will be spending an hour in the recovery-room and then can go back to my room.
my original bed was rolled by my side and all the nurses in the theatre joined hands to lift me from the surgical-stand and place me on my bed. i was rolled on to a room with a lot of beds seperated by curtains. i could see a clock on the wall on my right-side. the time was 11:20 AM. there were a couple of other patients too, a lady and a man. i deduced this from the voices and could not see them as the nurse had drawn a curtain around my bed. the nurse bade me sleep and waited a couple of beds away. at this point i realised i was feeling cold. And soon enuf i was shivering uncontrollably. the lower portion of my body was still numb and although i felt only a dull sense of pain, i could feel that my body was trying to work out the trauma of being operated upon. The nurse approached me and asked me if i needed anything and i told her abt the coldness. she said it could be a delayed reaction to the temperature in the theatre which was much colder than the rest of the hospital. she covered me with a couple of extra blankets, but my teeth continued to chatter on their own.
Later i learned that meanwhile, Santosh had gone back to my room to convey the news to my mom and Nidhi. Although the nursery was right next to my room, in which my mom and Nidhi were waiting, they didn't know that Aditi was waiting for them next-door! Soon Santosh, Nidhi and my mom went to the nursery and took turns to gaze at the the new-born. Nidhi reached out and touched her little sister for the first time - this moment was captured by Santosh in his mobile. Aditi was sharing the nursery with yet another new-born like her, born a few mins earlier that day. Santosh called up his parents and sister and informed them all abt the safe arrival of little Miss.Aditi.
Exactly an hour later, i was wheeled into my room, chattering teeth and all.
When i finished my post-graduation(after much hard-work) i had promised myself i would never write an exam in my life if i could help it - to spare myself all the tension and hardwork i put in whenever i hear the word exam! A little while later i joined the company i had gotten into thru campus and the very first thing they did was to give us techincal training for 2-3 months and make us write exams - to decide which branch we would be going into (Java, .Net, Peoplesoft, mainframes, etc.) Java was the most sought after, needless to say i did my best and was the only girl to get selected in my batch. i never kept up the promise i made to myself regarding exams!
In the same way, based on my last experience with Nidhi, i knew although the surgery was completed successfully, we weren't out of the woods yet. The challenges were just abt to begin. Starting with breastfeeding, Aditi's first su-su, first poop, etc. A few mins after i settled into my room, Aditi was wheeled in in her cradle. Once again she was placed near me and i gave her a 'kichi' on her head calling her 'kondai' for the first time. The nurse said shall we try feeding and i asked Santosh to wait outside for a bit. Nidhi firmly refused to leave my bedside now that her beloved sister was also here. My mom and Nidhi stood on my left side while Aditi was placed in the crook of my right arm, her face turned to me to help her feed. The second she was placed near me she started suckling! i almost had tears in my eyes - i was so happy coz i knew every baby takes its time and in rare cases some of them even refuse to do so(one of them in my own family). Thank God, first challenge met!
Santosh asked us anxiously from behind the curtains in the doorway, she's drinking? she's refusing? All of us, including the nurse started smiling and i marofyed a dialogue of SRK from Chak De - 'Jo use seekh ke aana tha, woh usne seekh ke aayi hai' and my mom started saying 'of course, she's Nidhi's sister. how will she not feed!'. i still remember during Nidhi's time, the malayalee nurse had said 'miduki kutty aana, palu kudikyanadu kandille!'.
I was forbidden to get up for 24hrs bcoz of the spinal anasthesia, but Santosh and Nidhi became permanent fixtures beside the cradle. Santosh spent so much time bending down to gaze at his baby in close-up that i thought he would be the one requiring back-care, not me after my surgery. i could see Aditi only from my sleeping position, though it helped that her cradle was in an inclined angle. Nidhi was greatly excited and talked thru the day alternately spending time with me and Aditi. My mom continued her prayers to thank God and alongwith Santosh spent the day calling up others and sharing the good news. As for Santosh, it was one of the happiest days in his (and my) life and i will never forget his face shining with joy! Oye, it made him even more handsome, as if such a thing were possible ;-)
The thing with C-section is the milk doesn't arrive immediately and the first few hrs the baby has to be supported with formula-milk. i remember being paranoid when i became Mom the first time. It took a day (with much suckling on Nidhi's part and much praying on my part) for milk to start flowing. This time i was prepared and part of my preparations included drinking oats-kanji daily from 8th month onwards. Kanji(oats, raagi, etc.), milk, butter-milk as suggested by my aunt and orange-juice(warm) as suggested by the dietician in the hospital r best for producing milk. And, i found it to be true thru my experience with Aditi.
But now however, few hrs after the surgery, milk had not appeared yet and as usual i had started my frantic prayers. All Doctors will tell you the only way for milk to start flowing is to let the baby feed as much as possible. Yes, i noticed Nidhi put in all her efforts when she was a baby. And, then there's little Miss.Aditi. Soon she caught on that when u can get formula with zero effort on ur part, y waste ur energy with ur mom? the more profitable proposition is to just enjoy ur mom's warmth when u r placed next to her and go right off to sleep. and this is what she did! As advised by the nurses we would poke her cheek, chin, ears in order to wake her up and continue trying to feed. Other than producing a red-rash on her cheek, this had no other effect. Aditi would get irritated at being woken up, cry awhile, suckle a couple of times(not enuf at all) and drop right back to sleep. And, wake up to be fed formula by enthusiastic nurses. A few hrs passed by, then i started getting really worried. Won't be i able to feed my baby?
The anasthesia took quite a while to wear off and i had a relatively pain-free 6 to 8 hrs during which feeling returned to my body bit-by-bit. Though my teeth were still chattering. At one point i noticed my whole body was shivering, but the only solution of the nurse and doctor was to to reduce the a.c. in my room. surprisingly this worked and by night-time i was alright. Santosh stayed back with me while Nidhi and my mom went home for a break from all the day's excitement.
The next day early in the morning (as in 3 AM or something), Aditi went in for a diaper change(not her first) after which the nurse informed me that she had passed her first motion and done her first su-su as well. Thank God! Once my mom came in the morning i hurried to inform her, as next to me, she is the most paranoid person regarding these things.
In the morning Aditi was wheeled away to have her first proper bath and at 11 AM(once 24 hrs had passed since surgery) i was taken for a shower too. The nurse will help u the first time and from then on, expect that u do it urself. Similarly with feeding, apart from the first time, it was solely upto us how we would manage feeding Aditi. i kept telling Santosh on how we r not keeping up with feeding and at this rate God knows when the milk will appear. santosh came up with a brilliant idea. i would feed Nidhi (by this time i could sit up and the first thing i did after my shower was to sit in my bed and take Aditi in my arms for the first time! Also, this gave us a much more comfortable position to feed from.) Placing numerous pillows for support and covered in cozy blankets, Aditi and i would sit down for feeding and Santosh would sit nearby. Whenever Aditi fell asleep, he would stroke her head with her baby's-cap and tickle her lightly. This would wake her up without irritating her and she would try to feed again. This simple but brilliant solution worked and in a few hrs Aditi was feeding well and could be taken off formula. Hurrah!
We stayed for 4 days in the hospital. Santosh and i would spend the morning with Aditi - talking to her, laughing with her, playing with her - having become parents a second time we wanted to savour the experience as much as we could. Later in the day Nidhi and grandmom(my mom) would come and it would be their turn to play with Aditi. The evenings would be full of friends and relatives dropping in to see the new addition to our family.
After being discharged from the hospital, Santosh and i took Aditi home in our car, nestled against me. Half-way thru we gave a missed call to amumma(my mom) to get the 'alathi' ready. When we reached our apartment, santosh parked as close as possible to the entrance of our building. And there stood Nidhi and amumma, standing with umbrellas so that not even the slightest of sun could touch the baby! i held Aditi and my mom helped with the umbrellas. Nidhi carried the balloons(left over from decorating the hospital-room) and Santosh carried a few essentials. After 'alathi', we entered our home.
And, lived happily ever after! :-)
Whenever i thank God for everything going so smoothly when Aditi was born, in the same breath i also thank Santosh, Nidhi, my mother (and my father for managing alone sending my mom here months together) - for being the most supportive family in this world and seeing Aditi and me thru everything at the hospital and ever after too!
Ok, so, if u r still reading this, pls congratulate urself for ur perseverance since u have now reached the end of this marathon post! After all, it's not so easy to give birth to a baby, then y shd reading abt it be easy! ;-)
Baby-name sites suggest the meaning of Aditi is Mother Earth, the one with abundant patience and prosperity. But to us, Aditi means Joy. Sheer, unadulterated, pure Happiness. Loads of which this baby has brought to our house ever since she was born...
Aditi was born two months ago, on 25th Sept 2011. So now i share my b'day month with Aditi and day with Nidhi(9th). The nine months of Nidhi's waiting for Aditi was complete at last and i have no words to describe how happy she was to see her little sister!
The best piece of advice i received during pregnancy was from Nidhi, of course. One particularly difficult day in the last month, she told me, 'Just chill, dude, chill'. Yup, that's what i needed. i chilled out and remembered to chill out until Aditi was finally born.
Since i had the tendency to go into pre-term labour, the doctor had asked me to be careful from 7th month onwards. i was taking it very easy, with no walks, no excercise, nothing at all. Just a little bit of easy-peasy cooking and the rest was taken care of by the maid. Santosh took over Nidhi's school-work and my stress-level was kept at a minimum. we crossed week upon week and kept count of the doc-visits, all of which were routine.
Then, dawned 12th sept. the day my mom was arriving from chennai. since she had visited us during 5th and 6th month, 12th sept was the earliest she could arrive for my delivery. i finished my morning routine and received a call from my cousin from a nearby country. Spoke to her for almost an hour, in which i jokingly told her my mom says hope u will be at home and not hospital when i arrive. i had told her no guarantee. Finished the phone call at 10 AM(i spent the whole time relaxing on the sofa with my legs raised up for comfort). 11 AM i started feeling uncomfortable. Braxton hicks, as usual, i thought. the pain started increasing in intensity. i called up santosh. he advised me to pop a vaazhu-guligai(also called my life-saviour during all nine months of pregnancy),to drink lot of water and lie down. Which i promptly did. Felt better for sometime. Then started feeling worse. Had my lunch and laid down again. Lunchtime arrived and santosh picked up nidhi from her school-van and came home. i was feeling OK and told santosh to go back to office after his lunch. then called him as soon as he reached office asking him to hurry home. Regular contractions. the darling guy didn't hesitate a minute. he hurried back home and in no time we were on the way to the hospital. i made my one and only mistake of the day - not take something for nidhi to eat in case our stay was long.
my gynacologist was on leave and i had met another doc in the same hospital. she was due in the hospital in an hour's time and meanwhile the nurse strapped me to a machine to measure the contractions. it was the first time i had seen such a machine and i wasted no time in asking the nurse all abt how to read the measurements. soon, santosh and i were looking at big, giant contractions(at least to our eyes). After sometime, the nurse unstrapped me and told me not worry coz the doc would be in in an hour's time. doc arrived. internal examination(the one exam i fear most in this world!). 1.5-2 cms. Wow, and u didn't feel much pain exclaimed the doc and proceeded to admit me for the night expecting the delivery to take place the next day - it was my 35th week. She also said there is a chance dilation may not happen further in which case i would be discharged the next day. however no food until delivery. thank you so much, for 9th months you r asked to stuff urself and one fine day, 'patni!'.
anyway, to cut a long story short, that night my mother arrived(and only then learned i was hospitalised) and next day she and nidhi waited at home for santosh's call saying 'baby's here!'. No call came, instead i was discharged (dilation remained the same at 1.5-2) and after making sure there is no risk of an infection to the baby coz of the opening, i came home to 2 more weeks of bed-rest.
37th week was complete. Pains on and off, and on again. 25th of sept was here. We drove to the hospital at 8 AM, this time with food, drink, story-books, color-pencils, et al,and Nidhi and my mom too. the previous day evening Nidhi had started crying when i started getting regular pain. so on 25th we made as if it was a picnic to the hospital and all of us tried to be in as good a mood as we could be. the previous night i had urged everyone to sleep well and not slept a wink myself. By 8:15 we were alloted a room(the paper-work having been completed by santosh the previous week itself - i could come anytime and just get admitted and have my baby!).
The first thing the nurse did was ask me to change into a white-colored hospital gown. it was more of a tent than a gown and in my tension i wore it ulta. the nurse corrected me, strapped me to different machines(monitor B.P. and measure contractions) and asked me to relax. a lot many nurses and doctors(dietician, anastesiologist, my gynacologist) came and asked me so many different questions. Lack of sleep and worrying abt the impending delivery, i was deteriorating rapidly. Rather my mood was. health-wise i was in perfect condition. the feeling of what-am-i-doing-here, pls-let-me-go-home-and-sleep was turning rapidly into a panic and santosh could see i was not doing well. he did a simple thing - asked me to just close my eyes and sleep. then he took nidhi away to a lounge. my mom was praying silently nearby. i fell asleep and woke up an hour later. refreshed and feeling better.
At, 10:00 AM a tall nurse(a britisher, all others were indians(mostly malayalees)) came and covered me with a huge acrylic blanket and disconnected all that needed to be and attached to the bed the rest. A male-orderly then wheeled the bed with me and all attachments to the operation theatre. My mom wished me all the best, nidhi sent me off with all the best, bye, see you soon, come back soon... all in loudest voices that i kept replying to until we turned round the lenghty corridor. Santosh walked quickly behind my bed and my mom thought he was going to wait outside the theatre. we had something more planned up our sleeve - santosh was to keep me company during the operation.
And, that is the single decision that i have been the most happy abt in my whole life. Whew, what an experience it was!
I kept watching the lights pass by overhead as the orderly quickly and comfortably rolled my bed into the operation theatre with practised ease. It was like stepping into another world. The first thing i noticed were the bright white lights - the whole place was brightly lit by what seemed like a 100 tubelights. And, the temperature was much lower than the air-conditioned corridor. There was a lobby/reception area where a lot of people were standing arnd talking. All nurses, doctors, orderlies. All dressed in green, including a green cap covering the head. And, remarkably cheerful and talking in what seemed to me like loud voices. there was one guy who was tall and good-looking who opened the double door to let my bed in. Looking all around me, i felt i had stepped into a movie or TV-soap. The good-looking guy was not part of the team that operated on me and i never did find out if he was a doc or a nurse or just a guy employed to open the door to cheer up patients with his good looks!
By this time, i can't really describe the state of mind i was in - on one hand i was worried and anxious abt the impending surgery, on the other there was the excitement that soon we'll have a baby in our hands. i was also trying to look arnd objectively and see if i could identify any person or instrument(no on both accounts) - it was my way of trying to control the rapidly escalating panic that had visited me earlier that day morning.
When we rolled to a stop in the operating-theatre's reception area, only then i noticed that Santosh had followed us in! The orderly asked him if he will be going inside the theatre and Santosh said yes with a smile. Then he showed me something in his hand and made sure i noticed that he was placing it under the pillow on my bed. then the orderly took Santosh to a small room inside to change into what i like to call surgical-greens.
One note abt my dear husband. He is scared of hospitals, doctors, injections, medicines, blood. Scared as in dead scared. Paranoid. he has a phobia of blood and a simple injection can cause him to break out in sweat and raise his BP high(as i have seen many times in the past. whenever he has to take an injection i literally fall on him and hold him down coz i am scared one day he is going to kick the nurse!). During the last few doc-visits during this pregnancy we had learned that husband was allowed to be present during delivery. as soon as i came to know this i told santosh that although it would be nice if he tagged along, there is no compulsion from my side that he shd be present. i left it up to him to decide what he wants to do. he had told me he would come, but i was sure if he changed his mind in the last minute i wouldn't mind.
When Nidhi was born, Santosh was away, in another country. He had left in my 8th month(after being forced by me coz i felt opportunity never knocks twice). although the decision has turned out to be the right one for us coz ever since we have lived here and grown to love this lifestyle, there has always been one regret, that santosh was not right there when nidhi was born(even though the doc would never have allowed him into the operating theatre in chennai). also, until santosh was there with me i was in perfect health. he left for abroad and 2 weeks later i was admitted in the hospital for pre-term labour(my due date was a month and a half away). i have always felt santosh is my lucky charm. of course, he cheers me up at all times and that always helps! so this time when i became pregnant the first thing we decided was Santosh would be by my side always. but never did i imagine that he would follow me even into the operating-theatre!
so here i was lying in my bed looking all arnd and wondering why do theatres have to be so noisy(based on my past experience, when nidhi was born the doc chattered away continously for the 45 mins i was inside the theatre, talking with her colleagues abt going to the market, meeting her friend and other such totally inconsequential rubbish(to my ears) all the while when i kept thinking hello, is my baby ok? can u plz concentrate on me! and, can we have some peace and quiet plz!)
Looking at the smile on santosh's face and the something that he pushed under my pillow, i started calming down. i was immensely happy that not only did santosh stick to his word of staying by me even during surgery, he even did it so cheerfully. While santosh was away, the orderly came back and pushed my bed into the actual operation theatre. i was rolled beside the surgical-stand(although a bed, it was quite narrow and made me wonder again why this kanjoosi and is this the norm all over the world). i was then asked to get up and perform some acrobatics. which means i was asked to sit up and move myself into the surgical stand. This i did with considerable grace, in spite of the fact i was as big as an elephant. but i knew moving myself like this was quite easy compared to the acrobatics i would be asked to perform later, like turning myself once the spinal anesthesia was administered. i wasn't disappointed.
as soon as i lay down on my new bed, i remembered to pick something up from under the pillow on my other bed. This was a very beautiful pocket-sized picture of Lord Krishna. The something that Santosh had given me just as we entered the theatre. It was Krishna as a baby, sitting with a cute smile and eating butter. Who can resist from smiling at this sight! And thus i was also calmed and comforted.
once i lay in the stand, i looked all around me. to my left a couple of nurses were counting and arranging the surgical instruments. behind them was a wall which housed a big clock showing the current time and numerous other clocks showing the time in many other countries. surprisingly india wasn't one of them. Then, straight ahead i could see a white-board with a green(of course) marker pen. a nurse was rubbing out the contents of the previous surgery and writing a fresh list of surgical instruments, with one of the nurses calling out the count of each of them being used. i could see titles like baby-sex, time, weight, etc. being left blank.
A couple of nurses asked me to sit up with both my legs dangling down the stand. one of them asked me if i spoke tamil or malayalam, while another pushed a stand to rest my feet on. My pillow was placed on my lap and i was asked to hunch over it. My blanket was placed in front of me and cellotaped to my gown at the shoulder(i know, i was equally surprised). then the anesthesiologist stepped up from the head of the surgical-stand(no, i won't call it a bed!) and went behind me. This lady seemed like one from a neighbouring country and she was dressed to the nine! Manicured hands, heavy make-up and a branded handbag(when she visited me in my room earlier), she belonged more in a beauty-parlour than in a hospital i thought. also i wasn't happy when i heard her complaining that a previous patient had asked technical questions of the nurse rather than the doc(herself). i could only think no wonder.
And now this doctor stepped behind me and threw open my gown to expose my back. the nurses who helped me earlier had moved away performing other duties. the doctor told me she is going to give me a couple of injections - test-dose and such. she told me to hunch as much as possible and started poking me with needles which i am sure were more than a couple of times than she said. since i had planned 'shut up and put up' to be my mantra during delivery, i didn't say anything and tried my best not to wince. a little while later the doctor started muttering 'can't find the spine' and started shouting at the nurses 'Am i to work alone or what! no one to help me?'. my panic started mounting again and it was all i could do not to shout out 'don't blame ur incompetency on the nurses!'.
one of the nurses started talking to me in tamil(remember she had asked me earlier) and i, in my confused state started replying to her in malayalam. i was asked to hunch in such a way as to push my spine outwards and somehow the thing was done and i felt the sharp stab of the final injection and i was immediately asked to lift my legs up the stand and lie down. all this happened in a rush and i was quickly made comfortable with the pillow placed under my head by the doctor herself. i thanked her and then thanked God silently. the anesthesia took a while to take effect and unlike the last time when i felt my body floating gravity-less from neck down, this time i just felt plain numb. my hands were spread on either side of me and stands put up for resting them. on my left hand and chest were plugged numerous censors which were connected to displays behind my bed. when i was sitting up earlier i had noticed the machines and could identify only one which monitors BP.
at this time, my gynacologist entered. i could not see her, but could hear her voice and imagined her to be perched on a stool while the anesthesia took effect. a strange thing took place when my doctor entered - the whole place fell silent. all the nurses shut up and only one of them was answering my doctor, who was asking something abt the surgical instruments(gloves or sutures or something i forget). for a minute i hoped, i really really hoped, perhaps there won't be any discussion abt markets and friends and vegs and lunches. and, let me tell u, there wasn't! :-)
a little while later my doctor came up to my side and checked if i was feeling numb. on my assent she informed me that she was starting the surgery by 'preparing me'(whatever that meant). i said 'ok, doctor', the first in the line of many OKs whenever my doc spoke to me during surgery. The time was 10:20 AM. Almost immediately i heard someone telling the doctor 'her husband is ready and waiting outside'. the doc asked me if he was planning to come in and i said yes, if it's ok with you. she said ok, but first let me prepare you. then i understood that preparation meant spreading a big blue 'tarpaulin' sheet across my body right up to my face. the excess sheet near my face was folded up forming a blue wall and that was to be the scenery i could gaze on throughout the surgery whenever i faced forward. but, i had no complaints as the scenery on my right-side improved much more just then, as Santosh slipped into a stool placed near my right hand.
My first thought was 'Arre, u look so handsome, u shd've been a doctor!'. :-)) in the surgical-greens, santosh looked like one of those good-looking doctors u find in movies. it helped that he was smiling steadily and didn't look a bit worried or tense. that helped me tremendously to calm down and from then on i didn't feel even a ripple of worry. All that remained was the excitement to see the baby! Many days after the surgery santosh told me he was quite worried and tense, but i had to say that he did an excellent job of hiding it - which was the best thing he could've ever done for me!
now on my left i had the anesthesiologist asking me how i felt and on my right i had my husband asking the same. the anesthesiologist kept asking me if i was feeling any pain and if i wanted to sleep. i refused her a couple of times coz i wanted to be wide awake so that i could see my baby asap when she was born. santosh held my hand and took out a couple of pictures for me to gaze at - Lord Muruga and Ayyappa-Swamy. Unbelievebly it was Tiruchendur Murugan(my fav God in the world) - a pocket-calender given by Chennai Silks. i passed on the Lord Krishna's photo he had given me earlier and santosh held the three pictures out so that i could gaze on them at all times. he asked me if i felt any pain and even though i replied in the negative, he wiped his forehead a couple of times which made me believe that although i was the one undergoing surgery, given his phobia of blood, we were in this together.
Hardly 10-15 mins had passed when the doctor suddenly announced 'the baby'll be out in 2 mins'. i said OK and was totally unprepared for what followed next. There was a splash of blood and lo, the doc held up a beautiful baby facing me above my blue wall(the tarpaulin sheet). 'Wow!' was all i could say while the rest of the theatre erupted in cheer. The sight of the baby all covered in blood and mucus was one i'll never forget in my whole life. What an awesome experience! Santosh and i exchanged looks of relief and started smiling happily. A few mins later on my right-side the british nurse appeared holding the baby in what looked like an old towel. once again, we went 'Wow!'. the baby was abt to be taken for her first bath/cleaning. the doctor and nurse informed santosh that he could go and see. with an 'i'll be back', the new dad vanished from his spot in a second, like the grinning chesire cat in Alice's Wonderland and i was left to contemplate the red dots that had appeared on the blue wall by the spurting of blood. And now the doctor started her actual work and i felt quite a lot of pulling and pushing and tugging. The silence in the theatre continued to be absolute except for a couple of instructions to the nurses given by the doc in a low voice.
i didn't know what to expect next, but a few mins later surprisingly, the chesire cat, i mean Santosh returned and i immediately started asking him if he heard her cry,etc. He told me with great joy that Aditi opened her eyes for the first time and it was him she looked at before anything or anyone! he told me she had his nose and weighed 3.1 kg. We were very happy that the weight crossed 3 kgs (Nidhi was 3.5kgs) what with all the illness(not just the nausea) i faced during the intial days of pregnancy. We both agreed that the baby seemed to look tall, 'a long baby'.
Some time about now i felt a pain in my chest and i got scared thinking i am having a heart-attack. i moved my hands a bit trying to relieve the pain but it was of no use. i started complaining to Santosh abt it while the anesthesiologist noticed my discomfort and said she'll take care. apparently she injected Paracetomal into the IV and in a few mins the pain was less, though not gone completely. i couldn't help my thoughts which started turning filmy 'O God, pls let me live for my baby!' :-)
And then, yet again the british nurse appeared holding Aditi wrapped up and at once she placed the baby with her head resting on my chest. And lo, Aditi turned her head slightly up and gazed at me and i was thrilled! Yahoooooooo, i am a mommy once again! I said to santosh 'she's looking at me, looking at me!!! o god, she's so cute!!!' Then the nurse told me that she's taking the baby away to be kept warm in an incubator and as soon as i return to my room Aditi will join me there and we'll try breast-feeding. The doc informed santosh that if he wanted to go with the baby he could do so. The man performed the vanishing-act yet again (but, not before thanking doctor profusely) and i was left alone to re-live the past few moments when Aditi looked at me for the first time and trying to etch in my mind permanantly the sight of Aditi as she was being held up by the doctor as soon as she was born.
The major portion of the operation was after the baby was out and exactly after an hour since she began, the doctor announced 'Ok Saraswathi, the surgery is complete'. i thanked her very much and told her i also appreciated her whole team in the theatre. the doctor left after telling me that i will be spending an hour in the recovery-room and then can go back to my room.
my original bed was rolled by my side and all the nurses in the theatre joined hands to lift me from the surgical-stand and place me on my bed. i was rolled on to a room with a lot of beds seperated by curtains. i could see a clock on the wall on my right-side. the time was 11:20 AM. there were a couple of other patients too, a lady and a man. i deduced this from the voices and could not see them as the nurse had drawn a curtain around my bed. the nurse bade me sleep and waited a couple of beds away. at this point i realised i was feeling cold. And soon enuf i was shivering uncontrollably. the lower portion of my body was still numb and although i felt only a dull sense of pain, i could feel that my body was trying to work out the trauma of being operated upon. The nurse approached me and asked me if i needed anything and i told her abt the coldness. she said it could be a delayed reaction to the temperature in the theatre which was much colder than the rest of the hospital. she covered me with a couple of extra blankets, but my teeth continued to chatter on their own.
Later i learned that meanwhile, Santosh had gone back to my room to convey the news to my mom and Nidhi. Although the nursery was right next to my room, in which my mom and Nidhi were waiting, they didn't know that Aditi was waiting for them next-door! Soon Santosh, Nidhi and my mom went to the nursery and took turns to gaze at the the new-born. Nidhi reached out and touched her little sister for the first time - this moment was captured by Santosh in his mobile. Aditi was sharing the nursery with yet another new-born like her, born a few mins earlier that day. Santosh called up his parents and sister and informed them all abt the safe arrival of little Miss.Aditi.
Exactly an hour later, i was wheeled into my room, chattering teeth and all.
When i finished my post-graduation(after much hard-work) i had promised myself i would never write an exam in my life if i could help it - to spare myself all the tension and hardwork i put in whenever i hear the word exam! A little while later i joined the company i had gotten into thru campus and the very first thing they did was to give us techincal training for 2-3 months and make us write exams - to decide which branch we would be going into (Java, .Net, Peoplesoft, mainframes, etc.) Java was the most sought after, needless to say i did my best and was the only girl to get selected in my batch. i never kept up the promise i made to myself regarding exams!
In the same way, based on my last experience with Nidhi, i knew although the surgery was completed successfully, we weren't out of the woods yet. The challenges were just abt to begin. Starting with breastfeeding, Aditi's first su-su, first poop, etc. A few mins after i settled into my room, Aditi was wheeled in in her cradle. Once again she was placed near me and i gave her a 'kichi' on her head calling her 'kondai' for the first time. The nurse said shall we try feeding and i asked Santosh to wait outside for a bit. Nidhi firmly refused to leave my bedside now that her beloved sister was also here. My mom and Nidhi stood on my left side while Aditi was placed in the crook of my right arm, her face turned to me to help her feed. The second she was placed near me she started suckling! i almost had tears in my eyes - i was so happy coz i knew every baby takes its time and in rare cases some of them even refuse to do so(one of them in my own family). Thank God, first challenge met!
Santosh asked us anxiously from behind the curtains in the doorway, she's drinking? she's refusing? All of us, including the nurse started smiling and i marofyed a dialogue of SRK from Chak De - 'Jo use seekh ke aana tha, woh usne seekh ke aayi hai' and my mom started saying 'of course, she's Nidhi's sister. how will she not feed!'. i still remember during Nidhi's time, the malayalee nurse had said 'miduki kutty aana, palu kudikyanadu kandille!'.
I was forbidden to get up for 24hrs bcoz of the spinal anasthesia, but Santosh and Nidhi became permanent fixtures beside the cradle. Santosh spent so much time bending down to gaze at his baby in close-up that i thought he would be the one requiring back-care, not me after my surgery. i could see Aditi only from my sleeping position, though it helped that her cradle was in an inclined angle. Nidhi was greatly excited and talked thru the day alternately spending time with me and Aditi. My mom continued her prayers to thank God and alongwith Santosh spent the day calling up others and sharing the good news. As for Santosh, it was one of the happiest days in his (and my) life and i will never forget his face shining with joy! Oye, it made him even more handsome, as if such a thing were possible ;-)
The thing with C-section is the milk doesn't arrive immediately and the first few hrs the baby has to be supported with formula-milk. i remember being paranoid when i became Mom the first time. It took a day (with much suckling on Nidhi's part and much praying on my part) for milk to start flowing. This time i was prepared and part of my preparations included drinking oats-kanji daily from 8th month onwards. Kanji(oats, raagi, etc.), milk, butter-milk as suggested by my aunt and orange-juice(warm) as suggested by the dietician in the hospital r best for producing milk. And, i found it to be true thru my experience with Aditi.
But now however, few hrs after the surgery, milk had not appeared yet and as usual i had started my frantic prayers. All Doctors will tell you the only way for milk to start flowing is to let the baby feed as much as possible. Yes, i noticed Nidhi put in all her efforts when she was a baby. And, then there's little Miss.Aditi. Soon she caught on that when u can get formula with zero effort on ur part, y waste ur energy with ur mom? the more profitable proposition is to just enjoy ur mom's warmth when u r placed next to her and go right off to sleep. and this is what she did! As advised by the nurses we would poke her cheek, chin, ears in order to wake her up and continue trying to feed. Other than producing a red-rash on her cheek, this had no other effect. Aditi would get irritated at being woken up, cry awhile, suckle a couple of times(not enuf at all) and drop right back to sleep. And, wake up to be fed formula by enthusiastic nurses. A few hrs passed by, then i started getting really worried. Won't be i able to feed my baby?
The anasthesia took quite a while to wear off and i had a relatively pain-free 6 to 8 hrs during which feeling returned to my body bit-by-bit. Though my teeth were still chattering. At one point i noticed my whole body was shivering, but the only solution of the nurse and doctor was to to reduce the a.c. in my room. surprisingly this worked and by night-time i was alright. Santosh stayed back with me while Nidhi and my mom went home for a break from all the day's excitement.
The next day early in the morning (as in 3 AM or something), Aditi went in for a diaper change(not her first) after which the nurse informed me that she had passed her first motion and done her first su-su as well. Thank God! Once my mom came in the morning i hurried to inform her, as next to me, she is the most paranoid person regarding these things.
In the morning Aditi was wheeled away to have her first proper bath and at 11 AM(once 24 hrs had passed since surgery) i was taken for a shower too. The nurse will help u the first time and from then on, expect that u do it urself. Similarly with feeding, apart from the first time, it was solely upto us how we would manage feeding Aditi. i kept telling Santosh on how we r not keeping up with feeding and at this rate God knows when the milk will appear. santosh came up with a brilliant idea. i would feed Nidhi (by this time i could sit up and the first thing i did after my shower was to sit in my bed and take Aditi in my arms for the first time! Also, this gave us a much more comfortable position to feed from.) Placing numerous pillows for support and covered in cozy blankets, Aditi and i would sit down for feeding and Santosh would sit nearby. Whenever Aditi fell asleep, he would stroke her head with her baby's-cap and tickle her lightly. This would wake her up without irritating her and she would try to feed again. This simple but brilliant solution worked and in a few hrs Aditi was feeding well and could be taken off formula. Hurrah!
We stayed for 4 days in the hospital. Santosh and i would spend the morning with Aditi - talking to her, laughing with her, playing with her - having become parents a second time we wanted to savour the experience as much as we could. Later in the day Nidhi and grandmom(my mom) would come and it would be their turn to play with Aditi. The evenings would be full of friends and relatives dropping in to see the new addition to our family.
After being discharged from the hospital, Santosh and i took Aditi home in our car, nestled against me. Half-way thru we gave a missed call to amumma(my mom) to get the 'alathi' ready. When we reached our apartment, santosh parked as close as possible to the entrance of our building. And there stood Nidhi and amumma, standing with umbrellas so that not even the slightest of sun could touch the baby! i held Aditi and my mom helped with the umbrellas. Nidhi carried the balloons(left over from decorating the hospital-room) and Santosh carried a few essentials. After 'alathi', we entered our home.
And, lived happily ever after! :-)
Whenever i thank God for everything going so smoothly when Aditi was born, in the same breath i also thank Santosh, Nidhi, my mother (and my father for managing alone sending my mom here months together) - for being the most supportive family in this world and seeing Aditi and me thru everything at the hospital and ever after too!
Ok, so, if u r still reading this, pls congratulate urself for ur perseverance since u have now reached the end of this marathon post! After all, it's not so easy to give birth to a baby, then y shd reading abt it be easy! ;-)
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