She's growing up

So B has been sitting up for well over a week now. I used to think there would be one moment when she would  suddenly  go from rocking on all fours to sitting up straight. The way it played out though, I have difficulty recalling when it was that she actually   sat  up. I remember  this - one morning, I groggily opened  my eyes to keep a watch  on B, who was already  up and playing on her bed. Just in time  to see her settle on her bum. As if she'd  been doing  it for ages. I mumbled to J that our  little one was now sitting  up on her own.

Coming to think  of it,  most of her milestones have been that way  - understated and gradual. It's like she  flows through various stages without stopping at any  and making a big deal of things. But a part of me wishes I was more  adept at catching  those firsts amidst the flow. Like the time I caught her standing up. That was a BANG moment. I just walk out of the toilet one day, and there she was, up on her feet, balancing herself  on the  cots railings.

The undeniable fact is that b is growing  up. Soon she'll be walking  and playing on her own. And she won't  need me every  minute like she does now. While a part of me will be glad  to be able to take bathroom breaks when I need them, most of me will be sad and forever wondering  whether I  made the best use of the early months when I was the centre of her little  world.

B and a profound lesson in mindfulness

J and I went out for dinner, along with B, on Saturday. This was our first evening out in a very very long time. The evening itself went really well. B was being the darling that she always is, too inquisitive to be satisfied sitting in one place all the time, but alert and happy as long as we gave her enough to keep her occupied and walked her around every few minutes. Anyway,  during the drive back home, though, she was hungry and soon she was crying loud and kicking her feet, I'm sure, unable to understand why I would be sitting right there beside her, but not feed her. It broke my heart, to sit there helpessly watching her, and the 10 or so minutes felt like eternity. Every so often, she would quieten, lick her parched, dry lips and begin crying again, looking at me, her teary eyes pleading with me to feed her. I sat tight, biting my lips. Cursing myself.

As soon as we reached home, I grabbed her and held her against my breast. She drank with an urgency I'd rarely seen beyond her newborn days and I bit back the tears that were threatening to escape. In about 5 minutes, she might have felt satiated enough to stop feeding temporarily. She pushed away and looked up at me and smiled. 

There, right there, was a profound lesson in mindfulness. A moment ago, in distress from hunger, she reacted the only way she could - by crying, but now, all that was forgotten. A smile played on her lips, even as the trails left by the tears on either side of her eyes, still felt fresh and wet against my hand. I wiped away her tears and told her I was sorry. It made no difference to her, she was back to feeding and snuggled against my breast, breathing deeply. 

I'm deeply aware of how much I have to learn from B. She lives mindfulness, as only babies can. Thich Nhat Hanh says the younger the monks, the easier it is to initiate them into the practice of mindfulness. Older people, he says, come with baggage accumulated over the years, and all that has to be cleared away before they can be open enough to practice in earnest. Babies, they need no initiation. They just need us not to pile on the baggage.

Not to condition B, that's my job as a mother. Because, she is the way she should be. And I trust that is how she will develop and grow and blossom, as long as J and I keep out of her way and curb the urge to influence her to conform to our dubious standards of goodness or righteousness or beauty.

If I could achieve a fraction of her beautiful and uncomplicated way of life, I'd be well on the way to being a Buddha myself.

Love and peace.

My little foodie

At a little over 4 months, B was showing all signs of being a foodie, just like J and myself. Now, almost 5 months, she's definitely one :)

Its been almost a month since B started puréed food. We've done carrots, apples, bananas, avocados and courgettes as of now, and she seems to like all of them. When the apple's a little sour,she crinkles up her eyes and mouth but then swallows the purée before reaching out for the next mouthful. It's very encouraging to see how open she is to new tastes and textures (I only mash food by hand, no fancy appliances, at least not yet) and so adorable to see her sat there, spoon in hand, purée all around her mouth!

Both J and I can't stop marvelling at how excited she gets when she's in the kitchen or at mealtimes, when we are all holding platefuls of food. She has that typical look in her eyes and her lips are pursed in rapt attention. I really can't wait for her to be old enough to cook and bake with me in the kitchen. Oh, such fun awaits us!

B is also unbelievably but adorably lazy at times - specially when I try to gently roll her over. Her motto these days seems to be ' Try hard till you succeed, then chill'. She rolled over for the first time before she was even three months and did a few more times until the novelty wore off. Since then, she's content lying on her back, holding her feet, sometimes chewing on them and having long immersing conversations with her hanging rainforest play gym friends. If I try to roll her over, she resists vehemently, spreading her hands out and refusing to move her legs, all with a mischievous smile. If I place her on her tummy, she holds up one arm and smoothly rolls over to her back again. The very few times she actually chooses to stay on her tummy, she sticks her little bum up and pushes herself forward for a little while before rolling over to her back.

The more I see her playful side, the more I'm becoming aware of this feeling within me - I don't want to share B with just about anyone. I want to play with her all the time and feed and put her to sleep and talk and learn and go for walks and do everything with her. I am aware that I am possessive. I don't want to be and I know I shouldn't be, but I am having to work consciously to get rid of this instinct. She is my baby, but she is her own free person. I musn't suffocate her. More importantly, I musn't limit her.

I'm learning, my little one, I am. Hopefully, I will rovep myself worthy of you.

Love and peace.

The first swim lesson

B had her first swimming lesson today, and, my, what fun we all had. I think I'm slowly learning the joy of doing something as a family. It was so much fun sharing the experience of her first day at the pool, I couldn't stop grinning even an hour after returning home. It was J's dream to take her to a baby swimming class, something he would rave about before we even know we were going to have her!

B has the most adorable swimming costume - a blue frilly polka dotted top half that's attached to her blue happy nappy.She looks like such a doll in it! We were told by someone earlier that photography is a strict no-no in pools, which I sort of get, given that people are in a state of undress, but we found out today that everyone else at the pool was clicking away while J and I had both left our camera and cellphones back home! So we had to make do with my mom's low res mobile camera. Well, a low res camera is better than no camera at all, so soon I was clicking away as well. J was going to get into the pool with her, because, well... I can't swim. 

B was a natural in water. The instructor was friendly and helped J and B get into the routine quickly. B loved the splish-splash and basically the extended bath tub and had a field day splashing about and looking around. Even when she was introduced to the underwater manoeuvre, she coughed but she didn't so much as wince! I am so proud of my little girl! 

After the 30 minute session, she came out with a look that said, well, that wasn't too bad, was it? We wrapped her and changed her quickly. If there was something that I was even remotely unhappy about on the day, it was the changing room - there wasn't any. We had to make do with a tiny store room with tons of plastic boxes in it, and - the part I was most unhappy about -lay her on the ground and change. You'd think they'd be a little more mindful of something like that when they organise these sessions for babies, right? There was a nagging fear in the back of my mind that she may want to be fed right then and there because I could see how intensive the swimming session was for the babies, but she was a trooper and was calm and collected (much more so than J and me, we were excited like kids in a candy store) and waited patiently till we drove home before she could feed.

I had heard stories about how babies tended to have marathon sleep sessions after each swim and I was geared up for a couple of hours at least, but no! B was B, as usual, and woke up smiling within 40 minutes of falling asleep. Sometimes I wonder, what it would take to tire B out, but then, really, I don't want to find out. I love her energetic ways and miss her so badly when she's asleep. If she's asleep past the 30 minute mark, I can't resist checking on her and just lingering a little longer to caress her head because the house is suddenly so silent when she isn't awake! 

All in all, a lovely day. I have my own little family now and it's so so rewarding. And we've only just begun! J and I have so many firsts waiting for us, I am excited just thinking about all the little and big things we will get to do with B as she grows up. We're so so lucky. We're grateful. For every single moment. 

Love and peace.

Of smiles and little else

B is becoming more and  more playful these days. She's also more generous with her smiles. We're all falling over each other to do the right things - the sort of things that she rewards with a smile or sometimes even better, ringing blissful peels of laughter. She finds mirth in the weirdest things - grandma's exaggerated cough, her dad swooshing her up and down, me touching her nose. Her smile isn't limited to just her lips, it is a celebration that envelops her whole body. She jumps up, buries her face in the crevices of her neck, waves her hand in an 'Oh Please!' sort of way and smiles, her tongue stuck in between her toothless gums. 

When her dad retrns from work and greets her with his trademark Betaa!, she does all of this and then puts her hand forward in an unmistakable invitation to hold her. I don’t often have her fawn over me like she does with her dad and I used to be jelaous.

Until recently.

I make it a point to feed her before bed, but only after she’s fully calmed down, as this makes her feed better. The other day, in the middle of her feed, she stopped. I assumed it was one of her many breaks, where she leans back to breathe before latching on again. But this wasn’t one of those. She just lay back and looked up at me, her eyes wide open. In a pure wonderment that only little babies would be capale of. I smiled back at her. I tightened my arms around her and told her I loved her. She continued to look at me. The intensity and purity in her gaze was at once unnerving and overwhelming; we’re rarely used to such unblemished emotions as adults. I felt my eyes well up. I caressed her hair and told her I’d forever be there for her and that I loved her. Suddenly, she broke into the most radiant smile. But she didn’t bury her face, instead she just continued to look up at me and kept smiling. I could’ve beheld that cherubic face and held on to her warm little body foregver.  A few more moments and then she closed her eyes and returned to feed, in a meditative peace. Since that day, B and I have had this private rendexvous everyday. It’s like her way of telling me that no matter what, I’ll always be special to her. And I look forward to it. A few moments when the res tof the world just melts away, just B and I looking into each others eyes and conveying all the love that words just cannot express.

Every moment with her is a miracle. I can’t be grateful enough.

Love and peace.

Flashback - The Birth

By the time B was coaxed out, I was 13 days overdue and in labour for more than 5 days. 

Since early pregnancy, I often wondered what labour would be like - it wasn't, of course, going to be a walk in the park, but I reasoned it would be a few hours at most, and the best case would be to get through it, with any luck, needing no medical intervention. My naive idea of worst case was a day and a half of labour.

Hmmm. 

The niggles started on the Sunday and by Monday night, I was wincing in pain with each contraction. By day three, days and nights had melted into a series of 10 minutes, each marked by an erratic but consistently painful set of contractions. Much more exhausting and exasperating than the contractions was how everyone trivialised what, to me, was, until then, the worst pain I had known. Actual labour would come later, they would say, so could I be fed and hydrated and get some sleep? In other words, could I stop being a wuss and not make such a fuss about a few little niggles? I couldn't help but wonder how this could be just the beginning, when I was doubled over and breathless at the end of each contraction - was my pain threshold so low? Was I really a wuss? 

I learnt later that in fact I was in established labour for most of the five days. The medical community recognises this as slow labour, but since there is no device to measure pain levels, this hardly gets the attention it deserves. Most women are told to deal with it. Like I was. For most of them, there is some progress, however slow. 

Not so for me.

The cervix plays an important part in labour. Simply put, it dilates to allow the baby a passage out. Each contraction in essence, is the uterus pushing the baby out and the cervix dilates to make way for the baby. Ten centimetres. That is the magic number you're looking for. Most people hit this in a couple of days at most. I didn't' hit this in five.

There was some temporary respite on Wednesday morning when I went in to the hospital and a kind midwife allowed a dose of pethidine so I could get some rest. That gave me about four hours of sleep, before I was back to counting contractions again and willing my cervix to dilate. Fast. Next morning, they politely told me to return home and wait, since I wasn't 'progressing' at all. But not before more well-meaning advice about how I should eat and drink and sleep since this was only the beginning and I would definitely know when I'm in established labour, because, then it would really begin to hurt.

Okay.

On Friday, at 12 days overdue, again, I went in to the hospital and begged for pain relief. It didn't matter if I had the lowest pain threshold in the world, but I couldn't take this any longer. The midwife I met there was the first person other than J who seemed to believe that I was in genuine pain. After yet another internal examination - by this time, I was almost indifferent to the indignity and invasiveness of this - she told me that in spite of intense contractions, my cervix just wasn't budging. She could give me another dose of pethidine as a respite but there was no explanation as to why my cervix was so obstinate. The pain came back stronger when the drug wore off, but there was no progress. A few of the midwives conferred and decided to nudge things forward by breaking my waters. Turned out B had relieved herself inside and had to now be constantly monitored constantly via an internal probe. Someone told me they were going to speed things up by putting me on hormone drips and since the pain would most definitely intensify further, I could have an epidural. When the epidural took effect, I was pain free for the first time in almost a week.

But it would be a long time before B was born. 

J was there in the middle of all this, rugged as a rock, managing the home front and  trying everything in his capacity to relieve my pain. Watching me in agony must have been difficult but I suspect what he found most difficult to deal with, was his helplessness. Having taken the week off work, he sat by the bedside with me, at home and in the hospital, massaging my back and holding my hands, gently reminding me to breathe,encouraging me but wisely stopping short of patronising affirmations. With me oscillating between periods of relative calm and downright agony, he kept the hospital bag ready and was forever on standby, prepared to rush out at a moment's notice. And then there were the unending phone calls and questions from family - is there some progress? why isn't there any progress?  are they doing a caesarean yet?  I listened, my head dug deep into pillows to stifle moans, as he fielded these with enviable grace. Throughout that week I was repeatedly reminded that J was made of way sterner stuff than I gave him credit for. 

I don't remember J's reaction to my waters breaking and the events immediately after. I can only imagine what must have been going through his mind - one minute I was lying there in the birthing room, doubled up in pain, the next they were telling us that our baby could be in danger. There was, however, some comic relief - I vividly remember him laughing out loud at something I said while under the influence of the gas and air they gave me prior  to breaking my waters. Though at that time I was sure I would recall this later, it turns out I was really quite drugged and have no clue what it was that had him in splits. 

At the labour room, almost an hour passed before the epidural was administered. However, once it took effect, I was enveloped in a numb peace. It struck me, then, that over the past few days, I had forgotten what life without pain felt like. The hormones were steadily dripping away, and I wondered whether my body was receptive to them at all. Somewhere along with the various wires and needles that were put in, they had also slipped in the most invasive of them all - the internal baby monitor. It would be stapled on to her little scalp, they said, and I cringed at the thought. I had visions of my little baby crying in the womb from the pain. Each time I moved a little, I worried whether the staple moved or hurt her more. While I was sprawled on the bed all night, J had to make do with a cramped chair in the corner of the room. Not that he was going to sleep much anyway. Everytime I woke up after nodding off, I found him  hovering around me, checking the monitors, especially the little one's heartbeat. When the midwife came in for regular checks, J and I would inundate her with questions, the foremost being, how much longer?

Over the course of the night and the next morning, little had changed, despite the hormone drips having been stepped up to crazy levels. We had different doctors come and explain to us that we had to wait a little longer. Her heartbeat was strong, they said, and that meant there was no reason to intervene yet. I wondered where I would muster the energy to go through a natural delivery, having had little to eat or drink in the preceding 24 hours. Also, what was the logic in waiting for her heartbeat to not be alright before intervening? Who would guarantee us her safety? In that sleep deprived, sedated state, I said nothing. I just held on to J's hands and prayed.

Finally around noon, a doctor came in to tell us that at 13 days overdue, after eighteen hours of hormone induction, the cervix was at 4 cms, the level at which some women start their labour process. They were going to operate. I distinctly remember searching within for some sense of relief. There was none. Despite being pumped with all sorts of drugs, my body wasn't willing to embrace the natural process of giving birth. I felt let down. I noticed J was showing no emotion either. This was probably the farthest from anything he might have wanted for our birth experience. I was letting him down, I thought, and a sense of inexplicable shame consumed me.

The next few minutes passed like a whirlwind. We were ushered into the operation theatre and briefed on the procedure. The epidural wasn't entirely effective after all that while, so I was given a spinal block. J sat beside me, holding my hand while the doctors set about helping my baby out into the world. Others who have had caesarean sections have said that they could feel tugs and pulls, except it wasn't painful. I was trying to work up some excitement when someone announced to J that he could see the baby now. 

What?

My baby was born. 

Why hadn't I felt anything? 

I spent nine months dreaming about the moment I would greet my baby into the world, and it was over. Without me even being aware of it. Cruel, I thought.

J stood up, and sat down shortly after. I could see he had tears in his eyes. He couldn't speak, but in his eyes I saw a million unspoken words. In the tears he wiped away, I saw an expression of all the emotions I had imagined I would feel. And then, they brought her to me. Wrapped in a white towel, eyed partly opened, she looked up at me. My baby. Not in my arms, but within reach. Safe and sound. And beautiful. Oh, so beautiful. 

God, she's beautiful!

Those were my first words. And my second. And my third. The numbness was gone. In it's place was a happiness that was beyond any happiness I had ever known. It was perfection. It was as if the universe had conspired all along to present J and I with that moment, and now that we had it, it had receded into the background, smiling, and peered at us from around the corner while we savoured it.

Back in the labour room, B was laid against me, her tiny tiny body against mine. She snuggled up instantly, her little hands on me, eyes closed and her pink lips in a pretty pout. Like she belonged. Like she was home. Everything felt right. Just right. 

The Little Buddha

It was the best birthday ever.

It was on the 11^th of January last year that I had the first inkling that she was inside me. Towards the end of a day that seemed impossibly long and filled with the most number of bathroom visits ever, I felt sure enough to share the news with J – I was officially late! The next 8 months have been some of the happiest in all my life – the hope, the anticipation and most importantly, the wonderment as a miracle unfolds in real time – I don't think anything ever prepares you for the journey.

Now, as I sit next to her while she sleeps, both arms up, like a peaceful little laughing Buddha, I’m intensely aware that everything’s happening way faster than I bargained for. The months leading to her arrival seem like a dream, even more so, the days before and after her birth. That I actually gave birth and held this throbbing new life in my hands, that J and I shared this intimate spiritual experience together, that the tiny little thing we gingerly held just three months ago is now a spirited little bundle of energy, that each day is so beautiful and so blessed but also so overwhelmingly different to the ones before, is all so unreal. Except it isn’t. It is all very very real, but it is all also in the past. Looking at the blurry cell phone photos of our first few hours together fills me with a deep sadness. It is a reminder that I will not be able to live those moments again,  they are now relegated to photos. I wish I remembered more of the past year. I wish I could rewind and go back to some of the most intense times and feel them once again. I wish I have the good sense to cherish and live each moment with the little one to the fullest before it’s gone. 

My little girl is all of three months and I already miss her. She has already brought such immeasurable peace and love to J and I, she’ll forever be our little Buddha.