It was just like any other ordinary day when my husband and I were lying in bed when he suddenly popped a question asking me if I'd like to make a baby. Ofcourse we had been talking about it for quite sometime but the spontaneity of that question got me all excited and we decided to act on it.
Fast forward to about 3 weeks and our pregnancy test showed a positive result. Yay!!! It was the beginning of the craziest ride of our lives yet. A happy ride but crazyyy! Parenthood changes our lives forever. I am sure that's the oldest clichè statement but it suddenly makes so much sense when we actually go through the whole process.
Per my usual self, I started preparing for a natural birth from the first trimester itself. Yoga sessions, reflexology, meditation, eating healthy, listening to hypnosis tapes and the list went on and on. I wanted my birth story to be perfect just like how everything else in my life has always been. However, little did I know, that my naughty bubb had her own plans and she was gonna unfold them to me in the coming months! Needless to say, not one thing ended up as I had planned or wanted.
I wanted to go for a babymoon. Couldn't do that as I got pregnancy sciatica. I wanted to do a pregnancy photoshoot but the mini-me decided to enter the world a week before my scheduled shoot and guess how? Via an emergency C-section instead of a beautiful water birth that I had imagined! Wow! Talk about a completely different parallel plan going on that suddenly blows up right into your face and all we can do is accept it!
Anyways, so there I was...holding my tiny little baby girl in my arms who had decided to come to us a month and a half early. It was one of the first signs that made me understand how she is going to have a mind and a will of her own as she grows old and I probably won't be able to do anything except guide her to the best of my capabilities.
All the while my husband and I could never picture how our daughter would look but when I held her in my arms, she was the ultimate, perfect mix of both of us. It felt amazing to see how God had answered each an every prayer of mine - she had my eyes, my husband's smile and dimples, my hair, my husband's innocence and my naughtiness. I couldn't have asked for a better mix. World's very own mixologist had churned out something so beautiful for us.
We brought our baby girl home and therein began the journey of my motherhood along with an excruciating post partum recovery. I think C-section is the only major surgery in life where a woman's abs are cut into half, a baby is pulled out, abs are stitched back and the mother is expected to immediately entertain guests, start breastfeeding, be completely responsible for the little person that has come out of her, deal with the uterus contractions, baby blues, incessant bleeding, hormonal imbalance, be awake all night along and try to remain sane at the same time.
Before I delivered my baby, I had some gazillion questions in my head. Like what will I do if my baby cries? How will I calm her down? How will I know if I have fed her enough? How will I put her to sleep? How will I know if she is having pain? How will I give her a bath when she is so tiny? So many questions that used to make my head go topsy-turvy but my best friend gave me a piece of advice that I will be led by a divine energy in this journey and I will instinctively know how to deal with all kinds of situations. At the time I only believed it but didn't quite understand it. However, as days passed, I saw myself feeling all kinds of emotions that I never knew I even had and I knew exactly what to do with her.
Amidst changing incessant nappies, pumping breast milk, dealing with hormonal imbalance, sleep deprivation, exhaustion and what not, I would see my little bundle of joy sleeping next to me having no worries of the world and that just gave me all the energy in the world. It was a cathartic feeling. I was so happy looking at her that all I could do was just cry. Bawl like a baby. Pun intended. I had suddenly forgotten the world and all that mattered to me was her. My stitches were sore and I would take atleast five minutes to get up from bed and just straighten up but one tiny cry from her and I would just jump from my bed and take her in my arms having completely forgotten the pain of my stitches. I don't think even now I have ever understood how I managed to do all of that. That's the beauty of motherhood I think. We think we know the meaning of love and how to love but out of nowhere, one tiny little baby can show us a whole different spectrum of love, the kind of love for which we would do anything in this world!
My little baby girl is 10 months old now and needless to say this journey of motherhood has been bittersweet but so memorable. I look back and I realize time has flown by sooo fast. She is growing up so fast that I just want to freeze the time so that I can forever cuddle up with her in my arms and yet can't wait for her to grow up to surprise me in ways that I will never know. Each night that she falls asleep in my arms, I feel so much love in my heart that I can probably only express it through tears. In the silent, darkness of night, when the whole world around me ceases to exist and its only me and her and I feel her resting on my chest and sleeping ever so peacefully, I feel this beautiful motherhood has been my calling...something that God weaved up so gracefully for me.
All the hardwork seems worth it. All the pain feels blissful. I know that my journey of motherhood has only been for 10 months and there is a long long way to go. No amount of preparation is ever going to be enough as I know there are going to be myriad amount of surprises down the lane, that things will never be the same again but seeing how she enhances my life each day is rewarding enough and I am all set for this wildest rollercoaster ride for the rest of my life. My lovely daughter has been my best teacher, showing me the mirror from time to time and making me understand things without saying a single word. She has made me feel the widest range of emotions in a very short span of time which in itself is unnerving and it is beyond surprising how someone so tiny has so many capabilities. And yet that is the unbelievable truth of life! How else can I explain 34 years of stubbornness and impatience vanishing into thin air in just 10 months?!?
So many times now I have been asked how does it feel to be a mother. Well, to sum up, it feels oxymoronic. I want to slow down the days and yet speed them up. I want my baby girl to grow up but I also want her to remain just a baby because very soon I won't be able to squish her in my arms. She drives me crazy and yet at the same time she makes me smile in the next instance. I sometimes feel like taking a break but yet I know I will miss her if I take that break. I honestly fail to understand what I am doing with her at times and yet I know what I am doing is right. I want to cry at times because I haven't found the time to dress up or do anything for myself in a very long time and yet I feel happy because one look at her and I feel whole. So yeah, these are the phases.
That's motherhood for me. :)
Special Note: I have one amazing person to thank during this whole time. My unbelievably stupendous husband. Without him, I "literally" wouldn't have been able to give birth to our beautiful daughter. Thanks to him, it was one late period that was the beginning of this whole journey and now we are never going to be on time for anything for the near forseeable future. 😋. But on a serious note, I thank him for being my pillar of strength, calming me down, wiping my tears, holding me tight, not losing his cool when I was busy driving him crazy, bearing all my idiosyncracies, listening to my incessant talking and I guess the list will forever go on!! But above all, I thank him for being THE best dad to our baby girl.
Comments