Motherhood Chronicles - II

“Are you enjoying your motherhood?”, the doctor asked me. It was a loaded question and I couldn’t truthfully say “Yes – It’s a joy. It’s completed my life. It’s what I had been waiting for. It’s given new meaning to my life. I couldn’t say any of these things truthfully. Maybe I’m just not cut out to be a mother. Everyone around me including my husband and my father seem to be enjoying her presence and existence. The only person who seems to be aloof from the merriment is me. For me it’s as if I’m seeing someone else’s life from outside. I still don’t feel a part of my own life. Having a child is said to be a life altering experience, but for me it’s been an event which has made me forget my own life.

I’ve always been someone without too much attachment to children. So when time came for me to have my own, I was skeptical as to how I would deal with it. There were no surprises. I didn’t have any sudden surge of maternal instinct or feeling. When she cries, I’m the last one in the house to get affected. My mother and mother in law come rushing in to pacify her. When she throws up, everyone at home gets psyched. I browse the internet, find that throwing up is normal in infants and decide that there is nothing to be worried about. I’ve never stayed and watched my bai give her a bath. I’ve never dressed her up after a bath. I’ve never put her to sleep. I’ve practically done nothing. Then you may ask “What do I do as a mother?” – practically nothing. I feed her and that too not too effectively. Most of the time she is still hungry after I feed her. I sometimes feel tired to do this only thing that I’m required to do and my mother uncomplainingly feeds her Lactogen. I’ve changed her diaper a couple of times and helped my mom or mom in law clean her up after her potty or vomit sessions. That’s about it. My role in my child’s life can be easily substituted by a tin can of Lactogen.

Everyone seems to find enough reason to hold her, talk to her, play with her i.e. everyone except me. Somehow everyone in the house seem to think of me only when it is time to feed her. Otherwise, if she is crying in my arms, no one thinks I’m capable of sushing her, if she is drowsy, no one thinks I’m capable of putting her to sleep, if she is awake – well there are so many people fawning over her that I feel out of place. She is my child – amn’t I supposed to be the one closest to her? I feel as though I’m the only person who she has no connect with. My dad reads her the newspaper and she seemingly enjoys it. My husband narrates events of the day to her and she listens aptly to him. My mom is constantly playing with her. My mother in law is always on the look out to take her from my arms to either put her to sleep or to play with her. The only person who has spent an equally less or maybe lesser time with her than me is my grandmom and that is mainly because she is 76 and is very skeptical of holding the baby.

Then there are these comments which people say to soothe the kid when crying – mainly “Didn’t mommy feed you enough?”, “Didn’t mommy feed you on time?” which may be totally innocent but make me not want to be in the same room as the child when her mouth is not stuffed with my teats. There are also theories – interesting ones which again have to point fingers at me – “It’s my breast milk dripping on her face which has caused all the heat rashes on her face” – I guess the sweltering heat of Mumbai has nothing to do with it. “It must be the foul smell that you emit which makes the kid stop feeding early leading to her stomach not getting filled” – what do you expect me to smell like when I’m covered in dripping sticky milk, vomit, urine, stool and my own blood from the eternal bleeding which I’m to suffer for at least 40 days after I give birth.

But maybe I’m being too unfair by blaming only others for this situation. I’ve seen my husband just sit and look at her when she is sleeping – unconditional love written large on his face. I’ve seen my mom – almost half dead after all the house work and sleepless for days together staying up all night ensuring that the kid is sleeping well and doesn’t vomit. I’ve seen my dad pick her up and walk for long periods of time and enjoying talking to her. And what do I do – I normally watch TV or stare into emptiness or fall asleep while feeding her. The fact that I take absolutely no initiative to bond with the kid really doesn’t help my cause. And the saddest part is that I don’t feel like taking that initiative. There are so many others doing everything – why should I bother?

Anyway, I’m not sure how things will pan out – but being the die hard pessimist that I am, I don’t have much hope.

The Motherhood Chronicles - I

15 days back my life as I had known it for 30 odd years changed – whether for better or for worse needs to be seen. The change though gargantuan in nature came in a pretty small package, all of 2.75kgs and red – no I’m not talking of fresh ripe tomatoes… I’m talking about the stork visiting me with a lovely daughter as a gift. It’s one of those changes that nature gives you nine months to prepare for – both mentally and physically and still when the time comes you feel like an engineering student on the eve of his final exams – totally clueless with a new found faith in God.

It all started way back in August of 2010 when I discovered that I had conceived. Now, I don’t know what an ideal reaction to an incident like that should be, but I tried to act all pumped up and excited. Frankly, I was shitting bricks. What does this mean – and my mind was conjuring up all the extreme negative side effects of parenthood – total loss of freedom, additional responsibilities which I was not ready for, stretching my already stretched body to its maximum, additional expenses, maybe sacrifices required on the career front… was I ready for all that? Nope I wasn’t – and I didn’t think I ever would be. So I decided that as a matter of “social obligation” which is what my husband calls marriage (and it is one of the few things that I agree with him on) and family; a child had to be had and the timing was as good as any. I was just about to cross 30 and apparently my biological clock would be ticking away to glory and getting pregnant and delivering would only become an uphill task going forward. If the misery had to be undergone, better do it when the body is capable of doing it with the least amount of trouble.

Then came the months of uneventful checkups with a gynec. Even the selection of a gynec was a totally lackluster event. We looked for a hospital / nursing home close to our residence, called them up and asked them if they had a gynec – no references, no hi-fi hospitals, no second opinions. I had a pretty mundane pregnancy. No complications (touchwood), no excitements, no hiccups. Life was so ordinary that if an expectant mother were to ask me what are the symptoms of morning sickness, I would have to give an answer from one of the myriad pregnancy books as I have no practical experience of the same. My tummy didn’t even show till about the 7^th month. The highpoint in my life was the 1^st scan we took of the kid where I heard the kids heart beat. I was a weird feeling and the 1^st time that the feeling sunk in that there was life inside of me and I was responsible for it.

I was working from home practically for the whole duration of my term and though the work was hectic, I didn’t have to travel at all and that was a big relief. There was so much work that I didn’t have time to mull over the details of pregnancy like “is the baby kicking”, “do you have cravings”, “do you feel tired” etc. I was on phone all the time with no time even for the mandatory “walk”. Everyone at home and work decided that the kid was going to be an expert in the field of internal controls and anti corruption regulations around the world when it came out because that’s all what I spoke for around 7 months out of the 9 months of pregnancy. Then as usual at a crucial junction of my pregnancy when something had to happen, my hubby decided to go for a short stint to Singapore. The only thing we as a couple have an unspoken agreement about is the importance of our respective careers - I didn’t want to stop him. So with him out of the way, the path was clear for me to leave the dreaded city of Bangalore and come home to Mumbai.

In Mumbai, my parents smothered me with affection to an extent that I felt guilty being pregnant and turning their life upside down – little did I know what was in store after the baby came. Their actions also scared the living day lights out of me – these were big shoes to fill and these actions were too tough to equal. I could not for the life of me visualize myself or my husband being so selfless and doing all the same things for our child that my parents were doing for me.

And then the big day arrived – I was due to go for a checkup on 21^st April – it was mom’s birthday and we had the whole afternoon planned. As usual, the best laid plans are the ones which go totally haywire. My water broke at the stroke of midnight on 21^st – when the rest of the world was sleeping and I was contemplating waking my Mom and wishing her a very happy birthday – here I was waking her and telling her – Its time. It was a week early than we expected, but then the kid had other plans I guess. There was no mad rush to the hospital – I sure that if I wrote a detailed book on the days and months of my pregnancy, it would turn out to be one of the most boring books ever written as nothing exciting happened.

We were at the hospital at half past midnight and the doc was there. No, I didn’t feel any pains and the doc expected no action till morning. Sleep well – its going to be a tough day tomorrow. The day came, many well wishers, mostly mom’s colleagues and friends who were almost like my surrogate mom’s were at the hospital more to provide moral support than for anything else. Between 6 am and 6 pm, the doc tried inducing labour pains some 4 times and finally gave me an epidural when she was convinced that I wasn’t going to deliver normally. She thought that if I wasn’t going to deliver normally I might as well be spared the pain. Finally at 6.50pm or so, nearly 19 hours after my water broke, I went under the knife and in 10 minutes the kid was out.

There was new life on planet E and I was responsible for it. I didn’t know what to feel, I drifted off into a fitful sleep aided by the anesthesia……Little did I know that for a very long time to come, all my sleeps would be fitful and an 8 hour sleep would be a luxury that I couldn’t afford – very much like a BMW or Audi.