Breaking out of the bubble (for moms).

So, I survived the first 6 weeks and survived a major abdominal surgery. You don't normally equate a c-section with major surgery but after reading up about it, I am convinced it is. Compared to the nightmare that was my first (non-surgery) delivery recovery, this one seems better but I guess if things had gone wrong with the surgery, it could have gone terribly wrong.

The bubble thing. The first six weeks after r~ was born, I was in a haze. I continued to be in a haze even three months after she was born. I just didn't feel quite right (which later I discovered was my thyroid levels acting up). But thyroid levels being off or not, the first six weeks after delivery, you live in a bubble. In my case, I kept hanging on tight to different mementos, places, things at different times during those six weeks. The first thing I held on to as a security object for a few days was this pair of socks -- they gave it to me at the hospital just before the surgery...



The five days in the hospital this time were mainly about little milestones, little victories for me. Last time, it was quite the bollywood drama -- I asked to go home after third degree tears, hemorrhage and the doctor said he would stamp an AMA (against medical advice) on my forms if I did that! 3 days of labor, attempt to birth at home etc etc. Long story that. This time, everything was planned and felt a bit unreal. k actually had a real hospital bag ready (last time, after my last bit of strength with home birthing and labor had drained off, I picked up a kroger bag, stuffed a few nighties in it and insisted we rush to the hospital with that). This time around, we had taken a real hospital tour, pre-registered, all that good stuff.

After a 'regular' delivery, delivering a baby by c-section was...different. I almost missed laboring (or perhaps that was my hormonal imbalance speaking to me). I missed the challenge of kicking labor in its *-- and knowing that I have the strength to push the baby out. I have read that labor pains is one of the worst forms of pain that a human being can endure. So, coming out of it alive seemed like winning something. I was thrilled to see baby m~ and wondered in a drug-induced haze if I should make another one of these wonderful little things but I hadn't pushed the baby out. I felt a little tugging and there she was! The post 'delivery' part of this pregnancy though was as miraculous as the first time :)

That's the surgery part of it. Then came the 5 day period where I had to kick a different *-- i,e surgery recovery :p I decided to stop and make a little mental note every time I crossed a milestone -- getting up to walk (12 hours after surgery), getting off the epidural, using the rest room for the first time, walking out of the hospital room for the first time, everything was a struggle and a small win. After 5 days, I almost felt scared to leave the hospital like I was leaving a safe bubble to go to the outside world. I guess the hospital room and nurses had become my second security blanket. I held on to little things like the warm water and apple juice k would give me in the hospital room -- each was a source of comfort that it was going to be ok.

At home, I looked forward to the huge scoops of nei that I know my mom would have had ready for me. I remembered the taste from my last time and somehow even that helped me recover -- the familiar tastes and smells of home, and settle down to a more normal routine at home. I shed a few tears for not being able to spend enough time with dear big sister r~. Our lives used to revolve around her constantly and now I wasn't able to shower her with the amount of attention I was accustomed to giving her. And the fact that she was so excited about her lil' sister and had not a jealous bone in her body only made me feel sadder somehow. I am back to doing activities and crafts with her (and sitting on the floor!) and am glad for that...it's always the small things that catch you unprepared.

What's the big deal, you ask? Everyone has or knows someone who has gone through a c-section (or a regular delivery for that matter). True, that. But, I thought I'd write a little about what it feels like to actually go through it and emerge out into the sunlight. I am still seeing through tinted glasses, still standing with one leg somewhat inside the bubble but I know I will step out eventually like I did last time.

Here's to all the moms who make the journey! It's not an easy one :)

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Moms stuff.

Got this from l~ on mother's day -- it's hilarious and... cute!

Best mom of the year -- me!

This other link is about Priscilla Dunstan and her baby-talk language. I tried to apply it to r~ when she was around 4 months old but she was probably past the new born baby-talk at that point. Highly amusing (for moms) to say the least.

Baby-talk

And this is my very first mother's day gift; it's engraved and plays a melody -- r~ loves it as much as I do!


And this email is something every mom will appreciate -- k sent me this email a day before r~ was born:

"I am so proud of the way you are coping with labor."

...so something does go on in that head of his while he does all his staring-at-vacant-spots-stuff; poor dude has hardly got a chance to relax and stare since he sent this email :p

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Food, growth spurts, and help -- not necessarily in that order

I am sleep-deprived. k is sleep-deprived. Li'l r~ is sleep deprived.

The good news?

Help is on its way! Yay! k's parents get here...anytime now which means while they cuddle, hold, play and smother li'l r~ with kisses, I shall fold my legs, make myself an enormous cup of coffee in the morning (which will begin after 9) and...just sit.

Today, I saw a desi couple walking on the road as k, r~ and I were watching from our mini-van and the first thought that crossed my mind was: Hey! We should be doing that now; the weather is so good. But, of course, the whole reason we were cruising along aimlessly in the van was that poor baby r is going through a pretty rough growth spurt.

Huh? Growth spurt? You ask me. As in baby milestones -- rolling over, sitting up, popping a tooth -- aww, how cute!

And I shall tell you a truth that has been hidden from you for so long. Growth spurts are fun. Especially when you think about them 14 years from now and share the event with your teenage daughter who yawns because she has heard that story so many times before. That's when it is fun. Now, it is just plain frustrating. Frustrating for baby who has to experience sore gums and loose motions and be out of sorts to pop out her first tooth, frustrating to mom because baby is suffering and frustrating for dad because mom and baby are frustrated. Every growth spurt is accompanied by fussing, sleepless nights and cruising in a van. That last bit was precisely what we were doing today evening.

r~ missed her evening nap, got herself overly tired and frustrated, forgot how to sleep in mom's hands, dad's hands, at home! And so we tried the time-tested car-seat sleep trick which every baby expert will tell you is the #1 golden rule of things to avoid while putting baby to sleep.

Heh.

Tell my daughter that.

So, the nice strolling in nice weather with a nice baby stroller was kind of out of question given our current situation. Anyway, in the near future, when we are in between the dreaded growth spurts, I hope to do that. r~ really does love the outside from the little she has seen of it so far. I can't wait to take her for her first stroller ride. I keep hearing stories about strollers ranging from super-sexy mom figure because of daily strolls with baby to super happy baby that sleeps blissfully during stroller walks. Like everything else in babydom, I guess I will have to actually put r~ in the stroller and go for a walk to see if I end up with a great figure or if I have to come rushing back into the house because r~ got upset with a friendly neighbourhood dog that decided to welcome her with a hearty bark!

I really can write a book, several actually with titles like: "You are expecting but you really have no idea what to expect!", "Tips to get through the first six weeks after which you will get used to it", "Baby sleep solution -- there is none", "Remember me? The mom?", "Parenting styles -- the generation gap" :p

Oh! Almost forgot; I actually cooked. There is evidence for the same.

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What this is not about.

My birth story
I thought of writing a birth story. As one of my friends put it, Radhu's birth was eventful enough to talk about it for quite sometime. But then, somewhere between midnight feedings and diaper changes I lost the enthusiasm to write about it. I did note down a pretty extensive story in my diary though. When Radhu is 16 and talking back at me, I plan to show her the diary entry, just like Marie (Arrgg, it's finally happened. I am planning to be like Marie of all people!):

Ray -"No"

Marie - "Oh the agony...when I carried you for nine months..."

Ray - "Ok mom, not that story again. I'll do it")

So anyway, I didn't write the birth story here. So, this post is not about that.

Drishti
Just like in any TamBram family, as soon as an auspicious event occurs, there is extensive discussion about drishti (nazar) and even more elaborate ways to circumvent it. For instance, inviting a 100 people to your new house for the house warming ceremony, these people being likely drishti candidates. Now, what defines a drishti candidate (i,e a drishti putter)?

A drishti putter is someone who is likely to see your fine new house and go, "Gosh! Look at their biiiiig house! It's so neat and shiny! Wish I had one like this" and then lo and behold! The east entrance of the house crumbles down because of a rare species of malfunctionaing termites. You get the point. So coming back to the discussion, a new house owner wishing to avoid drishti should invite the most likely 100 drishti putters (it's kind of like the flu vaccine, you select the most probable strains!) and then offer good food to them to avoid their drishti. Yup, we TamBrams sure know how to beat the "casters" of the evil eye!

I wanted to note down my thoughts on drishti but then I was so overwhelmed by the amount of rules and regulations for avoiding drishti for new baby and mom that I forgot to note them down here. (To be fair, my mom has been pretty lax about imposing them on me which is sweet of her...just in case she reads this post :p)

So this post is not about drishti.

Homesickness
What do you call it when you are homesick at home? That's what I have been having intermittently for the past several weeks. And I blame it on my house guests. My dad initially flew in for a week, followed by my brother for 10 days and then my sis-in-law for 10 days. And everytime they leave, I feel homesick all over again. I even considered going to Madras for a couple of months. Being a new mom puts certain things in perspective or way out of perspective. Which is pretty much how being a normal person is but anyway, what was I saying? Oh yeah, perspective. So you a new mom and you start thinking about how much quality time the grandparents are missing back in India and then you start thinking about moving back to India for good and then your husband goes like, "Whaa? Is this some weird manifestation of baby blues that has my wife suggesting sudden life changes?"

But after six weeks postpartum, I gave up the idea (at least for the time being). So, I couldn't really write about an India trip.

Baby Talk
Ever been in one of those mildly embarassing situations where the parents of a baby excitedly tell us "Oh you should see him doing this, it's so funny..." and then they prompt the baby with all the sweet talk they can muster. The baby of course does its own thing. He gives them a blank look and refuses to do the cute antic he was supposed to do. Even worse, he acts like he did not even begin to understand the request. I am waiting for the time when that's going to happen to k and me. I always told myself I should remember not to do that but am pretty sure I am going to do it. I could write something about funny baby stuff like that but I keep forgetting what else I had to say. All thoughts keep getting entangled with a steady flow of drowsiness.

So that's all the stuff that I did not write here. Until I have some coherent thoughts that I can pen down, this is what my blog is going to be about. Little nothings :)

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Twilight - Must. Read. Now!

So, I owe part of my sanity during the last few countdown days before labor to Stephanie Meyer for her Twilight series and to a~ for introducing me to the novel. I devoured the first 3 novels of the series in 5 days and was half way through the fourth when Radhukutti decided to make an appearance :) k actually bought the hardbound versions of the 3rd and 4th book for me from Joseph Beth (the paper backs were not yet out) and was pretty smug about it (I made my pregnant wife happy, I rock etc.)

Managed to complete the fourth novel a couple of days back. Yes, it is that engrossing, haunting, touching...for some reason I thought of Harry Potter - after the last HP novel, between sighs and sniffles I thought I would never read a novel series that is quite as addictive as HP, am glad I was wrong.

Can't wait to watch the movie...Edward in my head was a bit different, even more bewitchingly handsome but I'll comment in detail once I watch the movie (provided Radhu lets me :p)

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Movies and Misc. Musings.

Finally saw "Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na", couple of dialogues that I thought were pretty realistic:

"I have never seen Jai this involved, this into someone, as if the outside world doesn't exist, he has eyes only for this one person...just that I haven't seen Jai like this..."

"Aditi, Jai was always like this, the only difference is that, earlier it was you, now it's Meghna..."

Surprising and yet realistic how Aditi doesn't realize this fact until it was some other girl, just not her, who was the focus of all his attention...

"I always drop you home Jai. You got a girl-friend, so you forgot your friend?"

Pretty clichéd yet also believable. Definitely something a girl would say to her best friend who is a boy.

"Tomorrow, I'll spend all day with you, just Jai and Aditi..."

"Jai, you spend time with me because you want to, not because you have to...."

Or something to that effect which also was the right dialogue in the right place.

Anyway, I had fun watching the movie. These sort of college movies never get old, I guess. People of all ages relate to it and kind of relive their own college days...and Imran Khan is incredibly cute, reminds me of Aamir Khan in QSQT. Sigh! Can't believe there was a time when I watched DDLJ 7 times in the theatre!

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Ever noticed how American kids are far more outspoken than Indian kids the same age? And American teenagers, at least most of the ones I have seen are able to carry on an interesting conversation with strangers, break the ice and sail right through while Indian teenagers the same age seem more reserved? Maybe it's just me. Anyway, one question that 4-5 year old kids always ask when I am at the airport (this time, they asked my mom), "What's that red thing on your face?" "Does it never go?" There was this one time where I happened to have a bindi with me and I put it on this kid that was playing with me and she had an initial panic attack that it was permanent :) but then proceeded to enjoy the fact that she could remove and place it at will!

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People keep saying working when you have a baby at home is a balancing act. I think working while pregnant is also a kind of balancing act. The one thing that managers will always mention in every meeting with you is "You have only n weeks to go". Yes, it sounds like a pretty innocuous observation but the thing is, this simple observation starts from the time you tell your manager that you are pregnant. So over the course of 8 months, I have heard this observation about 16 times - "You are gone by September, right? That's just like 5 months more, right?", "We better plan your work...you might need to go earlier", "You will be gone pretty soon, so, we need to have a hand-off meeting, you have only 4 months, right?"...so you can imagine, by this time, I so do not want to hear when my vacation starts especially when am working my a** off and putting in after-work hours!

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The other day k spent a long moment looking like he was in deep rumination, he finally said, "You know, I don't mind taking 6 months off if you want to go to work earlier..."

And then it was my turn to give my trademark evil laugh and say, "Fat chance, buddy!" :p

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Just say "yes"!

You know this trick men have to pacify their wives, just nod every few minutes and say a few agreeable words like "Hmm...yes", "I can understand", "Makes sense"? Well sometimes, I think that works best for the man and the wife. Especially during pregnancy. The other day I was asking k if he knew what the most annoying question is that people ask me? He came up with a few vague answers and in general was clueless, which is not a big surprise. But anyway, one of the most annoying questions for me is, "Have you been walking/exercising regularly? Or..."

Or what? Or have I been sitting on my fat behind, perching my oh-so-light 25 pounds extra on the sofa and watching the 5th rerun of Still Standing or Rachael Ray's summer treats?

Or have I been lying on bed all day calling k on the cell to ask for some light snacks to be brought up to the bed room?

Actually if you think about it, it's an innocent question by itself but somehow it always rubs me the wrong way. Maybe it's the weird hormonal imbalance in me that manipulates the question in my head so I process it all wrong. Each time!

In my head, I come up with a fitting response each time though I just nod each time and say nothing, for example:

"Oh nooo! My nurse says walking might result in preterm glycomalampsiacal abberrations!"

"Nooo, I am waiting for you to gain 20-30 pounds extra and join me for walking, that way we can both enjoy how light and breezy we both feel about the walk, so shall we say, next Tuesday?"

"No, I haven't been walking. I prefer not to move much from my bed so I can stay relaxed all day long. Of course my company understands and so does my husband. In fact, the other day my company sent me flowers that my husband arranged in a pretty vase next to my bed so I can smell it without getting out of bed..."

Or I could go with the really simple, "No. I don't believe in walking" response.

Anyhow, coming back to the topic, sometimes the least stressful thing for a woman to hear during her pregnancy is just a yes. Not a detailed logical response explaining why her idea won't work, not a sorta-yes-sorta-no head shake, just a bright, agreeable "Yes!".

"Can we go on a cruise with our one week old baby so we can both recover?"

"Yes, of course dear!"

"Let's plan the India trip that we will make in 2015 so I can make sure we are all set..."

"Yes, I agree. Let's do that!"

"I want tea at 8.30 in the night 15 minutes before dinner."

"Of course, good idea, I'll make some for myself too!"

"Will the baby be born with 6 fingers?"

"Yes..." Well, it doesn't always work but 3 out of 4 ain't bad!

See, what I mean? There is an RSS (Really Simple Solution) to every problem on earth. And if men were to ask me the one thing they could do to ensure a stress-free la-dee-dah pregnancy for their wives, I would say, "Yes. Just say yes!".

Reminds me of this movie in which Rajnikanth will keep saying "Yesssss, yessss" without understanding what the other person says in English :)

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This and that.

We watched It happened one night a few days ago and I absolutely fell in love with the movie. A few minutes into the movie, I guessed that DHKMN (Whaa? You can't figure that out?) was an almost scene to scene copy of this movie...and here I was thinking the Hindi version was an original. Hey, by the way, how many of you knew that u, me aur hum was a copy of The Notebook? I didn't and was quite disappointed and a bit umm...scared after seeing the movie. Another flop remake was "Mann" (An affair to remember). Anyway old, b&w movies are the bessht! I recently watched Pillow talk and it rocked! So also, Come September and Guess who's coming to dinner. Recently, I also was watching When Harry met Sally for the umpteenth time and I realized this is a theme that has been revisited so many times since but it's always fun to watch. Hum-tum for example and A lot like love (one of my recent favorites).

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So, as you can see, am really focusing on doing research for the little one. Above mentioned movies are...umm a kind of preparation for the movie-starved days that lie ahead of me :p I think there are about 2 million, 836 books written on pregnancy. Someone ought to stop people from writing any more books on the topic!

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I have a bridal shower to go to this weekend. Did you know the right etiquette is to give gifts for the shower and the wedding which are kind of one and the same, I mean they celebrate the same event but anyway, in case you didn't know (and I didn't until recently), you might want to budget accordingly :p I can finally wear one of my cute, American maternity tops to the get-together. Somehow, am not so comfortable wearing it at desi gatherings :p!

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Have you ever been in a situation where people try to justify what they do? I mean, they chose a path in life and maybe they weren't really convinced about it, so to convince themselves, they kind of throw in a bunch of supporting statements towards that choice. Recently, someone I knew made this statement about having 2 kids, "God! I have no idea how people manage 2 kids! I am all done with my one!" Ok maybe "one" worked wonders for you but then is it necessary to wonder and exclaim about the poor humans that decided that perhaps "two" was manageable too? Sometimes I wonder if these people have a small nagging doubt about the choice they made and they overrule it by saying stuff like this. But then if everyone was agreeable and nice and supported one another's choices, then the world would be kinda boring I guess.

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There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those that say it as it is and those that don't. Say, for example, you asked a question or a favor and they don't want to answer it, they talk about everything under the sun, only peripherally related to the topic and think we would be distracted enough by it to not recognize the original intent of all this chatter - the same tactic we employ to distract kids. I think it's just simpler to say it as it is unless of course it means getting fired from your job :p or being downright rude in which case maybe we should revisit our response anyway!

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Activities!

The past few weeks have been full of to-do lists, plans and activities and my mind is a constant whirlwind of thoughts and action plans so much so that I wake up with several to-dos floating in my head interspersed with bits of the fantastic dreams of the previous night. What's up with those dreams anyway? I am a regular dreamer :p in the sense, I have dreams on a regular basis but now it's like I am being bombarded with super vivid dreams which have the most ridiculous scenarios playing in my head - friends from Bits and temples from my childhood, old aunties and strange prophecies - I have no idea what to make of them and mostly I remember them when I wake up. Which is weird because my real-life to-dos then have to compete for space with these dreams and it's all one strange experience.

Anyway, a co-worker finally made a sweet that I have been craving for for the past few months. Not just you-must-drop-by-home-etc promises; a box of real, gooey, huge spherical gulab jamuns! And it was totally unexpected, so I was touched and all that considering that no-one really made anything special for me and all that (Of course k cooks what I want to eat on chosen days after hints from me ranging from the subtle to the arrg-just-cook-what-I-want!) God bless him (the co-worker I mean) and his mom (she called them makhan peda or something like that)!

I managed to find time to write a javascript program for k's birthday which, surprise! He managed to solve while I am still pregnant (with heavy hints from me)! One of the questions was, "How many gifts are you getting this year?" and his prompt, confident answer was "31"! Talk about great expectations! One of the gifts was a set of tickets to "Leading ladies" a play at Pioneer playhouse. I just love the downright-crazy, mixed-up situations that arise in these plays and the cool thing was the play was written by a local playwright! Much fun and laughs!

We finally checked out Earthwood furniture, a local furniture store that sells solid wood furniture, finished but not stained. You can then pick your stain (like cherry, walnut, oak stains) and then finish it with lacquer. Of course, it is a task for men who love working with wood not those just looking to find a quick furniture piece. The sad thing is the store is closing which says something about priorities. Like the lady at the store said, people don't seem to have the time or inclination to buy and finish wooden furniture by hand. They look at easily available, much cheaper MDF furniture and wonder why the price difference is so huge. Anyway, if you are in town, you should visit the place.

Oh! And there's this great sitcom on TV, "The big bang theory" (shows on CBS Mondays 8 PM EST)! It has this Indian character whose parents take decisions for him about whom to date, when to marry etc. All the characters in the show are kind of exaggerated, the geek is super geeky and the Indian guy is like this mama-papa's boy who is terrified of talking to girls except when he is drunk and then he says the most ridiculous things!

So that's that. Expect more disjointed updates and anecdotes in the coming months :p

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Mamma mia!

Written after the definite realization that there are several worlds out there, not just ours. I don't mean like parallel universes or something (although that is an interesting topic to blog about), I mean just different worlds that you can get totally immersed in and lose yourselves. And I thought becoming a mom meant one such new world - "The pregnancy world" or you know something cute like "The googoo gaagaa world" and just that one new world. We learn about this one new world, neatly step in and continue living in that world happily ever after.

Oh boy! Was I wrong! Having a baby means entering multiple new worlds that your current world does not provide you enough time with which to research. You know what I mean?

So far, I have come across an incomplete list that includes:

• "The pregnancy world" - Basically lists of stuff that you can read and be scared about mainly, and also get excited about once in a while :p
• "The baby world" - This is where you learn that just because someone is little doesn't mean you do little things to make him/her happy, you do lots of really big things!
  
• "The materialistic world" - This is where you buy and then buy some more stuff to make sure the little one has all it's demands (and some of ours) met.
• "The mothering world" - How can you be the #1 mom and live under the illusion for quite some time and so on.
• "The diapering world" - This is big. There are like 568 varieties of disposable diapers and 295 varieties of cloth diapers you can buy and 2008 accessories you can buy for each kind!
• "The feeding world" - This Venn diagram kind of intersects with the baby world but is big enough to be it's own world
• "The rest of the world world" - This a shrinking world consisting of this blog and such, my work, my life, you all and me :)

Being pregnant is funny business, especially if you take the time to watch people's reactions and expressions carefully. Different categories of people communicate with you differently and it can be quite an amusing experience on the whole, at least it is for me ;)

• For instance, there's the been there done that mom-and-dad-and-mama-and-maami category -I get loads of good advice, the occasional weird advice and the frequent, "You must come home, I will cook whatever you feel like eating, just for you!" which doesn't really materialize but is nice to hear anyway.
• Sometimes, there are these people who would like to check out how big my stomach is really but are too ahem...polite to ask, so they discretely check out my belly in what they consider an invisible glance. I catch it every time. Well, that's not really a category, I don't believe much in categorizing people anyway :p
  
• There's the caring bunch, the people who go out of their way to make things convenient for me and my growing self. That's nice. They also make it a point to remind k how he should always be nice to me and so on and I love the look on his face when he gets advice like that! Anyway, I really like this bunch.
• There's the oh-nice-ok-then bunch - Basically the people who don't pay much attention since their lives are consuming their time as usual. So, they don't really offer to do much or go out of their way to accommodate your wishes. Oh well, the world doesn't revolve around me, it does obviously for me, just not for them :p
  

I could go on but I just remembered I had something more important to say, "By the way, I am pregnant" :)

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