The Best Day

I don't agree. I don't think it was the best day of my life by any stretch of my imagination. This image, according to me, is just another way of glorifying the whole birthing process. I have delivered two babies. Both the days were MESSY, to say the least. Normal or C-section - it doesn't matter. You are a MESS.  

Read on to get a sneak verbal preview of what happens on that day. 

Doctors (yes, plural) stick their fingers into you, nurses disrobe you, one staff puts a bed pan under you (in case of normal delivery) and asks you to relieve yourself so that you don't shit during the delivery (the truth is, some still do!!), you can feel your stomach and large intestines emptying into that pan and then the staff takes that pan in front of you into the toilet and flushes it and you almost die of shame (if it's your first delivery), another staff comes and "cleans" you. Add to that, your mad-woman like screams during the contractions and unbearable hunger, your body being paraded and handled most unceremoniously and you cannot even protest .... I could go on. 

Point is - it is NOT a pretty sight. 

In India, most hospitals do not allow the husbands into the labor rooms. I don't think it is a good thing. I feel husbands should be allowed to see their wives in their WORST possible avatar and see if they still love her as much.  Indian husbands have no idea what their wives go through, on the D-day, to give them their DNA, in flesh and blood, angelic and cherubic,  wrapped beautifully in softness of cloth and skin.  

And those videos that show the baby and the mother bonding - well, with both my babies (I delivered them in the same hospital, 12 years apart), the nurses took them away almost immediately to be weighed and cleaned and a thousand other things to be done like noting the time of birth etc. The bonding and the skin-to-skin contact that pregnancy websites emphasize so much on happened a few hours later in my case. 

Recovery

One thing Tanvi repeatedly says is that she has not been able to see the baby on the monitor like we have. She has not heard its loud heartbeat. Every time there is a check-up date, she begs to tag along. But so far, all the check-up dates have fallen on a weekday. And since we don’t want her to miss her school, we don't take her. Also, we don’t know if children are allowed into the room where the scanning happens. The 6^th month check-up due on Nov 11th is a regular one. Maybe the 7^th or 8^th month when there will be another scan we should take her too. She also can feel and see the baby inside the womb and “see” it on the monitor and listen to the doctor who explains stuff.

Oh yeah! This is true. When kids are really little, their every movement feels great especially the awkward, funny, clumsy dance movements they do. With Tan, I loved the way she danced to the rhyme “I am a little tea pot”. It was Sathya’s and my favorite. 

I remember one incident that pained me a lot at the time. I was in office. Sathya had picked up Tanvi from her babysitter and taken her to his house and dropped her back at the babysitter right around the time I went to pick her up and take her home. I didn’t know all this until a year later when his youngest brother accidentally said, “Sathya brought Tanvi home and we made her dance and she danced to this and this song”. I was shocked! When was this!  And why was this! None of them – grandparents, two uncles – had ever even turned around to be with Tanvi or take care of her or buy her anything or even come and play with her, the godly grandmother had not even given old, used/torn clothes to be used as diaper for the baby - NOTHING AT ALL – that was the level to which their non-commitment was to this new relationship and her growing up years and here was Sathya who had taken the little girl to dance in front of them and entertain them!

One full year for recovery! Who knew that! Most of us plunge right back into the routine of life. We have to. I don’t think most mothers, the world over, have the luxury to take it easy after the delivery, that too for a whole year. 

My neighbor, whose house is bang opposite ours, had a baby last year. We never saw her pregnant, and she is really aged, so it must be through surrogacy. He is over a year old now. She has a full time 18 year old girl to look after the baby plus an elderly woman who comes and works as a nanny during the entire day plus a house-help who does the regular chores around the house plus her two siblings plus her husband and one more woman who is a relative. So many people to look after the baby!!!!  That is what I call luxury. 

Food - Post Delivery

22nd August '17 entry:

A body exhausted by the stress of pregnancy and the enormous pain of labur, mind numbed by the emotional upheaval and heart distressed, the least you want is food. I delivered Tan on 6th June and was discharged from the hospital on 10th June. I was in some kind of stupor at the time and don’t have a strong memory of those 4 days in the hospital. 

But an overwhelming sense of being hungry still haunts me. Why was I feeling hungry all the time in the hospital? Sathya was staying in his parents’ house and eating there and getting food for me from there.  I was brought food in a small tiffin box while he went and ate with the others at home. I would be sent a dabba with a small cup of rice with some 'tilisaar' (the water collected from boiling dal, without spices or vegetables). Why couldn’t he eat with me? He would go home to eat a proper meal. He was having a gala time roaming around with friends and eating a king’s banquet at home. I vaguely remember eating plain bread for evening snacks. I used to be famished. I was breast feeding, recovering, recuperating AND hungry. 

I had to complain to the doctor. I was in a ‘hunger daze’. I think I told her, "I am very hungry doctor. I am not getting food. They are saying it is not good to eat too much post delivery". The doctor was surprised to hear it and asked Sathya to feed me well, to give as much as I wanted and a proper meal, not some 'tilisaar' shit. 

Why does a woman do that to another woman? Didn’t my M-I-L deliver 3 kids of her own? Doesn’t she know the pain of hunger? Why was she punishing me thus? For what? What had I ever done to her? 

This time, I want to be more aware and more in control of the situation I am going to find myself in. I don't want to be hungry ever again.