Thoughts of mother-to-be, scratch that — Thoughts of a mother!
Yes, that’s right. As most of you who already know us personally know that I am a mother now, well I have been for over 6 months now. When I published my last post on 8th June, I could NEVER-EVER imagine that our donut was arriving soon, actually too soon — two months too soon!
Let’s start with the headline. He was born on 20th June 2019 at 31 weeks and 6days after 37 hours of labour.
Now let’s talk about how it all happened. I really don’t know where to start this story from. Let me try. If you live outside of India, most of the countries have a preparatory class for the to-be parents at the Maternity hospital that you are enrolled in. Rahil (my no-longer preggy but a newly coronated father) and I were scheduled to attend two sets of such three hour classes two months before our due-date. We thought two months before our due-date — it’s a sweet spot, in terms of timing, the baby is coming soon so that you can remember what you learn and not too soon so that you can prepare.
-2 Days to the D-Day : Flashback to 18th June 2019, we go to work and leave early in the evening to attend our first round of prep-classes. We enter a cramped room full with bellies of all sizes of tired women and men holding all the bags and bottles. There were at least 40 couples. We arrived a bit late and scooched in the last row. The nurse who I remember from another class was a gentle yet very animated lady who acted out the entire labour process and explained the different labour stages as first struck-in-traffic and later on-the-highway. The latter meaning that no stops now, baby is coming! We ambled out of the class and came home.
At 10pm that night, I had the urge to have a Coke! (for you Bollywood fans, you can play — paune baaraah baje dono ghar se chale, what’s goin’ on!…. in your mind) But rightly so, my dear hubby took out the car and we went to the nearest supermarket, Tesco to get my fix. Rahil came back with not one but a crate of Coke cans!! Well, we all get pampered during pregnancy and why shouldn’t we? (Don’t worry, I wasn’t drinking a lot of Coke during my preggy journey, just once a month kinds). As we turned towards our home, we were blocked off by the police (called Garda) here in Ireland as a music concert of ‘Pink’ was just getting over and it was expected that around 30K attendees would be crowding the streets. So, we got stuck. Stuck for over an hour. Finally we reached home late and slept in around midnight.
-1 Day to the D-Day : Next morning on Wednesday of 19th June, I woke up at 5:30am and felt serious wetness around my thighs. From the class last evening, I knew this wasn’t a great sign. On checking with the nurse helpline, we were told to rush to the hospital after she confirmed that my water had broken!!!!! Sheer panic!! Nonetheless, both of us calmed down our wits and packed up our hospital bag. By the way the shopping for which we had completed on that weekend! Talk about the timing! We reached the hospital around 7am and I was admitted, my water had broken and the baby was coming!
I was given a bed next to the window in a dormitory of 10 pregnant ladies, each there for a different yet same reason. I looked at the summer sun outside unsure of what was ahead. The doctors and nurses came in checking in on me. And I was injected with two doses of steroids, 6 hours apart, to help strengthen the baby’s lungs and multiple doses of antibiotics. Right now, my labour pain was easy and an hour apart. I was stuck-in-traffic stage. What hurt the most-est were the grueling up-the-cervix checks to see the position of the baby and if I were opening up. Worst check ever. But the best part was that they said that the baby was absolutely fine and that gave me all the energy I needed.
Anyway, by now my hospital news had travelled back home and to a few close friends. Prayers and wishes started pouring in. To calm down my family I shared my hospital photo smiling while having lunch. Dinner came in at 5pm and that is when the cafe closed for the night. Can you imagine, I know I was dealing with bigger problems than hunger on that day but you know what pregnant women need the most — epidural, no well that too, more on that later, but pregnant women need FOOD! But thanks to work-life balance of Europe, dinner was served at 5pm. So, we ordered in, got some Japanese fried rice takeaway on my hospital bed. Rahil had been on his feet since morning and we did not know how much energy we needed ahead. Also, did I mention that the doctors told me that I could be in for weeks! They were trying to delay my delivery and now since my water had broken I could not leave the hospital till I was in my 36 weeks that was a full month away! Hence, I asked my hubby to go home and rest.
D-Day : Midnight of 20th June, Thursday. It is not easy to sleep when you have labour pains, now I was at medium levels of pains, 30 minutes apart, clutching a hot water bag to my stomach. But tougher than tossing and turning in labour pains is to try and rest when all you can hear from the neighbouring beds are moans and screams of other women in labour. It was horrifying! I think we all were praying for ourselves and each other. Around 4am, my pains had become stronger and by 6pm, I called up Rahil to get his ass here! I was hyper with pain now. The doctors arrived as well and did the same horrible cervix check, can’t explain the pain of that, all mothers know. And then I was shifted into the delivery room. The baby was indeed coming.
With Rahil by my side, at around 9am, we arrived at the delivery room. This room was done up in pastel shades and sunlight beamed through the windows. It had a decal of baby’s breath flowers on the walls. When I pointed this to Rahil, he looked at me with surprise of how on earth I could still notice the art elements. To me that decal of baby’s breath was so relevant and meant hope and happiness for something sooo beautiful ahead.
After several hours that felt like eternity with constant labour pains, 0 seconds apart, you read it right, 0 seconds apart and body shivers, I was given epidural with such a scary fine print that stated that the side effects can range from nausea to paralysis to death! But in a moment like that you will sign anything to get some pain relief. So I got it. With Rahil holding my hand, I finally got some sleep, all thanks to that epidural! In the next 45 minutes, my cervix had dilated to 10 cms that means that the baby was actually coming!
And so at 6pm, I started to push. Imagine a scene of a delivery ward, being helped by two angelic nurses who treated me like their own kin. I kept pushing. Again because of epidural I din’t feel the pain, THANK GOD but I felt a very very heavy pressure, like some hard poopy time. After pushing continuously to the level that I thought my brain cells might explode, the baby was NOT coming!! The nurses kept cheerleading me and I kept screaming and pushing harder. I screamed in English, in Hindi both the languages I knew and looked at my husband with a look of “Plan B?”. I was soooo close to giving up but you can’t at that moment. You have to go on. And then Rahil told me that they could see the baby’s head. :)
Here Comes the Son : With the all the ounces of of energy I had ever mustered up, I puuuuuuuushed and at 7:14pm, our little son was born.
He came into the world in the angel’s pose which is with his legs crossed over his privates while clutching the umbilical cord, his food source. My tiny yet mighty, strong at 1.7 kgs took his first baby’s breaths on his own in that room. We named him — Aarav Sri Gupta :)
Next Up : Our journey of giving birth to a 7 month old preemie baby and the hospital days will be captured in the subsequent blogs. Until then, we know that our baby knew that the hospital bag was ready, the first prep class was done and he decided to follow on Pink’s legend song — I’mmmmm coming up so you better get this party started!! :P
