Maa ...and few realizations!

‘I am writing a Tribute to Mom in association with Parentous.com‘

I had always been the pain in the neck for my Maa (mother) in my own ways. It started while she was heavily pregnant with me and I created ruckus inside her womb from 8^th month only. She had to brave the labor pain for almost four days before giving birth to her first born - that’s me. Yes…you read it correct, FOUR days in severe pain!! Even after my birth I had to send to neo-natal care immediately as my head was bloated with water and most of the people who were eagerly waiting outside the labor-room thought me to be a still-born baby. I heard my birth story almost billion times from all my family members but somehow was never able to relate with the anxiety and tension surrounded with the whole anecdote. I actually enjoyed being the central character who managed to captivate everyone’s attention. But, it seems that destiny has its own plan and timing for teaching us the lessons of life.

When I underwent labor pain which fortunately lasted for only 3 hours, I shuddered at the mere thought that how must have my Maa had tolerated this acute pain for 96 long hours! My daughter had to be admitted NICU (Nursery-ICU) for 24 hours just after her birth because of the excessive bilirubin count (jaundice). I cried and stayed awake for the whole night. Needless to mention here that how I felt like an ungrateful slime ball who never appreciated her mother.

I had been selfish enough throughout the first twenty-five years of my life when I really took her for granted. I rarely cherished her mundane errands which kept her busy the whole day. I understood their significance when I lived alone in another city for my job. The realization part amplified once I got married and had to handle a household of my own. All those chores which she took care and I thought them as automated ones danced like devil in front of my eyes. I wished secretly so many times to hop into time machine and go back to those days when I didn’t acknowledge her efforts.

Last year when I suffered from a type of temporary Anosmia ( a medical state when you lose the smelling sense) and felt like a handicap person by losing one of the important senses  of my life. I felt so incomplete. Then I realized how difficult it was for her to deal with her hearing problem for so long. She is hearing impaired from one ear since her teenage days. But, she had been all ears for her kids to that extent that I was not even aware of her hearing problem for the first decade of my life.

None of her physical shortcomings created hurdle for her as she learned to deal with outside chores with same zeal as she participated in household work. Now, she takes care of the entire bank, post office related jobs, various bill payments and even filing income tax return. She keeps herself updated with the national & international news by her regular dosage of news paper and TV channels.

Today, life comes to a full circle when my toddler sways her hand and says ‘No’ to her Tiffin while munches happily whatever is there in her daycare friend’s lunch box. I can understand how she had felt when I compared my lunch box with my school mates’ box many times. I had been rude to her, acted so difficult sometimes and now I know that I might have to face the same music few years down the line.

Thus, I am taking this opportunity to say ‘Thank You Maa’ for all what you have given, all what you have restricted, for whatever you have taught, whatever you have instilled in my mind to make me the person what I am today. I now can comprehend what you used to say ‘'having a kid is like letting a part of yourself roam outside your body'’!

Two person in this world who made me understand the real meaning of Motherhood 

G = Give me another chance!!

Give me some sunshine, Give me some rain, 

Give me another chance to grow up once again. 

All of us have some secret regrets…not exactly regrets but something like “I wish I could have done that”…some unspoken, undone remnants of life. After completing three decades of my life when I look back and walk down the memory lane, I find many such moments which I want to relive with some improvisation. 

I wish I could have spent some more quality time with my grandparents. They stayed with us in the same house and had more than fifty percent credit in our upbringing. I had so many sweet-bitter-lovely memories of them. I feel myself blessed to have their companionship till my twenties. But, even after almost a decade has passed since their demise, I still cringe for their company. 

I wish I shouldn't have wasted my precious time in a useless relationship with a person who never understood me or valued my presence. I missed many fun & enjoyable moments of my life just because I was too bogged down by the insensitive & nonchalant attitude of that person. 

I wish I could have been not so overtly emotionally dependent on that person that even I was scared to speak my mind due to the insecurity in our relationship. I wish I could have asserted my feelings & thoughts more often and understand that it can never drive away the right person from your life but can help to weed out the wrong ones. 

I wish I could have chosen my subjects more wisely in the initial years of my academic life. That time, I only knew that I love Mathematics and it was my strength but along with that came two monster twins’ physics & Chemistry which I was never able to tackle comfortably. 

I wish someone told me, When I was 11 years old that it is absolutely fine to raise hell against that creep who relentlessly sketches excuses to feel my body in a bad way. I wish someone told me that you need not to feel guilty about the whole thing and it is that slime ball who should be ashamed. 

I wish I could have been in touch with more of my school & college mates. I tried to revive the bond later when Orkut & Fb came into existence, but by that time the aura of the bond had already faded. I am still in touch with few of my school friends who studied with me since class 1 and the charisma of our relationship has remain almost intact. But, surprisingly the college friends group hare now only FB friends with whom the relation is tangled in ‘likes, comments & status updates’ only. 

I wish I could have revived my reading passion earlier. But, better late than never. 

I wish I could have stepped into this wonderful blogging world few years back, when it came into existence. 

I wish I could have been more prudent towards my health and shouldn't have neglected the weight issue which has completely gone out of control now……sigh!! 

Ohhh My God…this list is growing so long….rest I am leaving to pen down in some posts…you see, I have to sustain till Z and it is only F now!! 

Jane Kya Soche Mann Bawra.....

Following the trend of blogging in pointers, here I am just trying to spill out what going in my mind and my life.

1. After reading an article which talks about the different side of Guwahati molestation case, I don't know why but somehow I am feeling disgusted. Read the article and you would know how efficiently media played its role and what kind of politics wrapped mud-slinging is going on over this incident. There were more articles in the same website which enlightened various other aspects of the issue but I felt pukish to read more of it.
2. The photographs of the main accused of Guwahati incident is flooding the virtual world. Might be sharing his snaps would not budge the slacking law system and sick mindset of similar oxymorons but at least that sicko is getting his share of curses & 'badnami' all over his FB page. Social networking has some good aspects as well!!
3. Demise of Rajesh Khanna has given all the news channels enough fodder to last for at least a week now. I am not a great fan of this personality but somehow the songs lip-synced by him and sung by Kishore Kumar are my all-time favourite. I actually detest this person for his chauvinistic persona. But today when they were showing his funeral procession with his immortal songs playing in background surprisingly I felt lump in my throat!!
4. Now on personal front, Can somebody please explain SG that he is not the only daddy in this world who's brat throws tantrums while combing and tying Ariel like ponytails to her hair. Whenever he finds me having a tug-O-war with Mishti for managing her unruly hair, he makes constipated faces and try to act as a saviour for her darling.
5. Some people are really getting on my nerves with their showing off attitude. I understand you are into something big and appreciate your dedication towards your newly chosen career path of 'Direct Marketing system' or what you call it as 'e-commerce'. I have already made you clear that it is not my cup of tea. You might be sleeping on bags of dollars by acquiring this concept in your life, but I am comfortable in my simple mattress. Also, just because you are this self proclaimed entrepreneur now, don't show-off yourself as the most wise person on this planet and others who are not into your 'business'  are morons. The more you put up stirring status on FB, more you prove your immature buffoonery.
6. My belief that 'too much proximity spoils the aura of a relationship' is strengthened while one of our common friends stayed with us for few(??) days. I tried to extend my help in their turmoil times where they had to search for a rented house in Gurgaon after being transferred and genuinely welcome them while they came here to stay for a week. But, later on I felt like being taken for granted when they showed quite casual attitude in their house-hunt procedure and highlighted some negative point or other in every house they see.But it went off the limit when they extended their stay for another week without consulting us even after getting the house on pretext of shifting, getting it cleaned, unpacking .....means they would keep on unpacking their stuff and decorate the house with wall-hangings instead of getting the AC fixed first and would visit my place for dinner & sleep. I don't know I hate acting this mean, but felt taken for granted. Somehow, I feel better as I get these thoughts out of my system!!
7. My weight issue needs serious addressing now. My 'Madhya Pradesh' still looks like as if I am 7-8 months preggo!! I would be visiting my doctor this weekend to get it checked. Let's see what she has to say about it.  My brisk walk schedule took a backseat with array of guest in house as my whole time vanished in cooking only...charged up to start again tomorrow.
8. Suddenly felt that it has been long that I did a post on new antics of  Mishti.,so next post is going to be on li'l brat only :-)

Health is wealth....???

Health is wealth....??? Honestly speaking, I never ever cared for this phrase before my pregnancy or even for that matter couple of months after that.

So, this is one thing which I might like to change in myself is my 'Chalta hai' attitude towards my health always. Yeah....I did not treasured my high immunity body type due to which I rarely suffered from common cold, cough, general fever and all these petty bodily infections. Also, albeit high immunity I got slow BMR which resulted of a plump me in my twenties and OBESE me after my pregnancy!!

So what made realize the worth of good health?As I said I always enjoyed high immunity of my body and even while pregnant when generally this immunity level drops I managed to stay perfectly fine with a "housefull" of people suffering from bad throat & cold infections. However, only during my pregnancy I cared a bit for myself with healthy eating & regular walking which yielded my 'normal' pregnancy. I was almost fine after my pregnancy barring lower body pain & stitch scar. I was back to my normal routine the very next day Mishti was born ( I was discharged from hospital the same day my baby was born). Never to mention everything fall into place with quick recovery of my wound , Mishti able to take the breast feed etc

When Mishti was 2.5 months old, I had to go to Allahabad for 1.5 months to stay there at my in-laws place. Just a day before we came back to Gurgaon, I was infected with a strange 'milder' version of chicken-guinea. So symptoms are high body temperature with acute joint pain. This pain hit every joint of body like elbow, shoulder, wrist, finger joints, knee, ankle etc. If it had been usual situation (means if I was not a new mom) I would have never got infected with this peculiar fever but as pregnancy generally lowers the immunity of the body I got hit with this virus. So, after coming back from Allahabad  I was down with this ailment for couple of days......fever was not a matter of worry but the worst part was the acute joint pain which literally made me realize the importance of every bone of my body. Even to cover the distance from living room to bed room I took ages and literally crawled like a snail!!!! But after a week of recovery, this pain was still there in few critical joints of my body ( inner thighs, knee ankle...) and used to show off   its ugly face for every movement of mine.

We switched to homeopathy and my doc asked for a blood test to be done. Findings: The ESR & CRP level is found really high in my blood. I googled and found that it means an early stage of rheumatoid arthritis.That stupid fever had triggered these factors in my body which were dormant  ( I am saying dormant coz due to heredity factor...my mom has arthritis.... these were present in my body). Medication started and so as my my real testing time. 

Handling a small baby all alone, along with house hold chores and cooking and icing to the cake was this joint pain!!! Believe me,changing posture while sleeping had been a nightmare and for turning side it took me real 4-5 minutes!! I was not able to get myself up from bed and stand on my feet...forget about anything else I was not able to carry Mishti properly or lift her at times :-(

SG was very supportive and took frequent leaves to manage the chores but this continued for months.After couple of months it came bit under control but doc clearly told me that due to my 'weight' issues complete cure is getting delayed! I felt terrible...with no time for workouts or even walking I have no option lose even a gram of fat! Now, I got accustomed with this pain of inner thigh muscles...Yes it is still there. It is really painful as I wriggle myself out of bed or try to match pace with crawling Mishti.Doc says it is gonna take time.

Now I understand the importance of losing weight...bad enough, still not able to chalk out a regular routine for exercise as one person has to be completely after Mishti nowadays. Lets see....how early I can make a way out of this trouble. But one thing is for sure....I have to lose weight badly if I want to stop this decay of my health.

A square peg in round hole…!!!!!!

So many things have changed in last few months. It has been four months since Mishti was born. During this period I oscillated from being a terrible to terrific mom to her. I sailed through so many changes and I know that it’s not over!!

Starting with the feeling the “baby blues” to the Stay- At- home experience…..the quake tremors are still on.

I took one of the toughest decision of my life…leaving the job. I know many would say that why I am creating much “hoo-hah” over it, so many ladies left their job to be a stay-at-home Mom. I don’t know, but still I am not able to identify myself with this frame of reference! I had the option of keeping a maid for Mishti but pinning to this decision became a complete no-no whenever I saw her broad toothless smile. Nobody believed that a workaholic or to be precise officeaholic person like me can take such a decision. But still every glimpse of Mishti reminds me that “She needs me”.

Sometimes I do think that am I a bad Mom or lack the motherly feeling as I feel the void and peculiar emptiness in my life now. Every night while going to sleep, I think as if another uneventful or rather useless day went away. Although now the workload is far more taxing than my previous worklife routine but still at the end of the day I feel I had done nothing substantial or just wasted my day.

Also my good health is now behaving like my first-born who is jealous and upset after Mishti is born and is not willing to come near me….. :-(   I was far more active and healthy during my pregnancy when I balanced my work, home & pregnancy very successfully. Now-days, I am so busy the whole day applying time management & prioritizing chores at home that I don’t get any appropriate time to chat or call my friends.

Ohh yes…Mishti has been successfully hitting all the development milestones like rolling on her tummy, recognizing family members, producing crackling laugh sounds, showing lotz n lotz of expressions and trying to hold her bottle herself.

Superb expression of Mishti to restrain me from applying body-lotion after bath!!!

P.S. Would surely try to be more light hearted in my next blog. This whining and cribbing just don’t suits me!!!!..:-)

It couldn’t have been better.......!!!!

As I start my first independent blog, what could have been a better topic than the birth story of my li'l doll. Obviously, birth of the baby would be the climax of the story.

To begin with, when we were confirmed that I am expecting, I started making better use of internet other than social networking & online games. In few days I was bursting with information about pregnancy and various scenarios attached to it. As we had decided not to divulge the news to anyone else till the 2nd trimester therefore my hubby -SG and my sis were the only person to whom I was able to show-off my knowledge!!.

1st Trimester: It started with a worrying face of doctor who clearly said it is a 50-50 situation. With a tendency of High BP (140/90) and a history of Thyroid problem, "extra-careful" was the keyword. My doctor took no chance and scanned me every fortnight. With no morning sickness or queasiness and increased gluttonous appetite, I utilized this opportunity to pamper myself with all those banned foods which I generally had to avoid being overweight. So most of the doc's visits were followed by heavy lunch at some food joints. At home, my sis heartily fulfilled my demands of Paranthas and Aloo -Bhaja (yummy bengali version of french-fries) and other similar not-so-healthy stuffs.

2nd Trimester: This was the most stable period of my pregnancy which started with the excitement and joy of our family members and friends when they were told about the news. It followed with a long list of do's-n-don'ts. Also, My doc found out about my eating rendezvous and caught me red-handed with a BP of 140/110 thus restricted my non-veg, oily and other tempting foods completely..:-(. I continued to gather information from all possible sources about pregnancy and a new born. But soon, all the excitement settled down and boredom started creeping in.

3rd trimester: By my 7th month, I really thought of writing application to Mother- Nature for trimming the human gestational period to 6 months or less (could have saved so much time...!!!). My "Saadh” ceremony (Bengali ritual similar to baby-shower) also happened this month. Ohh yes..not to mention that my BP dropped to 130/90 and my doc was now convinced that stopping all supplies of yummy food is the only way to keep my health chart normal.....:-(  
I continued my work and as I had no complications so never took any extra sick leaves. But the most irritating question I faced from my 8th month was "When are you going on your Maternity leaves?". This line changed with my 9th month as " When are you gonna stop coming to office?” Every time, I felt like telling them to mind their own business. If I am feeling fine and if my doc has no problem then why should anyone forcibly make me feel that I am a nerd who does not care about her pregnancy!!!

Anyways, till 27th May I went to office and went for routine check-up on 28th. Doc told me that my baby is almost 3.1 kgs and if we wait more then might be there is a chance of C-section. All other aspects like AF count, baby head-down position etc was completely in-sync. She asked us to decide on a date next week when I can be induced pain artificially. 1st June was zeroed as the D-Day. Honestly, I was not afraid but kind of relieved as would be getting rid of the huge tummy soon!!!

1st June, 2011: Day started with dose of medicine which was supposed to start contractions (pain) within couple of hours. But as nothing happened, I prepared the breakfast and then we headed towards the hospital. Like any of our regular drives this time also we had confusion about the way to hospital (we always met our doc in her clinic earlier) and me & SG had arguments about it. Finally at 12PM we reached hospital and my pain started around 12:30 PM. By 15:19 Hrs my baby was born. I was told it is a baby girl in the OT and then sedated. When I regained my senses, my mom gave my girl to my lap ...at first I really found the li'l one quite weird!!! SG told me that he had already decided her nickname as “Mishti”. Nice name...I thought and readily agreed to this as it is gonna heighten the chance that name of my choice would be finalized as her official name…J!!!!