The Dawn

*Blabbering mom goes on with yet another baby post

I did write about the deliverance. Well as I was wheeled from the operating room into the delivery suite ( ahem suite, fancy name for the room you are brought into) I felt - blank. Yep just blank. I wish I felt tearful, relieved, joyous, exhilarated or any of the myriad emotions I expected. But nope. I felt blank. Its the sort of blank you feel after writing an exam. Yaad aaya? Yes that feeling where you pour out whatever you read into sheets of paper and come out and feel blank. You wish you feel happy about writing it well or bad about not writing it well enough or you think where you went wrong and feel good about something you wrote right. But you feel nothing of them and just feel blank. Well that is how I felt.

Once in the room, the first question I asked the midwife was if we could make calls (it was a hospital and I did not want to take chances) And the midwife said yes of course! The most beautiful thing was her eyes said YES OF COURSE. YOU JUST HAD A BABY YOU SHOULD BE MAKING CALLS NOW.On the sides, her name was Rachel and as she was filling in my forms and took my dob she said she had the same dob as me. As she said that, I told her what a coincidence, the ante-natal midwife I was seeing during pregnancy also shared the same dob. She asked me her name and I said she was Rosemary. Rachel said - Oh! I know her. We are all connected by our dobs too! Yep! Very much! And all this time I was thinking I had the special connection with Rajnikant and Yuvraj Singh only ;) ;) 

Ok enough about me and my fascination with my date of birth. K said what time would it be (in India) I said around 0630. When Rachel over-heard this she said it was 0100. We clarified we were talking about India time. She giggled and said, 'Oh thank God. I thought you were really knocked out because of the anesthesia and had forgotten to make out time as well.' K started making calls. First it was Amma who was taking a walk and she was beside herself with joy. Then K called his aunt in the US. Then a friend, then another, then another... I lost count. Atlast, I think an hour later, he finally handed me the phone. I called my mom and her tear soaked voice asked me 'Did it hurt a lot'. I must have been really high on the drugs for I said 'No Mummy it was all cool.' Then I went on to give all the details that put K to sleep. Once I was done, he said you were all bla bla bla with your mom. Non stop chatter box. Thats how shes also going to be with you when she grows up. :)

Routine checks continued and my dipping blood pressure was monitored. K stretched himself on the chair on tried to nap. I tried to sleep, but somehow sleep completely eluded me. I hoped all was well with the checks that were going on and finally at 0645 I got the clearance and was hurriedly wheeled into the post-natal ward. (There is a change of shift that happens at 0800. So 0700-0800 is the handover time when the night shift staff hands over details to the day shift ones. Hence they take in new birth cases till  0700 only. So I was literally rushed through the lifts and the massive doors et al with a baby in my arms like a trophy.) Since visitors were not allowed till 0800 K had to go back home for the one hour. But I asked him to take it slow and come after being well rested for it had been a long night for him too.

When K left the ward a nurse came and performed the routine checks of bp and temperatures. Chiyaa's was a bit on the lower side. To bring her temp up, she asked me to hold her close to me. She placed the little kitten on me and drew the curtains. The sun was slowly coming up and this was the first time I was truly alone with her. I felt truly aware of her. This little being - so beautiful, so precious and so dependent on me. I finally felt all the emotions I thought I would feel at birth. Thats when I held the little swaddled bundle and cried - tears of happiness, tears of gratitude, tears of relief and tears of profound joy.