Tanni for Danceof Chaos

Feature Image Credit : Sanal Narayana ( Do not copy without permission)

It has been one crazy month as I sit down to type this blog. By now, it is not a secret that we were blessed with a beautiful baby girl. My blogging had already taken a backseat during pregnancy and focussing on the shop. I was procrastinating on writing my pregnancy journey and now that mom journey has started, boy was I so off. I wanted to write things down in chronological order. Yet here I am, at 2:00 morning, trying frantically to write something just to feel that the proverbial ink has not dried up and I choose to write about one month of my experience as a new mother. I am bugging my husband to share his experience too, maybe I will interview him when he is changing diapers and post it in the blog.

1         Life Altering Experience

When you are having your first baby, everything is new and wonderful. People tell you some of the experiences, you research and prepare yourself, but nothing really prepares you for the actual storm and the world turning upside down as things progress and you are holding your baby in your hand.

It is a life altering event and your mind does not really wrap itself up around the huge responsibility. You are also a bundle of emotions thanks to different hormones. And you are exhausted beyond belief.

As soon as I gave birth,  I was fleeting in and out of consciousness and all I could feel was a distant chatter of noise around me when my baby was brought to me. All I remember is feeling very thirsty, still half unconscious and wishing that I should be left alone; I was so tired. The first two days passed in a haze. I was recovering from a difficult C Section, after long labour and a long wait. My baby kept us waiting for forty two weeks and arrived eleven days past due date. At that point, I was just glad it was all over and was not able to feel anything else.

2          Everything has changed

My first surprise was how little control I had on my body. I thought my body has changed and is different during pregnancy, despite all the regular exercise and Yoga. But I was not prepared at all to find how weak I was, how taking few steps hurt . I could barely recognise my own body.

I was dangerously low on Iron and my haemoglobin count was disastrous. As a result, had mild fever, shivering and was very weak in the early days. All this made me barely recognize myself. The me who was jumping around even two days before delivering the Baby, all I wanted to do was sleep.

I also needed time to process my C Section. I was mentally not prepared for a C Section at all. Call it a coincidence or fate, my baby was born almost the same way I was born. Except due to advanced monitoring I was spared the emergency C Section that my mother went through.

When we were doing the birth preparation course, our midwife would tell us, every woman who goes through this is an Olympic champion in herself. Now on this side of the experience, I can truly appreciate her comment.

3         The real team work

I had the good fortune of having my husband with me in the hospital and he was allowed to stay in these pandemic days. It was such a huge help to have him there. He took over caring for our child during those initial days. I did not change a single diaper in the first two days and neither did I change clothes of my baby. I just held her, fed her and gave her back to my husband. He would spend the sleepless nights trying to rock her to sleep so that I can sleep and store some energy.

 I have chosen to breast feed. I knew, from my research and experience of friends that it is not easy, but like everything else with having a baby, I was finding  my own path in my journey.

Due to pandemic and other reasons, it was me and my husband doing it all. Luckily, he had saved enough time to take a decent paternal leave.

It has been an amazing experience to manage everything between the two of us. My husband was handling all the household chores, while also taking care of me and baby initially. Around a week later, I started taking over.

Now we have somewhat of a rhythm. One of us rock her and play with her while the other cooks. Other household works, we try to sneak them in when she is sleeping.

What he had to train himself was to sleep when he could. I never have problem sleeping anywhere and anytime, but once I started feeling better, I did not feel like sleeping a lot during the day and wanted to do chores or something else. I always end up paying for that at night.

4         My Backup Team

Even though we managed to prioritize and sail through, my family and my friends have been a huge backup.

My family hasn’t been able to visit yet, international travel in pandemic etc being the reason. They provide amazing emotional support. And my group of girls.

From being there for me, asking me how I am doing, to sharing their own experiences to help me process the childbirth experience.. they have been there through it all.

And the delicious food they dropped off. Without their love and  food, I probably would still be lying in bed moaning about everything.

Some even came and cleaned my house and helped with chores.

I will never forget their support in this happy but tough times. I just hope to be there for each of them as they have been for me.

5         Experiences Earned a month on

Our life has changed forever, there is no denying it. This last one month have been a magical journey. The magic of where time is flying. I go on days without checking my phone. Time is measured in feed time to feed time phases. How does the clock start ticking twelve noon I cannot decipher. It always feels like I woke up and it is twelve.

Our living room is full of baby play mats and other blankets. All our pillows are wet and smell of baby and milk.

I have no decent dress. I am either half naked or sticky and sometimes both.

Man I did not know I can do so many things single handedly, quite literally.

We are learning to prioritize actions much better. What should I do right now? Shower or rather a 30 minute power nap.

A lot of things which felt very important before do not feel remotely important.

I am learning to take things as they come and not plan ahead.

I am learning that it is ok, if I am tired and just want to sleep. I don’t have to accomplish anything today.

Our life have gotten some new feeling and meaning now.