Namaste Auntyji..

Dear Auntyji..

In my 30 years of existence, you have been a constant source of (unwanted) pressure for me.

You have time and again reminded me that there are things I must do and things I mustn't to find a place in your book of appropriate existence.

When I was a kid, you reminded me not to step out in the sun. You even forbade your own kids from playing with me lest my "dirty" skin color rubbed off onto them.
A little older and you decided the company I should keep and the length of the clothes I should wear.
You shook your head at my too wide hips. I was sooo not marriage material.
I must've cleared a dozen rounds and beaten a dozen competitors to get that job which made me run around and tackle every challenge thrown at me just as well as anyone else would, if not better. But the position of the hour hand on your clock, when I returned home decided my character.
My freedom screamed affairs and a loose character. When I finally tied the knot, my folks wouldn't let me spend even a weekend with them fearing you'd think I had returned for good. My trips to a doctor spelt "fertility issues" to you.
You prayed I'd get a second chance to prove my "worth" when my daughter was born and now every time you see her, you ask her why "Mummy ne kuch khilaya nahiii?"

Auntyji, I'm sure you have a lot more to say. After all you and I still have most of our lives ahead of us.

But I want you to know I'm done with you.
Every time you judged me for my color, you taught your kids it was okay to discriminate.
When you said that I  "asked for it" you taught your son that it was okay to molest.
When you sympathised over my daughter's birth, you told your own daughter how much you regretted having her.

Namaste ..... Auntyji.

My Journey through the Birthing Canal..

They say when a baby is born, a mother is born too. But that wasn't the case with me.

My baby was now a whole new entity outside my body. She had her own voice. She had her own little body and now when she was hungry, everyone knew about it, loud and clear. But i felt nothing. Sure, I was a weak mess when they handed her to me. I cried uncontrollably. And I couldn't wait for them to stitch me up so I could meet her again.

But when we met again, I realised she was here to stay. And she wouldn't stop crying. And she was too tiny. Almost not there. Fragile was an understatement.

To top it all she was nothing like what I had known babies to be. I was told my baby would know I was her mom the moment I touched her or called her. But this one seemed to not know me at all. She screamed when I tried to feed her. She screamed when I tried to cuddle her. She screamed and screamed and screamed.

We took her home. The screaming continued. The attempts to feed continued. I was starting to lose my mind.

She barely had any milk from me or the formula. But I didn't know how much was too much...or too little. By the tenth day she felt warm. I was soon driving to the chemist to get her some Crocin. The next day we were standing in line, waiting for our turn to meet the pediatrician. One look at the baby and she screamed "This baby is severely dehydrated! Please admit her!"

Evu's hospital tag 

Had I done something wrong? They didn't know my struggle to feed her everyday. 

They took her away. Connected her with a cannula and some pipes. I could only see her from behind the glass door now. She barely occupied any space in that cradle in the NICU while they took her urine and blood samples for testing. They put her in a separate enclosure. The Septic Nursery they called it. They said she had some infection and couldn't be kept with the other babies. And just like that, for the very first time since she had been conceived, she was alone.

The doctor said to me, "Don't cry darling....It'll dry up your milk". Maybe this was one of those mommy challenges. To physically restrain my tears from welling up so my breasts wouldn't dry out.

The spasms of pain every time the stitches tugged at my belly with every move were the only reminder that it was all real. "You can watch her from outside during visiting hours. The mother can take her for feeds", they said. I used those opportunities to show her to all the family members waiting tirelessly outside. And then what I thought was unthinkable happened. My ever strong husband, a new born dad himself, broke down at the sight of her weak body wrapped in those hospital rags. If everything that happened till now didn't shake me out of my numbness..This sure did. My rock had crumbled before my eyes. And I was responsible for it.

They said it was a UTI. They said she suffered from septicemia. Something about bacteria in the stool finding its way into her blood stream. The cannula changed its location every three days.

Days seemed blurry. They would start with me pumping my milk into a little can, driving to the hospital, waiting to feed her, rushing home and getting back to pumping all over again. 6hours of continuous pumping and I'd have barely enough to feed her tiny tummy once. And God forbid in my hurry if I knocked that can over, which I did once, I'd have to depend on the formula feed at the NICU and deal with the disapproving looks of the nurses there.

I was now labelled as INSENSITIVE by the nurses. Insensitive for not plastering myself against the walls of NICU and waiting there 24*7 for my child's recovery. Insensitive for not bringing enough milk to the nursery and relying on their formula feeds. My mother, who was unhappy that I was spending my post partum days running around the NICU, had to be physically restrained when she heard the nurses anoint me with this new title.

The hecticness of the time kept me going. I had lost track of time and days. Just when I almost gave up one day, news of people praying in church and in the seminary for a 13 days old baby gave me the strength to push.

The cannula had reached her ankle now. I heard her screams when they put it there. It was different from her usual screams. It would get my insides churning for the next many days. I moved into a hospital room so I could be with her 24*7. Each day was about the grams of weight she gained....or lost. The grams decided my performance as a mother.

Then after the longest 10 days ever, her blood reports came clear of any sign of infection. I remember my husband, running from the NICU to the hospital room with her in his hands after her last shot of antibiotics, eager to finally take her home. Away from all the needles and pain.

Pushing my girl out of me didn't make me a mother enough. The mother in me was completely born when I ran, drove, fought my tears, pumped milk and finally took my baby home a second time.

Why am I telling you all this? Because my little girl turned One a few days ago. And all I could think of during the days leading to her birthday, was the time we almost lost her. And how the prayers of many brought her back to us.