Mommyhood Part 2

It's Diwali 2019, almost the end of October. This has been a special month as we celebrated baby Nyra's first bday, Dusshera and Diwali all in one month- it's been exhausting. So celebrations have been on since start of October.
As I reached this milestone of one year, I honestly wanted to pat my back for having sailed thru this far. While in the previous blog I had written about the challenge of changing one's inherent wiring to become a mother, the second and more difficult (read-only exhausting) phase is the initial few months. I am sure there must be a whole host of women sharing their experience of sleepless nights with a young baby. There were sleepless nights even in my last trimester of pregnancy so I would often imagine how different would sleepless nights be with a baby. But boy, compared to this sleepless nights as a whale seemed like a walk in the park.
The first few days back from the hospital post delivery, I wouldn't even wake up when the baby cried. Honestly! Like I would hear a baby crying in my sleep and wonder whose baby is this, what is that sound, somebody shut it up etc etc till my help or my mom would wake me to nurse the baby. Thats exactly how my first two weeks were with the new baby.
To make matters worse, I had a very tough start with breastfeeding. You know those hoardings you see of women breastfeeding their child with a subtle blissful smile on their face-- that's a huge lie. Breastfeeding in today's time is a real struggle for most new mothers. I thought once the baby comes, breastfeeding would happen naturally. But that's really really far from what happened and what happens generally. I was fortunate enough to have a gynaecologist who let me latch my baby on the delivery bed itself. However, my initial struggle was that there was no or rather poor milk supply. And then when the milk started to flow, baby couldn't latch- so literally I had milk pockets collected all over my breasts- which hurt like crazy.
I had to seek the help of a lactation consultant on several occasions to start with breastfeeding. All I can say is that I really stuck to my guns of not giving up on breasfeeding.
My baby and I have now completed a year of breastfeeding and I feel that really has been the big hallmark of my motherhood. Quite often I Feel new mothers give up on breastfeeding even without giving it a genuine try, which is such a tragedy. I know bottle fed babies are cuter, chubbier etc etc, i am guilty of falling into that trap too. I would want my baby to atleast take 1-2 feed of top feed so she would gain weight-but yeah that didn't work. She hates bottles and formula. So I have been her mother dairy all throughout.
Enough on the nutrition of the baby. The next bit is on how new mothers need hides as even thick skin wont do. Everybody, from strangers in malls to country cousins make it a point to give us free advise on how to raise a baby. By far the randomest comment I got was when my baby was drooling and my sister in law commented that baby's drool is beacsue of lice in hsir- my baby was 3 months old that time! When babies go thru growth milestones which disturbs their sleeping pattern- everyone would tell me that itsbeacuse baby's tummy is not full- even though I had just finished an extended dream feed session. Thankfully as a mother o used my own judgement and upgraded my alreday- thick-skin to hides.

More to follow.......

And some of the sweetest memories from Nyra’s first

Mommyhood - Part 1

At the start let me put it as bluntly as possible that I have always had zero maternal instincts. Even when my in- laws were driving me up the wall about having a baby, I never could imagine myself with one. I have been around babies for sure, given that my brother Harsh and sis Shreya have been almost like babies to my sisters and I.  Then I have 3 nieces and one pretty naughty nephew. However, playing with babies and raising one are two different things entirely.

So even when I realised that I was expecting I had to really really prepare myself for what laid ahead. But the challenge was that even a lifetime could not prepare me for Mommyhood, or so I thought Plus during pregnancy one is so caught up with the milestone of each trimester that changing the way you are wired seems tad too much.

I had seen and heard my friends & my sisters getting totally pampered during their pregnancy. Needless to say I actually thought that’s how my pregnancy would be too. Unfortunately My pregnancy was a very depressed one for several reasons. Top being the loss of my mom in law. I had never experienced or seen death at such close quarters before in my life. The entire chain of events- from Mummyji struggling to breathe to me dressing her to take her to the doctor to seeing her pass away right infront of us to dressing her for the funeral- the entire episode still feels like it happened yesterday. It still disturbs me at so many levels. To witness all this in my third month of pregnancy seemed like a some sinister curse.  Needless to say the entire episode marred my pregnancy and somewhere I harboured a secret fear That something may happen to my baby. I was anxiety ridden, given to Panick and had little faith in my own self to see this thru.

Thankfully, I did see it thru- I grew and grew and grew! I can definitely admit that I sought solace in food. Eating for two became my excuse for indulging and over indulging (yes that’s possible). Everything that I had kept away from all my life suddenly became acceptable to eat as ‘the baby wanted to eat’! The flip side of all this was that I gradually grew from my Medium size of clothing to XL and then XXL and finally XXXL by the time I delivered. Did I not worry about the weight? Of course I did. But somewhere I presumed it would all go away post delivery.

Haha!! Now I am wondering how could I have been so foolish  i am eights months postpartum and have not lost even one kg of weight. I still carry every bit of the 20 kgs of weight o put on during pregnancy. I have stopped looking at myself in the mirrors now or even if I look I see thru. It’s depressing to see myself like this. I don’t identify with this person I have become.... and that my friend, is really how i feel inside out. Not just in respect to my changing physiology, but also in terms of the person I am becoming- I don’t identify with this person. Women have to make drastic adjustments in their life and lifestyle once they become mothers. While you ate mentally preparing yourself to make the change, if your pregnancy experience has been anything like mine then trust me no amount of preparation would be enough to get you ready for motherhood!

To be continued.......