What not to expect when you are expecting

Gratitude to those who have stuck by me, through thick and thin.

My maid's sister delivered a cute little boy a week back. She is going through some post partum complications, the super-set of which I once had. She was hospitalized for reasons more than one. She felt clueless, hopeless, close to suicidal for reasons more than one. That's when I decided to pay her a visit. That's when I decided to pen this down. And that's when I decided to share it across. Hoping it paves hope for those going through it.

Ok. Will cut short the foreplay.

After a delivery that started with unnatural bleeding, spanned across 24 hours, turned into a back labor, leading to a forcepted labor, 3rd degree episiotomy, 15 days hence diagnosed - a severe life threatening infection because of the gauze pads being left inside during THE hour, sour lactation experience, a thing called endometritis, another thing called vistula, some 5 finger Diastasis Recti in the abdominal muscles, a bit of varicose veins, a financial breakdown, a marital breakdown, if me and my baby can make it. So can you, and your baby.

Just keep in mind -

1. No, even if it's a little more in your case than what I mentioned above, it wont kill you, or your baby.

2. Despite the conditions, the medical warnings and the evidence to not let me pursue my weight loss regimen, I exercised, and exercised (wont suggest you do this).  Till I lost that each bit of extra Kgs trapped inside my skin. Till I restored my abdominal muscles to where I wanted them to be, and not where they were announced to be, and were expected to accept. I am back in shape, even better one, just with a bit of loose skin around the tummy, which I am still working on, post 2 years of delivery. If it's in mind, body follows. Mostly. More tips here.

3.  Make sure you have at least ONE strong support system with you, preferably a woman.

4. Try not to rely too much on your partner though I do hope that you get all the support you need. For he has little approximation of what you are going through. Any expectation, unless met, is likely to bounce back with even more frustration. And is likely to further prolong the healing.

5. Stop thinking negative. Even if it means a bit of sleeping pills, anti-depressants, just go for it. Irrespective of what your sane care-takers tell you. Trust me, they help, at least more than what you can expect from anyone around. And if taken with the right zeal, are not that tough to wean off.

6. Father of all - Screw those who tell you to go for a normal delivery (and not a C-section) even if your instinct says, you cant. A screwed up vaginal delivery is n times (n being in inverse proportion to your luck quotient) more hellenous than a well operated C-section. In every possible aspect. The process itself, the healing, the precautions, the life.

7. Mother of all - Do not google negative stuff. Never when you are not in the right frame of mind. Even if you have to, search for the cures and not just the terms you are diagnosed with. I tell you, this concept of manifestation, or the law of attraction as some call it does work. Or I should say that it worked at least for me. As I feel I have a pretty strong imagination power. I've seen most (if not all) of my visualizations, readings, fears, aspirations come true. Negative googling can manifest the hell out of your life if you are a strong thinker.

72 to 52

For few, it comes naturally, for few it doesn't it has to be earned.

Once my baby popped out, I weighed barely 3.5 Kgs lesser than what I was just before my delivery. And that was precisely the birth weight of my baby. Quite contrary to what I had heard from the mothers and their success stories of being in control of their weight and shape post delivery, I relied on the scale's correctness and gave situation the benefit of time. Life continued. I incorporated all healthy life-style practices. Healthy diet, Exercising etc. Few months hence, I was done with breast feeding. Few months further hence, my menstrual cycle happened. My date came, and went by. But, rather Big Butt! My scale tip went down by just a few grams.

Sensing the big trouble that my body had landed itself into, and the consequent restlessness in me, my GP gave me clear warnings, lest I be doing castaways with my body.

None-the-less. I took that as a self proclaimed wake up call. And what followed next was an austere project. Within about 4 months of that GP visit, my scale started showing 52ish Kgs. Consistently.

Coming to the point, here are the broad level tips (other than the regular exercising tips that can be easily googled) that by being aware of, you can make your journey more predictable and less prone to failures -

• Stay away from those who care for you. They wont be able to stand seeing you being so harsh on yourself, and would out of care try to distract you, reverse-talk your agenda and the likes.
• Stay away from those who are fond of eating. For obvious reasons.
• Prioritize and time cap the weight loss program - Understand the difference between staying healthy in general and losing intense weight. Former is a life style and can happen every day for the rest days of your life, but latter is a project that needs to be kicked off, implemented and be done with. Paving way for the former.
• Be aware that any such heavy weight loss can get extremely cruel on the skin and the area being targeted, leaving you with loose fat-less flab to keep you struggling for years. Get into the habit of doing a regular deep massage on the area or the entire body. 
• First few pounds are easier to lose. Let that be a motivation and not a distraction. 
• Talk to yourself, watch motivational videos, whatever. Keep the fire burning till you are there. 

And remember, if it's in mind, body follows. Mostly!

An affair

Fall in love with your insomnia!

Steps -
1. When you have about few of your precious sleeping pills left, adjust your sleep timing in a way that you are awake early morning (example - 10PM-5AM).
2. Tie a dark cotton stole around your eyes and ears before you depart to bed. For a soundproof, lightproof & believe me a thought proof sleep.
2. Even if you are sleep deprived, try and get jogging early morning for just these days.

Result -
1. You are tired yet energetic.
2. Your clock adjusts.
3. It makes you sleepy at night, wakes you up at same time every morning till you get addicted to early morning jogs.
4. You throw away the cotton stole and forget the pills.
5. And you meet a new you!

Been 15 days. And I am already falling in an affair with myself!

My Precious

I punctually find myself in this dilemma of staring at my pearls and feeling oh so possessive about them. These little fellas, I tell you, are the most freaking amazing things I could have ever gotten access to. Had it not been for that non-ending day, I would not have ever known that my little friends existed and that they were oh so kind and gentle. 

As far as my memory rolls back, I can still see those blond stares around me. Sure, they are soft but they are uselessly empathetic.  Empathetic to the point of being frozen by my groans. They are just staring and staring, two of them even touching me thinking they are comforting me. Damn them! Damn all the painkillers I’ve taken! So many yet so unmoving.

My take – “When you are in pain, I mean extreme physical (or for that matter mental) pain, no freaking touch or whatever sane therapy can do a bit in relieving you. Period.”

It was in that moment that all those angels and faeries above sent this short, sharp eyed, male nurse to my bed with a Morphine injection in hand. And what followed next was absolute bliss.  

I literally remember to have not remembered even an ounce of my physical hell anymore in the hours that followed. Let alone the mental high it kicked me with. All at once, I was with my hubby, on the shores of the hospital, walking, hand in hand, extrapolating our future and happiness around our just gifted parenthood. That walk, that chilly Melbourne evening, has ever since then remained in my memory like some ride to heaven. 

(Un)Luckily though, along with my discharge from the hospital, it was time to say bye-bye to those incredible injectibles. But what I did get as an acceptable well wishing token from the hospital was a long enough prescription of Endone. Now this, as I’ve well discovered by now, is something which is ‘little’ less invading, but far handier and hence addictive, I guess. 

All those friendship quotes suddenly make so much sense now. They say it for a reason that "A friend in need is a friend indeed". And what better than these little stones which captivate all three dimensions of my being in just no time – my body, my mind and hence my spirit. A single doze hits me like a million of happy hormones, all in one go.

It’s been some long time since I realized that I am left with just 4 of my buddies now. So far, since then, my need to preserve them has won over my need to consume them. I am finding this pretty interesting. My clash with my addiction, for my addiction. After all, the awareness that you can go unaware at will is something. Isn’t it? And it’s worth the entire contest. June 2014 marks the finale of my chase. That’s when these tiny stones expire. Till then it's is all cheers no matter what! ;-)

Disclaimer - I am not promoting usage of drugs here. Consumption or addiction to these is dangerous to health. It’s just a narration of how one of my medical conditions led to my introduction to these and my getting trapped into the phenomenon of craving since then. It would definitely have been a damaging story had I had an unlimited access to these.

 

Bun in my Oven

Ouch! This damn washbasin! Always hits me at the weirdo peeing hours. It’s about 3:30AM in Melbourne. And here I am fully awake. No folks, it's not any jet lag. It's a bun, a spiced up bun, in my oven, a really hot oven!

So while Mr. KUNE (KUnal + NEha) is in the process of making and baking, his mama sits awake at midnight tired of the peeing sessions; and his dad is busy fuming off his mama further by his non-stop snores and spinning-in-bed chores. Poor mama! I know!

With an absent-minded awareness, a dull face, patchy skin, drowsy eyes and a body which I find hard to recognize, I feel, this entire odyssey of pregnancy revolves pretty much around the letter 'P' - You get a 'Pea' in the 'Pod'  as a result of some 'Pleasurable' moments. Your 'Prenatal' phase starts and then you 'Puke' and 'Puke' until you have been ‘Pumped off’ of your last bits of energy left.  Your good night sleep goes for a toss while you 'Pee' and 'Pee' all throughout the night. Thanks to the 'Pressure' on the 'Pelvic' muscles which make it difficult for the body to even turn around while in bed in later months. This is followed by the most awaited phase of 'Pain' and 'Push', I mean the ‘Phobiatic’ phase. And voila, here appears the handsome 'Pie'! Of course with a ‘Pack’ of ‘Pride’ and ‘Postpartum’ chores.

Oh my boy, my dude! Well, well there are still a few days to having you in my laps. At times the thought of seeing you and cuddling you wipes off my mind of all phobias. At other times, my phobic stimulus just seems to take over. May be its my preggo hormones playing wreck with my emotions, or it’s my worn and torn body at this stage doubting its capabilities once recovered, or it’s my dependency on maids in this maid free land, whatever it is. Trust me kid, it’s easier to be an obedient daughter or a daughter-in-law, a loving wife, or a supporting sister than to be a functional mother. However with a single kick of yours, my life seems to get a kick. With that magical wave on my tummy, you make me smile and jump with joy. With that beautiful shape of yours emerging in my belly, you make me feel restless about seeing you, about introducing you to this world. With an ultra-sound shot seeing you scratching your head, you make me feel you, you make me feel like a mother, you make me feel like the most energetic creature around who can do anything, just about anything for this cute Kiddiwink.

My Little Rug Rat! I mean Your Royal Highness! You demanded your mere diagnosis to be done not at home, but at a grandiose Hotel. It’s the night when our Hyderabad house was sprayed with pesticides and we had to shift to a hotel at 2AM midnight because of the pesticides putting unacceptable strain on my smelling hormones, marking a sharp decline in my environmental tolerance. Anyways the following morning, sensing your arrival, I decided to test your presence and voila – you had already popped in!  We are and will always remain honoured with your gracious landing.

Thanks to my motherly instinct which tells me that you are going to be a hard nut to crack. Your Highness! You either seem to be arriving with royal endeavours or you seem to be on a pursuit to bring your spoiled, kinky, irresponsible, and sloppy freaks i.e. your parents-to-be on track.

Your immediate next course of action was to ensure that your mommy was used to and comfortable with all the tricks of the trade cooking, and hence to ensure exclusive authentic mom-made savory bites for yourself in future. So you sparked off some fiery hormones in me which made me fire my cook, who had been serving us for 4 years. All at once it was time for self-cooking. I still don’t know if it was the actual fault of the cook, or it was these preggo hormones caused by of course you, My serene Highness.

Your Majesty! You deserve and command full time attention and care. So you made my days, especially mornings nauseatic enough to not being able to work from office. The day I woke up thinking I might just turn up in office soon, that day was sure to bring me a good number of pukes. With each puke, I heard your voice - “Enough of work mama! Stay at home with me, I Love You. You better love me too”. I was terrified even to take the name of ‘office’ in the morning. For it took me a few hard mornings to recognize that few words don’t seem to go well with you.

That was just the beginning. Very soon, I had to put down my papers because this ‘P’ factor brought with it another surprise, the most awaited ‘PR’ for Australia. As there’s an expiry date to activating PR visa, we realized there was no other time to visit there than then. So my Happy Little Vegemite wanted to be born an Aussie. May be that’s why this visa thing coincided with my conception. Your Highness made us leave our home, our families, our jobs and our country. So soon after, KUNES, expecting, jobless, homeless, clueless, just got up, packed up and arrived in Australia. What followed next was pure gamble.

Once a woman is in the club, she should not plan a shift. Though we shifted not once or twice but thrice before we could call some place home. Every time I wondered whether we were being railed or derailed, I felt the ever mine boy inside my tummy, boiling his own courage and pouring some to me as well. In the middle of an ocean of countless sensitive circumstances, a single sign of clean progress would make me weave new hopes about our years to come. And well! Seems the gamble played off well. Things started to fall in place. Yet.. Ninth month and here I sit, staring at our yet to open luggage which has just arrived from India a week back.  Well, a mother’s work is never done.

And my dear brave Littlie! All this while, your cooperation, butterflies you caused in my stomach, your ever growing martial arts (kicks, flutters, what not), your cute little face I see in my dreams and the excitement you bring with your anticipated arrival have kept the fire burning, and the aspirations elevated. Lucky are we to have you and the surprises galore you bring, which are already spicing up and energizing our lives. After having traversed through many a shades of the sky, and with a beautiful rainbow just around the corner, you are simply awaited and anticipated with lots and lots of love, wishes and prayers, and ouch! A little bit of labor-phobia!

From a flat belly to a belly full of paws and claws, from fifty three kaygees to sixty nine kaygees, from Me-as-Boss and Maid-as-Maid to MyBaby-as-Boss and Me-as-Maid, from mental tiredness to physical tiredness, from girly whirly shopping of all types to Toys & Nappies & Wipes,  from time-to-kill to a full-time-drill, from immaturity to a little bit of maturity, from a woman to a mother, the way I see it, it's been a journey from glamor to glory.

The Coconut Story

Say something, why don’t you speak to me, look at me

Just speak to me please…

(Lyrics from the song “MoraPiya” from Rajneeti)

Dejection, Desperation, Discomfort...

In this world of illusion and fakeness, where there is a bunch of affairs that seek our attention and devotion, what should you give yourself to and what should you stay away from? Well, the answer lies in your desperation. It’s in your pain -physical or emotional - that you are most fervent and vulnerable. It’s when you’ve been ripped apart that you either completely abandon yourself, stop believing in the positivity of the universe; or you gather courage and strive to rise from your own ashes. It’s in these moments that either an atheist or a believer is born.

It’s when life has bluffed you terribly that you are forced to settle down at your newly discovered awareness that – “No one and nothing comes with a tag: I will not disappoint you!” Then is there something which you can really hold on to forever without getting broken? Is there some ONE thing which you can put above rest everything else, without the fear of being let down or being left out in a lonely void? Ummm! Did someone just conceive the thought of God? But does (S)HE really exist? A question which has intrigued many curious souls. So were these souls ever illuminated?

Illuminated or not, I will continue to live with my belief that there are some phenomena which are and will remain alien to the encompassments of science and reason. If someone tells you that you can break a stone, without letting any visible force even touch it, and still make no sound, will you believe it? Well, provided he is not a magician and instills no tricks into you. Our lazy - or just pathetically busy and lost - mind would not even care to testify the authenticity of such crap. Right? But if one says same thing to a child, he might just go ahead, try this, he may or may not get the desired results though. But the point here is that, at the least he will get curious, and maybe for an instance he will believe it too, and this ‘belief’ does miracles!

During my early teens, my trust in Sai Baba was, at best, fallible. Some devotee of Baba, I happened to come across by sheer luck, shared an unusual experience and even asked me to practice the same. This involved getting a coconut to break into two, in silence, with no intervention from any visible force, but just with pure concentration and devotion for Baba. Unbelievable, right?! That’s what I thought when I heard it. But there was some grace, some aura about the lady narrating this to me which made me not un-believe this for a moment.  And thus began the haunt, of temptation and curiosity, of partial belief, of partial hope to not to be ridiculed even though if it meant self-ridiculousness. I waited for an opportunity when I was alone at home. I got one, and I conducted my experiment. My attempt went on for several minutes, until I felt like a complete failure and hence picked up the (as I thought ‘fruitless’) coconut to put it where it belonged, i.e. the kitchen…

A year later, I had the most severe jaundice. It lingered on to my body for 3 months. I still remember around 150 syringes, and some hundred bottles of glucose which I was injected to. My weight had flaked off to 30 Kgs or less. And my distant relatives started dropping off in the hospital suspecting meeting me for the last time. But then, on my not-so-obvious recovery, the doctor who took through my case, said, “This girl is unusual for her age. In 3 months, I didn’t see a single sign of thorniness on her face” Well, the secret was my strength, my faith, my awareness which banked more upon ‘something else’ than on my sickness. My grandma was daily narrating me stories of Baba in the hospital, which kept me amused and wondering all the time. So while Jaundice was busy playing havoc with my body, my mind was busy moulding into a healthier mechanism, healthier than ever. But this all was back then, when I was a kid, and believed in miracles and a happy world.

And today even a minor tooth problem holds the capability to scare the hell out of me. That’s because my ‘grown up’ deceased mind now wants to control the entire universe around me, and when things go unexpected, non-acceptance creeps in. Somewhere in the journey, I seem to have outgrown the fact that few things are better, if left uncontrolled. Try your best to correct, but there’s always a cap to the extent you can control.

And as I am writing this, I am reminded of the things which I should not have left behind in my journey. My talks with Baba. Even though he has never stopped being with me, it’s me who’s clouded herself in illusions and falsehood, and hence can’t see, hear or feel the obvious.

…Oh! By the way – when I lifted that coconut, only the upper half of it came to my hand! For it was silently broken! Geometrically neatly broken! Into two equal halves. And my fallible faith turned infallible, blind. I wonder if it was this strength which helped me endure the phase of near-fatal disease. As if all Baba wanted for me was to have a life-time proof to help me in years when I would have so-called grown up and started taking life head-on. Will the coconut break for me even today? I don’t know.

But I still want to say this to myself:
Probe your mind, traverse it through the sea of doubts, go experimental, and you might be amazed at your discoveries!

-Raise your hands, sing, dance and surrender yourself into the tunes of The Power : The Sufi style, The Iskcon style; or

-Worship an Idol; or

-Follow someone whom you think is Illuminated; or

-Read; or

-Enchant; or

-Surrender yourself to the elements of nature – fire; or

-Meditate, Go silent! Feel the shape of silence, its texture, and get in love with it; or

-Just go blind – the Meera way!

Get your strings attached. Get conversing whichever way it satisfies you. There’s no wrong way! Remember, one way to live life is to believe that everything is a miracle, and the other way is to believe as if nothing is.