100 Days of Maya

The Summer of 2015- now

Every summer I have a habit. It’s that time of the year, my birthday month when I sit by the swing and do some mental spring-cleaning, i.e. I take a mental stock of things. And given my obsession with making lists, I chalk up an exhaustive one. I make a list of the things I did in the last one year, segregate them from what I did new and the lessons I learnt. The good the bad and the ugly. And then after a good measure of over thinking and over analyzing I firm up my plans for the coming year. That year’s bucket list would comprise of anything, from personal character development goals to outlandish ones like visiting Greece. I then take a resolve to achieve them without cribbing away the rest of the 364 days about how I am getting old.

But not this April 2015. I am now a parent, an official custodian of a tiny little human who is counting on me to make her see that life is beautiful.

This summer has been about nothing else but getting ready to become a parent. I did not do anything. But yet feels like I did so much.

The Prelude

It was my turn. Lying in the stretcher with a nine and half month belly partially obstructing the face of my husband, I held his hand and whispered, “ I think it’s a girl”. 

“I think so too,” he smiled. Almost like a scene straight out of a movie, I was wheeled into the operation theatre just as he was escorted out.

After many months of gravity- defying- record vomiting sessions, (aptly named ‘hyperemesis gravidarum’) that pushed me into the depths of depression and occasional suicidal thoughts, I had reached the day that I was counting down for. The birth of my first child. The little baby who ate nothing but idly in utero during the three months of relentless vomiting. The baby who had made me smile, wiggling her tiny little fingers in the third month scan, just as I was losing hope.

 Pregnancy was never fun. They weren’t my days of glory. No pampering and no days of glowing. It was instead punctuated with “will I -wont I” anticipation of vomiting, excruciating gas trouble that poked at the ribs and adding cherry on the cake was a surgery to remove an ovarian torsion. She was a precious baby. A brave one who slept inside her mother’s tummy oblivious (or maybe she knew) of the surgeons slowly maneuvering a probe beside where she lay to remove a hemorrhaging ovary. She probably heard me whimper "Please don't die on me," just as I was losing consciousness.The nine months had been a life changing experience. The toughest that I had ever gone through, that no amount of pouring over pregnancy books, instant googling, or listening to worldly advice from every other person with or without uterus had prepared me for.

But it was getting over. They said I would forget everything when I see my baby’s face.

25^th Dec 2014, at 8:45 she was out. Our little ‘Christmas Miracle’. Bundled in a red fleece wrap, a squishy little pink face hidden under a white woolen cap, she was there. Our gift from Santa.

Maya. Magic. Illusion. My reality.

During the second half of my pregnancy, in those rare moments when I made a feeble attempt to enjoy it, we whiled away our time debating over the sex of the child. In fact it seemed like a national past time, with every other person who had   up until then doled out advice on vomiting, now had a theory backing their choice of gender. But for some strange reason, a reason foggy to me, I was convinced that I was carrying a boy. Perhaps it was a dream, of a green-eyed husband lookalike baby who gurgled in my sleep. The husband opined, “Raising a boy was easy work.” He would grow up on his own he said. With recent stories of child abuse and rape, to which largely girls were prey to, bringing up a girl will be a nightmare he believed. “I will have to invest in a gun,” he announced, rather dramatically. Maybe a tad sexist but definitely realistic.

 “But having a girl will build character. It will be a good learning experience for u,” I chided my husband who had grown up amidst boys and whose only experience living with a girl came after marriage.

But on the eve of the surgery, as I lay on the hospital bed staring at the fetal monitor that was blinking at 155 beats per minute, I caught my Doctor father hiding a smile, a wry smile that seemed to suggest that he knew the big secret.

 “ A 100 illustrated stories,” a fat cream book in faux leather that I had bought for my unborn child, in a rather crazy whim, flashed past my mind. “ To Maya “ I had scribbled in pencil, and stuffed it in my bookcase. It had been collecting dust for two years now. That was the moment of truth. Its Maya I said to myself.

Her

When I looked at her for the first time, groggy, eyes, shutting involuntarily under the effect of anesthesia, she looked like a little monk to me. A Tibetan monk with slit like eyes and puffy cheeks. I wanted to say “Dalai Llama” to the next pesky relative who asked me whom she resembled. This little human had come out of me. It was hard to digest. Combating my feelings of disbelief, and worn out by a gripping pain, my head was reeling.  The world seemed to be moving in super motion, with a steady stream of visitors trooping in unannounced and nurses barging in one after another and violently squeezing my breast to induce breast-feeding. All this while a family was busy laying claims on Maya’s nose, eyebrows and what not. I was sitting there feeling alone; amidst all the pandemonium with waves of confusion that were hitting unaware. Why am I sad when this is supposed to be the happiest day of my life? I questioned myself.  I am thrilled. Definitely. But why am I not flooded with affection for this little screaming monk? Am I weird? I pondered, wiping away the gush of tears. It seemed like a faucet was opened.  Can I do this? I still need my mother when I am sick, how can I be a mother now?

During the early days of marriage, I found it very hard to call the husband the husband. I even referred to him as my friend while booking a table at a restaurant.  (He is a friend also isn’t he?)  Friend ok. Boyfriend perfect. Husband? It felt odd and old. I looked at Maya and the same feeling tugged at my mind. Do I have to call her my daughter?  It felt strange. Do I have really have a daughter?  Of my own? Did god really trust me with that?  It was perhaps too late to philosophize or conduct post mortem.

If pregnancy was life altering, post delivery seemed like after-life. I plodded around with almost no recollection of how I lived prior to the birth of little miss. Everything was a blur. Of course the unsolicited advice that I had grown accustomed to, now quadrupled, but fortunately there was hardly any time to get irritated. Days blurred into nights and nights seemed longer than before. It did not take hours, not days, but weeks for this conundrum of mixed emotions to settle down, as I sat dealing with the excitement and more importantly the chronic lack of sleep. Meanwhile our poor unsuspecting Maya fed, pooped and slept on loop.

Mother

It’s been 100 days now. The more I get to know Maya, the more I get to know myself. I have forgotten what sleep is, I don’t remember the last time I savoured a meal in silence and my body aches to go to the spa everyday. However I seem possessed by a strength that I never knew existed and despite all the laboring for love, there is so much to look forward to. Maya’s swollen and slit like eyes have fanned out wide. Dense wisps of black hair have mushroomed on her forehead and she now breaks into a toothless, silvery smile. The feeling is ineffable.  Every time I get accustomed to her antics, she grows up a wee bit more, adds a new skill to her kitty and breaks into a smile again. The adventure begins all over.

In the process, I have also discovered a newfound appreciation for mothers. Mine. Yours. Every mother. The cynical daughter, who dismissed Mother’s Day as commercial and hypocritical, now feels good about being mother and overwhelmed on having an entire day dedicated to her. It dawns on me that one of the nights when I sat rocking little Maya, I have magically transformed into my own mother. I hold Maya the way she does, I sing the same lullaby. I am her. If I could muster up even a measly 10 % of the mother she is to me Maya would be lucky.

Life since Christmas has been a series of firsts. The first time she rolled over. The first time she responded to her name. The first time she flung her arms towards me, and first time I felt like a person who can brave the world and take care of this little person.  Beyond the button nose that curls like mine or the eyes that slant like the husband lies a beautiful little person with her own tiny personality. Her whims. Her fancies. She is exploring the world quietly. With each passing day I get to see a little more of her personality unfurl in front of me. Will she be stoic like the husband or bear my sentimentality? It waits to be seen. But mostly I hope she is like herself. Unique.

Motherhood for me has not been a flooding of love, but like a gentle fragrance that slowly wafts into the room and immerses one it, silently, peacefully.

The Future

As I stand in the balcony holding Maya, helping her soak in all the myriad sounds, sights and smells of the world that she has fallen headlong into, that would soon dissolve her into its wonders and predicaments I realize one thing. No amount of information (including this post) can ever prepare one completely for being a parent. You can never be totally ready. For good and bad, life changes forever. And strangely it has just begun.