O Boy!

It's November 2010. When the month started, I knew that this would one of the biggest months of my life. No kind of preparation was enough for the days I just spent.

First and foremost, the announcement - as on Nov 7th, I am a dad. Wow! Yes, it feels great. Its a role change that has respect built into it. I mean, for most of us, a parent automatically deserves respect. And I guess I am in the stage now during the initial few days finding out why that is so. I am earning it now.

Time for some flashback. We were celebrating diwali. Shopping, sweets and firecrackers. It was Saturday night. I was feeling a bit (ok, quite a bit) sad as I had to go back to Bangalore after spending 10 days at home. The plan was to take Anju to her place in the morning, come back to my place in the afternoon and catch the train in the evening. Thankfully, the kid had other plans. And boy, was it timed properly!

We got to our bedroom at around past 11pm. But we werent feeling sleepy, either of us. I guess initially it was just because we wanted to spend some more time together, talking, as I was supposed to leave soon. But, within an hour, we had other reasons not to sleep. She was getting pains in her mid section. And the frequency kept getting shorter. The pains were getting more acute as well. I could judge that by her reactions, although she kept telling me that it was all right. After 30 minutes or so of this, at around 1 am, I coudnt stand it any longer, and thought I should get some expert advice. I went downstairs to wake up my mom. Even with her bad knee, she climbed upstairs, and after inspection, agreed that we should go to the hospital now. In the worst case, if it was a false alarm, we could just come back.

I got the car out. My father and sister were up by then. My mom and wife got into the car. We started at 1:20 am. We got to the hospital within 10 minutes, thanks to the less crowded roads at that time of the night. Once we got there, we asked for some help. Anju went inside the maternity block. Once she went directly inside the labor room, I could just stare at the slippers she left behind. This is all so sudden, I thought!

We had called her parents before starting. Soon, they came by, and the 4 of us were just talking for some time. I could hear somebody screaming "Entammeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee". It sounded like my wife, but I couldnt be very certain. She later told me that the delivery pain is like no other pain in the world. You can get delirious then, it seems. My mom asked me to come back to the waiting room instead of spending time outside the labor room, listening to the goings-on there. We were quite eager to know what was going on in there, but they there was no status update, much less them letting us in. At 3:40 am, a nurse came to us and said that Anju has delivered, and its a boy. We were quite surprised, as the parents were just telling me how the entire process could easily take a few hours, and in some cases, a few days. 2 hours is awesomely fast time.

Soon, the nurse brought out the bundle of joy. It was an amazing sight! I hadnt seen anything like that before. Its arms were quite blue. I guess it must have been the lack of blood circulation there. And the rest of the body was quite reddish and whitish. He looked like a person from Shimla with no tan at all. But, overall, it just looked quite beautiful. It was getting to be daybreak soon. So, no point in getting any sleep then. That was the first sleepless night I had.

We spent 3 more days in the hospital, and 3 more sleepless nights. Well, I did sleep for 2 of those 4 nights. But, the mothers, all 3 of them, couldnt really sleep for much time. Most of my time was spent fetching supplies - to the canteen or hotels to get tea or breakfast, or to the medical store or driving back and from home.

We were quite relieved, when on day 4, we were allowed to go back home. We got the kid to Anju's place, and every day, we get to see some new antics by the kid. Its such a fun time! :) As I have said before, I am quite lucky about the big things in my life. Thank you, God.