Eating my own words..

So why go through this lengthy ordeal?
Why withstand the pregnancy pitfall?
Its because a soft warm baby in my arms
Is finally going to be worth it all..

I think these words are going to come back to haunt me again and again for a long time. Now I think when I first wrote the post, many moms who read it would have had indulgent looks on their faces, the same look that my mom has given me most of the time, that says "You think you know everything, just you wait" :-D. On a parallel note, she also has this other look (plus a wicked grin) that says "Now you know what I went through when I had you" :-D. Well, what I mean by this whole paragraph is that having a baby is not easy, but life certainly doesn't get any better after that.

In fact, life changes, does such a 360 degree turn that leaves you wondering whether this is your life or whether you are suddenly living somebody else's or whether you are in a dream(not really a nightmare but not a sweet dream either). The past couple of weeks have been a set of blurry days and nights full of feeding and changing diapers, where I have felt everything from joy to panic, from depression to outright happiness. I had heard from friends about the sleepless nights/the tiredness etc, but I felt the magnitude of it all only after having Snuggles. Yup, I had under-estimated most of it.

Before I had Snuggles, I was given lectures about post-partum depression in my childbirth class as well as later once she was born, exclusively by a nurse. I kinda had laughed it off. I mean, who could be unhappy with a baby around, right? Wrong! Big time wrong! In just 3 weeks, there have been times where I have felt "Is this all to life? The feeding and the changing?", others where "I'm just nothing but a feeding machine" and yet others where I have really gotten angry with Sri and shouted at him/blamed him for everything (after all it was his sperm :-D). I'm not really depressed, but there have been times when I have felt very much down.

Halt! Gross motherhood reality alert! There was this one night when Snuggles in the middle of the night, after screaming her head off for food, after being fed off my wounded breast, after twisting and turning her head around during the feeding and hurting me more, threw up, spit half the milk out and smiled. I bawled (like a baby :-p). It was so damn frustrating. Sri got a mouth full of scoldings just for patting me on my back as if he understood. He kept reminding me that Snuggles didn't know anything and is just a small innocent baby needing to be fed, while I kept saying "I didn't sign up for this". Things only got better when I realized that I couldn't let a 20-day old get the better of me ;-) :-D. But you know what I mean. Motherhood is a series of such frustrations.

I know I'm lucky. My baby wakes up only twice in the night. She doesn't cry unless she needs a feeding. One of my friends has a baby who needed to be fed every 1.5 hours, even in the night! My friend was saying that she was called "ATM" by all her family, "ATM" standing for "All Time Milk" :-D. We were talking over phone, sharing frustrations, giggling and wondering at the romance novels which paint such a rosy picture of motherhood. I really think a girl ought to read a pregnancy/nursing book before she gets married, so that she knows what she's getting into and gets into it with her eyes wide open! I also have this other friend who had twins and I really admire her now. I wonder what she must have gone through, imagine you console one baby when the other gets up and starts bawling! I repeat, I'm lucky I have Snuggles and only Snuggles. But sometimes I can't help being frustrated. Sadly, this is only the beginning.

I'm also lucky that I have a supportive husband and a supportive family who I can talk to anytime. Post-partum depression happens and worsens when there is nobody you can turn to. I wonder how so many single women handle motherhood. It must get lonely and really tiring. But, women manage and so will I. I wanted to jot my feelings down in a post not to discourage women who want to have babies, but as a reminder of how I am feeling right now. They also say if you put it down in words, it feels all the more better. I'm feeling ok now, but I have already heard of nightmares like how the baby will have fever/will cry for hours after vaccinations (we have the first set coming up). I'm sure thats going to start off my tear ducts too :-p. Still, as I say in my profile, the depressing moments make up memories too :).

And its not as if it has all been bad. There have been times when I laughed out loud about the baby being like a little shark, always eating and saying "feed me" :-D. There have been times when a small smile from her (they say that its just 'gas bubbles" and not genuine smiles) has melted my heart. There have been times when I have sang to her and danced with her in my arms, full filmy style ;-) :). There have been other moments where mom shared her memories about me and Darsh and made me smile. The whole motherhood thing has been a great experience so far with its ups and downs.

On an entirely different note, we had a thottilu shaastra (cradle ceremony) for our Snuggles on the 11th day after she was born and here are some of the captured moments.

The first one is Snuggles all dressed up for the ceremony.




Here's her again after being placed in her bassinet.




Snuggles with her parents and her maternal grandparents..




Lastly, this is us :).




Before I forget, today, on the 24th day after she was born, Snuggles's umbilical stump (the part attached to her belly button after the umbilical cord was cut) fell off (they usually are expected to fall off around this time). The final evidence that she came from within me is gone. Its weird, but I feel somewhat sad :-\..