My younger sister had one of those breeze-through pregnancies that make 40 weeks look like a blink. Her younger age and patient attitude helped lubricate this 'breeze through' effect...
Generally she is not such a 'wonderful' type...on the contrary, she has quite a cute devilish quality about her... and I presume that this 'patient and good girl' phase was just one of those effects of being pregnant. They say that the attitude/behaviour of the child depends a lot on what the general mood of the mother was during pregnancy ....this was proved in my sister's case - my niece is the closest thing to an angel... and her Ma and Pa the farthest...
but we'll come to that in a later post... let us first resume the original objective of this post....
When my niece was born, it seemed as if she was just waiting for me to welcome her into this world...Her Ma had been huffing and puffing and pushing for over 3-4 hours but within two minutes of my huffing and puffing into the nursing home my niece popped out and gave a joyful shriek 'UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA'..
The night before my niece was born, I got a call from my sister saying that the pains had just started and that the baby could be born any time... I immediately jumped on the next train and spent the whole night dreaming in repeat sequence ..of babies being born. In one night, I produced more than 100 babies in my dreams...and as I looked at each of these babies, I wished it wasn't my niece because I wanted to be there to hold her as soon as she arrived....the good part was that beyond the dream world, I could still feel the reassuring vibrations of the train under my body...that confirmed the imaginary aspect of the 100 babies.
So, you can imagine how important it must have been for me to be there on time...I was literally running inside the car that took me directly from the railway station to the nursing home...as if that would help speed up things..I am sure that car driver still tells my story to his buddies and they have a laugh or two at my expense. But that morning...I would have taken out my hands from the windows and flapped them like wings for more velocity, if the situation had so demanded.. (thanks to cell phones I was being constantly informed that the baby was yet to be born)
Finally I reached the destination...and there I was panting for air....leaning against my sister's husband for support...waiting for the good news...We waited in pregnant silence for about two minutes that the 'UWAAAAAAAAAA' sound emerged from the insides of the labour room...and to accompany the sound in perfect unison, tears started flowing from our eyes...We hugged each other and said this and that...all of which I now forget....For the first time I understood what is really meant by the word 'overwhelmed'!!!
Then we again said some more of this and that to each other...nodded happily at the grandparents sitting in the waiting area...and kept standing in front of the labour room entrance for some news about the mother and baby... kept waiting.....kept waiting...nobody appeared....
Within two minutes of waiting that seemed like a century...our conversation evolved from a babble to incoherent babble...we started contemplating whether our tears had accompanied the right 'UWAAAAA' sound or some other baby had been born inside...Then we asked a nurse-passing-by who had no idea how many moms-to-be were inside the labour room...so we also discussed within those two minutes about lack of efficient nurses in our country...Then we deliberated upon the sex of the child based on the pitch and tenor of the 'UWAAAAAA' sound....but immediately came back to the fact that we had no idea or proof whether the 'UWAAAA' under discussion was the actual 'UWAAAA' we had been waiting for...
Then somebody said that there was only one mom-to-be in the labour room that morning so we gladly accepted that the 'UWAAAAA' we had been discussing had emanated from the right baby.
Finally, the conversation tended to take a mature turn and my brother-in-law sighed and said that he felt he had become a father (I smiled understandingly)....................to a door (my eyes bulged from their sockets) 'What!!!', I expressed some genuine concern.....He said (poor thing tired of waiting for over four minutes now (more like two centuries)). 'I think I have become a father to a door as the audio is of a baby crying and the video is of this door in front of me'...his being a filmmaker did not contribute much to improve the situation...I fully sympathized with his condition but I did not want to feel like being a mausi to a labour room door even for a second!!!!
But, this is how millions of fathers in India must be feeling when they have to wait outside for the news of their wives and babies while they are trying to decipher expressions on the faces of the nurses and recognize every baby cry that is heard !!! After being witness to my brother-in-law's pathetic condition for five seconds, I told him that we must start a crusade and hospitals/ nursing homes etc must allow husbands inside the labour rooms and this and that...and we had discussed this for about ten seconds that my mother (the gynaecologist in this story) brought out my niece wrapped in a white towel....all red and splotchy and wrinkled and the most beautiful little girl I would ever lay eyes on...
So that was that and we forgot all about the crusade for the rights of fathers-to-be and we also forgot about that green door... but it forms such an important part of so mannnnnnnnnnnny stories like ours....Through it, so many people must have seen their little angels emerge for the first time...wrapped in white towels... so many people must have peeked through it and waved or blown a kiss at the exhausted mother inside!!!
Generally she is not such a 'wonderful' type...on the contrary, she has quite a cute devilish quality about her... and I presume that this 'patient and good girl' phase was just one of those effects of being pregnant. They say that the attitude/behaviour of the child depends a lot on what the general mood of the mother was during pregnancy ....this was proved in my sister's case - my niece is the closest thing to an angel... and her Ma and Pa the farthest...
but we'll come to that in a later post... let us first resume the original objective of this post....
When my niece was born, it seemed as if she was just waiting for me to welcome her into this world...Her Ma had been huffing and puffing and pushing for over 3-4 hours but within two minutes of my huffing and puffing into the nursing home my niece popped out and gave a joyful shriek 'UWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA'..
The night before my niece was born, I got a call from my sister saying that the pains had just started and that the baby could be born any time... I immediately jumped on the next train and spent the whole night dreaming in repeat sequence ..of babies being born. In one night, I produced more than 100 babies in my dreams...and as I looked at each of these babies, I wished it wasn't my niece because I wanted to be there to hold her as soon as she arrived....the good part was that beyond the dream world, I could still feel the reassuring vibrations of the train under my body...that confirmed the imaginary aspect of the 100 babies.
So, you can imagine how important it must have been for me to be there on time...I was literally running inside the car that took me directly from the railway station to the nursing home...as if that would help speed up things..I am sure that car driver still tells my story to his buddies and they have a laugh or two at my expense. But that morning...I would have taken out my hands from the windows and flapped them like wings for more velocity, if the situation had so demanded.. (thanks to cell phones I was being constantly informed that the baby was yet to be born)
Finally I reached the destination...and there I was panting for air....leaning against my sister's husband for support...waiting for the good news...We waited in pregnant silence for about two minutes that the 'UWAAAAAAAAAA' sound emerged from the insides of the labour room...and to accompany the sound in perfect unison, tears started flowing from our eyes...We hugged each other and said this and that...all of which I now forget....For the first time I understood what is really meant by the word 'overwhelmed'!!!
Then we again said some more of this and that to each other...nodded happily at the grandparents sitting in the waiting area...and kept standing in front of the labour room entrance for some news about the mother and baby... kept waiting.....kept waiting...nobody appeared....
Within two minutes of waiting that seemed like a century...our conversation evolved from a babble to incoherent babble...we started contemplating whether our tears had accompanied the right 'UWAAAAA' sound or some other baby had been born inside...Then we asked a nurse-passing-by who had no idea how many moms-to-be were inside the labour room...so we also discussed within those two minutes about lack of efficient nurses in our country...Then we deliberated upon the sex of the child based on the pitch and tenor of the 'UWAAAAAA' sound....but immediately came back to the fact that we had no idea or proof whether the 'UWAAAA' under discussion was the actual 'UWAAAA' we had been waiting for...
Then somebody said that there was only one mom-to-be in the labour room that morning so we gladly accepted that the 'UWAAAAA' we had been discussing had emanated from the right baby.
Finally, the conversation tended to take a mature turn and my brother-in-law sighed and said that he felt he had become a father (I smiled understandingly)....................to a door (my eyes bulged from their sockets) 'What!!!', I expressed some genuine concern.....He said (poor thing tired of waiting for over four minutes now (more like two centuries)). 'I think I have become a father to a door as the audio is of a baby crying and the video is of this door in front of me'...his being a filmmaker did not contribute much to improve the situation...I fully sympathized with his condition but I did not want to feel like being a mausi to a labour room door even for a second!!!!
But, this is how millions of fathers in India must be feeling when they have to wait outside for the news of their wives and babies while they are trying to decipher expressions on the faces of the nurses and recognize every baby cry that is heard !!! After being witness to my brother-in-law's pathetic condition for five seconds, I told him that we must start a crusade and hospitals/ nursing homes etc must allow husbands inside the labour rooms and this and that...and we had discussed this for about ten seconds that my mother (the gynaecologist in this story) brought out my niece wrapped in a white towel....all red and splotchy and wrinkled and the most beautiful little girl I would ever lay eyes on...
So that was that and we forgot all about the crusade for the rights of fathers-to-be and we also forgot about that green door... but it forms such an important part of so mannnnnnnnnnnny stories like ours....Through it, so many people must have seen their little angels emerge for the first time...wrapped in white towels... so many people must have peeked through it and waved or blown a kiss at the exhausted mother inside!!!
what a wonderful account....I came all the way from another country for my niece's birth (my sister's delivery) but as soon as I went out of the hospital for 10 minutes....she was born!!! what timing!!
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