So far, motherhood has been a crazy journey for me, hence the title – ‘Motherhood is equal to craziness’. My daughter is 10-months old now. She was a premature baby, born 1 month before the due date. She was just 1300 gm at the time of birth (at that time I didn’t know what challenges I’ll be facing with a baby of just 1.3 kgs). Everyone was delighted and excited to see the baby girl born in a family full of boys. My eyes were wet with joy when I first saw her, it was during the operation, she was laying on another bed. A baby girl with a small face, pink lips and round big black eyes. I wanted to embrace her but it happened after a wait of 4 days as she was kept in a nursery because of premature delivery.
Once and for all, the day arrived when she was brought to me for feeding. But we both were not lucky enough to start the feeding process as it normally should have been. Doctor asked me to squeeze my breasts to get milk for baby as she was too weak to suck milk on her own. At first, I was shocked to hear this but what came next was more shocking and painful when the nurses were expressing my breast milk. The pain I felt was inexplicable, it was like someone was pulling my hair with full force. But it had to be done because my daughter was hungry, waiting for mommy’s milk. This process continued for almost 3 months until she gained some weight and got the energy to breast-feed herself. It was then that I realized why motherhood is not a cakewalk.
But it was just a small part of the whole realization; it’s when we came back to Delhi (I went to my in-laws place for delivery) that I realized that now I am the only one who would be looking after Shona (my daughter) as Aditya (my hubby) would be going for work. When I was coming back home with Shona in my lap, I realized it’s a huge responsibility which I have to fulfill whole-heartedly. I was determined but unsure whether I would be able to take care of her alone but as the days passed I gained confidence. Initially, giving her a bath seemed to be a very difficult task to me because you need to be careful while pouring water on baby’s body and prevent water from entering the outer ear canal but now I take only a few minutes to perform this activity and she loves it. Post taking shower, she gets dressed-up by mommy, I love watching her giggle when I sprinkle the powder on her body. Not only this, now I don’t mind cleaning her poop and changing diapers often. When you become a mother you forget everything, you don’t mind cleaning the messiest thing related to your child. I am saying this because I have never done these activities for any other child. There is ‘n’ number of activities that you have to do for your child which keeps you busy 24/7.
As soon as I wake up around 6 in the morning, there is a list of multiple things going in my head that I try to check-off before Shona wakes up because once she is awake it becomes very difficult for me to leave her and do the tasks because she demands full attention from me and when she gets the attention she gives such a naughty smile that I just can’t stop laughing. If I leave her alone for a second she would cry (yes she’s like that), so I try to finish all the work when she is asleep. Sometimes when I am in the bathroom taking shower, she wakes up crying looking for me, then I run fast in fear what if she falls from bed. It is only during the weekend (when hubby is at home) that I get the liberty to take a shower for a long time. Before Shona, it used to be at least 30-minute activity. The other activity I love doing is ‘sleeping’ which now I can’t do as and when I feel like, it is only intermittent sleep that I get because I have to feed her at regular intervals (forget about afternoon naps). Now that she has started crawling and try to stand on her own she doesn’t allow me to lay on the bed comfortably, whenever I lie beside her she tries to stand by taking my support. Not only this, she would take off my spectacles and plays with it (I think she likes its red color). She is a very active child, I love seeing her doing these things. Sometimes I get angry but then I see her innocent face and it brings a smile on my face and she smiles back at me. It’s a wonderful feeling, now I know what unconditional love is.
I have left my job to take care of her, I and my husband have mutually agreed on this and we haven’t hired any nanny to take care of her because we both can’t leave our precious part in other hands. The journey has started and I know it’s going to be crazier. 🙂
