Am pasting an article I just read in an online desi magazine. ( http://www.visagepk.com/iss47/article_3.html )
Read quite a few things that were recently discussed here in the forum!
Here we go, for all the (new) moms : )
Was wondering if some of you went through this yourself?!
*It started off with a mammary crisis right there in the hospital. That’s when my milk ducts were on strike. I think they were just trying to get back at me for calling them fried eggs all these years. But there we were, driving me up the wall with this firm belief that my infant was just plugged into an empty faucet. If that wasn’t a reason to die, it was certainly a reason to kill anyone who tried to placate me with that ‘oh don’t worry, you’ll be fine’ crap – doctors, nurses, family included. That patronizing tone made me want to shriek, which I did quite unabashedly at every feed. Which was every two minutes. Which also made me a very tired shrieker. I would go green with envy when anyone mentioned expressing milk by the ounces. Ounces!! And here we were dealing with droplets. I wanted to be the catalogue mother, ensconced in her rocking chair with a smiling face, nursing the infant to a fountain of colostrums. So I inaugurated the milk-inducing-food festival. The menu included any and everything successful cows swore by. If I wasn’t popping bitter zeera, I was busy guzzling ‘sooji ka hareera’ or a mug of horlicks laced milk. I even popped Maxillon tablets, known for lactate friendly side effects. I was on a mission, stopping only when an upset stomach broke down pleading for mercy, pulling in the brakes I paused to observe the results. As they say, no pain, no gain right?? I have to admit a lot has been gained – everywhere. In my zeal to be a cow, I have started looking like one. What I didn’t gain in pounds throughout my pregnancy, I have subsequently gained in kilos.
In a perfect world, I would have enrolled myself in one of those aerobic classes and beat myself to shape. But the umbilical cord keeps yanking me back to the yelling machine wrapped in a receiving blanket. It’s a challenge leaving him behind even if it is with my own mother. Nothing shakes my belief, be it feeding, burping, bathing or dressing him up, it isn’t right if I haven’t done it. I jump with joy every time he soils his diaper (system’s working fine), I cancel dinners at the 11th hour if I find out one of the guests has the common cold (can’t
risk an infection), I drive my pediatricians insane with those twice a day calls (who knows what that twitch indicated).
With so much happening, the frumpy look is in; life is lived in trainers and baggy t-shirts, the facial hair has piled up so high, I’m not even sure our son can distinguish between mom and dad any more…it’s not easy living with panjeeree induced post partum blues.
It didn’t help that amidst all this chaos, circumcision loomed on the horizon like a dark, ominous storm, which had to be braved no matter what. For weeks, images of chopping boards and carving knives did a little jig in my head as I watched my innocent baby gurgle and beam, clueless to what lay in store for him. As we paced the hospital floors in silence, imaginary screeches filled my ears. I hated the doctor who assured me it wouldn’t hurt (and how would he know, unless he’s practiced on himself –eeyyeeww!); I secretly toyed with the idea of delaying it for a couple of years. I could just picture his autobiography titled ‘Why didn’t amma save me from the butcher?’ But while I died a thousand deaths, a calm, sedated child emerged, now officially a Muslim.
Now this Muslim child’s date of birth is giving me nightmares at every pre-school. I had no clue that every September child is at the bottom of the academic year ladder. With the apple of my eye wait listed everywhere on earth my nervous tic is working full time. Why can’t schools do us clueless parents a public service and issue memos warning against December conceptions. We’d put it right next to the ovulation charts and save ourselves this two year traumatic wait of will he get in or won’t he??
Food for thought - hmm … Now who says mommy gray cells aren’t working anymore?*