Giving life to a Life !!

I stood there in the washroom with awe and shock as I saw those two red lines in the pregnancy test kit. I was not expecting this. I came out with the strip, showed it to my husband and said: "Positive" with a long, hung face. To my surprise, a huge smile flashed on his face (it’s a very rare gift that you get to see, considering his sober nature) and he said “That’s great news! You are going to be a great mom for a little angel! ”.  And as they say, smiles are contagious, his one attacked me too. My mind flashed through a lot of stories I have heard from my female friends, seniors and relatives and mostly, movies of course, where ladies jump at the positive news of pregnancy but husbands become silent and nervous at the thought of the huge extra responsibility. I felt if my life partner is so eager to take up all the responsibilities, then may be in this field I will get through with much lesser responsibilities and why not experience this phase. I was anyway bored of my job and wanted something new in my life. And trust me, later on, now I know how wrong my calculation was about me having much lesser responsibilities.

We kept visiting our gynae and every ultrasound showed us our growing-up baby’s images, it always increased the feel of attachment for our baby. Sometimes, I felt he showed resemblances of my husband and he used to feel the opposite (as usual, our thoughts HAVE to be opposite!). Pregnancy went good; my doctor said it is almost perfect!! J

Mostly, I loved the attitude of people close to me, they always said positive things. Always! It felt wonderful. I was pampered all the time. All friends in NCR made out time to visit me with some or the other very-thoughtful gifts. People in office opened doors for me, always left their chairs for me to sit whenever the area was crowded. I had lady friends in office who were also expecting and we had a great time discussing all small details of day-to-day pregnancy issues with them. Female senior colleagues were like an encyclopedia of information to us from their past experiences. They mentally prepared us very well for delivery and new-born baby care, and the reasons to enjoy each experience. Even while on roads, I saw respect in people’s eyes, instead of their head-to-toe-scan-predator-type eyes. And, yes, most importantly, even the laziest of husbands (like mine) keep offering to help in some household work or the other. And for some strange reason, they seem to love you more than ever. All these were enough to compensate for the various kinds of back/leg aches and nausea that are normal in pregnancy!

Now comes the deadliest part.. my baby was delivered after 14 hours of labor pain.. pain was unbearable ! During the labor pains, I was extremely angry on simply everyone around me because they all say its “NORMAL” delivery… nothing is ACTUALLY normal in that pain I was in (when I must mention , I have a good enough capacity to handle physical pain , I am not a delicate girl , I am a tough tomboy girl). There came a time when I thought I would die silently inside the huge oxygen mask on my face. On the top of that ,the two young lady doctors handling my delivery case, were laughing and gossiping on all sorts of weird topics in the world. Starting from sexy lipstick shades and designer saris to why Fortis hospital was the worst hospital they ever worked for in their whole career. And then an interesting topic came up. Some surgeon named Rakesh had resigned from Fortis unexpectedly. It seems he was under real mental stress due to what Fortis had given him for his career as compared to what he deserved. Lot of negative stories were going on as to what what had happened with Rakesh during his job at Fortis.  Seems like he love-married a lady doctor from Fortis itself, had a son and later on had a divorce with her, who still works in Fortis and now has  another lover  AND……. there I was crying and screaming, as if this Rakesh was a very close family member of mine who was about to die that day itself due to all miseries that had happened with him. During this Rakesh story only, I delivered my baby via vacuum pump suction. Then , the lady doctors HAD to stop the Rakesh story and I heard them saying “Hey Maryam, it’s a handsome BOY !! ”. The whole environment changed thereafter. All the nurses out shouted the news happily to each other and to my family members, whistled and started demanding sweets from Lutfur. My mother in law and hubby started making phone calls to important members in the family. In the meanwhile, they cleaned and heated up the baby and placed him on my lap.  Trust me, he was the cutest ever kid I had seen in my whole life. I kissed him and he smiled in his sleep. Tears due to all the pain I had suffered started flowing….. uncontrollably. Tears of the extreme pain I was in after the delivery and happiness at the same time.