Mommy Diaries - 3

Dear Daughter,

There is so much joy in letting out the fact that I have left no stone unturned in taking care of you. Taking care of new born is not a joke. Even though it was hard, I did everything for you. I cradled you in my arms for long hours and I kept you close to my chest whenever you were cranky, I bathed you , I nursed you , I changed your nappy and I did everything for you. I am so glad I did all that dear daughter, for I am so proud and content with myself. Not a single regret I have, especially regarding you dear darling daughter. You are slowly turning into a full fledged toddler and I and Ravi are having some blissful moments with you , which just seem to get better and better. The more you talk, the more my heart overflows with joy and feelings which I can’t express. Today, I am at my emotional peak, dear daughter and I intend to let you know how much I love you and care for you. You are my world and yes, we are getting there. The little struggles seem to be getting lesser and lesser and you are becoming more of a companion for us. Ravi and I , we are blessed to have a daughter , because we can see so many qualities that exist in you , which only females can boast of having. You have the motherly instinct right from your birth, just like me or my mother. You take care of your dolls and babies so well. Just like how I take care of you and my mom took care of me. Nobody could have ever taught us what you are teaching us. You are a little angel from God and I am so happy dear daughter. I am looking forward to the days when you would discuss your experiences at school with me, your crushes, your friends and everything. I am looking forward for the days when I can share cooking experiences with you and watch movies with you, sing Carnatic music along with you and dance along with you. Of course not that I want you to pick each and every habit of mine, but I intend to be your friend and do so many things along with you.

Yours,

AmmaJ

Mommy Diaries - 2

I had a complimentary workout session with a personal trainer at the gym today morning at 9 and so we had asked if our maid Diana could take care of Mahati as Ravi also wanted to go play a cricket match. All three of us woke up at 8 in the morning and then the plan was that Ravi will take Mahati to the nearby mall to buy her bananas and flavoured curd, and I go to the gym and Ravi to come back and  handover Mahati to Diana. We were quite sceptical as to how Mahati would react if both of us were not there. Ravi kept telling her that amma is going to the gym and nanna is going to take her to the mall for some shopping and then they come back to Diana. She dint react much but was excited about the mall trip. All three of us went to the parking and to my surprise, once I put her in Ravi’s car and said that they are going outside, she immediately said bye-bye to me. I was completely surprised and she kept waving to me until the car was out of sight. She was happy and that was what mattered the most at that point of time.

We have come a long way!! I guess this is one of the very few times, that she had happily waved a bye-bye to me and went with her dad. We have come a very long way from an always-clinging-to-the-mom child to this independent one. Of course she has her moods and suddenly declares that she cannot do without me. But this is an achievement. I proceeded to the gym as planned and when I was finished, I got a message from Ravi that she is with Diana and all is well and there was no crying. I was relieved and drove back happily. At the entrance of our building, I saw Diana and Mahati walking towards Cathy’s ( Mahati’s friend in the neighbourhood ) house. I was in a big dilemma. Should I stop and talk to her or should I act as if I didn’t see her and drive to the parking. Finally , I decided to stop as my heart went out for her. She was happy to see me and hugged me instantly. After talking to her, finally I said that she was going to go play with Cathy and I was going back to the house to have a bath. She agreed and went back to Diana and started walking towards the end of the street. Oh gosh! my heart kind of melted away. She was definitely a piece of my heart walking away and for a moment, I wondered whether it was me, who was going through separation anxiety or her? You know what we say in hindi “Jigar ka tukda”. It’s exactly the same feeling. Just can’t get that scene of her walking on the sidewalk out of my mind. And even after letting go of my job and staying with her and taking care of her to the core , after two and half years , I still feel so guilty letting her go. And now, I have to let her go and explore the world through her own eyes , and I don’t want a mama’s girl who always wants to be protected. I want her to fight her own battles and deal with her own emotions but reassuring her that I will be there when she wants to talk and share  J .

U know…. this whole separation and attachment thing……….. it’s so tricky and hard. Both clinging on to and letting her go are so so difficult. And it’s so difficult to strike out the right balance between the both!!

Mommy Diaries - 1

It took me a good 20 mins in the morning today , just to persuade Mahati to get up from her seat and get ready for school. I started off with a lot of determination that no matter what happens , I am not going to shout at her. And I guess it finally worked out in my favour. Phew!!!  And after this episode , I just got drained out completely , mentally and physically. Gosh , it can be so exhausting talking to kids and convincing them on what we want them to do. Because the first word that comes out ouf Mahati’s mouth whenever I ask her to do something is a big “NO”. Then we have to work it out from there. Most of the times , I end up shouting at her , even though that’s not I wanted to do at the first place. Pushing and testing limits , that’s what children do best I guess. And for an organised and not so “change” liking personality like me , its so hard to come to terms with it and start smiling and enjoying life.

Ofcourse I have my own sweet little bliss times with her. Life is bliss when she hugs me, thanks me and smiles at me. Here is a proof of that J

Are Women really equal to Men?

It was different two to three decades ago. Women were less than Men or to be precise, they were treated that way. They were treated inequally and denied all chances to perform , let alone succeed in it.

Thankfully , things have changed.  It took time , but it changed. Now you can see girls going to school , they performing and later on working and also becoming the CEO’s of companies. Good ! Now a woman is no less than a man. This is the perception with which young girls and boys go ahead. They are correct in schools , colleges and offices. Its right even after you get married. Now , husbands have started contributing at home too and share equal responsibilities. All is fair. What happens once children are born ? Now I realise that women can never be equal to men and vice versa. All the thought processes and conditioning of equality  go for a toss. Because , now you become a mother and a father respectively. For a child , a father is never equal to a mother. God has designed it that way. The woman gets pregnant  and almost gives her life to give birth to the child. And after that , mother is the whole and sole in the world for the child in the initial stages at least.  

Now-a-days , independence is the key to happiness for the young generation. You are a free being and you can do whatever you want. People talk about “having space” in their relationships and how it plays a key role in making them happy.

For a mother , there is no independence after a child is born, at least in the initial years of their development. The poor little thing is so much dependent on the mother for everything. Many people talk about its advantages of how blessed a mother is that she is able to have the child with her all the time whereas the father cannot. Very well said. It’s true. But every coin has two sides. The other side is , the father is free to roam around and do what he likes. His independence is still intact. But the world changes for the mother. The dependency is so much that you can’t even go to the loo peacefully , let alone stepping outside the house. Mothers sacrifice so much more than fathers. I am not doubting the intentions of the men as many men would want to do it equally. But it’s not programmed that way.  Under these circumstances , we realise that women can never be equal to men.   It’s difficult for today’s generation of girls to accept this and live with it.  People never talk about this side of the story and infact many people reading this post of mine would definitely be thinking odd about me for elevating this feeling and how bad it is to think that way.

It is not bad to think this way. It is very very human for young mothers of today’s generation to feel this inequality and be unhappy with it.  We are indeed not age old pativratas who think that their only place is at a man’s feet to serve him and raise children for him. No.  Earlier , women would not have had to deal with these kind of feelings as they were programmed to be less than men and their only job is to be at home and serve the men. May be it was a lot easier for women in those ages to accept the fact that they have a much bigger role to play after children are born. So they never complained. But times have changed. And with the changing times and conditioning of equality between men and women , it is bound to get ugly after having children. Hence , with proper support from your partner and family , there is every need to eradicate this feeling to move on in life.

Post-Partum Depression. Yes , I faced it and No , there is nothing wrong in talking about it.

Those of you who see my pictures on facebook and think that mine was a happy pregnancy and a perfect delivery and everything was a perfect little dream-come-true…… are wrong. It was actually far from it. I had suffered from a severe prenatal depression in my last trimester and an equally severe postpartum depression after delivery.

It took me a long long time to come back to normal and start living life normally. It took me a long long time to actually come to a conclusion that I should write about it. Yes, there is no need to be ashamed of it. It can happen to any other woman on this planet and it comes without a due notice and we are far from being prepared to face it. Knowledge is wealth and I thought I should provide awareness about PPD ( Post Partum Depression ).

All was well until the starting on my last trimester ( 7^th month ). I was working as well in Johannesburg , South Africa, and didn’t have any problems. I moved back to India during the same time to rest at home and deliver in Hyderabad. Ravi came just to drop me back home , had a brief holiday and went back to wind up things at Joburg.I thought this phase would be the most relaxing time of all and was really excited with it. But the travel from Johannesburg to Hyderabad left me with swollen feet and a tiredness which didn’t go away for as long as a month after that. Even my swollen feet took a lot of time to get back to normal. And it is when I was staying at my home in Hyderabad , that depression set in. It started with lack of sleep and a frustrated mind as to why I am not able to sleep. I was bored at home and didn’t have anything to do. I couldn’t travel outside , because I didn’t know driving and the weather change between Joburg and Hyd traffic left me nauseatic. It was better to sit at home rather than travel outside with all the pollution and traffic. And above all , you know what elders say , you are pregnant so don’t do anything without out help. My stamina kept decreasing and so did my appetite. But I thought it was all normal and definitely hormonal. Yes , it was hormonal , but it was not normal and I realised this only in my 8^th month. It was the first case of PPD in my family and nobody knew about it.I started imagining all kinds of things and was not happy about it. I always felt that , whatever came into my mind didn’t at all leave me and it only started creating deep impacts and craters in my mind. The ability to control my thoughts was absolutely gone. I felt that my mind was not in my control anymore. I felt that I was some other person and this person is nowhere near to what I am. I felt that something was happening to me and I am not able to stop it. Lack of sleep , lack of appetite , restlessness , no peace of mind and always sad about something which I was not able to apprehend properly. I also had insecure feelings about staying away from my husband and when it was un-bearable , I contacted Dr Vijaya and told her briefly about my situation. It was not only psychological and emotional , it was physical too. I had nervous weakness in my hands and legs , and I was not able to stand and do things properly sometimes. I never felt like waking up from the bed and do something to kill the boredom.

In our society , giving birth to a child and all the pregnancy and delivery phases of life are supposed to be “happy” things. And if it is anything different from it , nobody would want to talk about it. It is all hushed up and the fear of the society seeing you as a “bechara” makes us hide things. But I did no such thing and walked straight into Dr Vijaya’s office and spoke to her. My scared mother accompanied me. I am thankful she did.

May be Dr Vijaya knew already and was suspecting the worst. But she was kind to me and comforted me with her words. She appreciated my outward thinking and the boldness I had to come and talk to her. Because , she said , most women wouldn’t do it. She told me that PPD is a spectrum kind of a thing and almost 80% of pregnant women experience it but at different levels. Some are tolerable and some are not. But mostly , women don’t express it to the gyneac or the midwife. So most of the society doesnt know what’s happening on the inside.

My mother was totally unprepared to face all this. And she never felt or knew that all this was due to hormonal changes or due to changes in pregnancy. She thought I was saying and thinking about issues wantedly .She was scared with the way I was thinking and manifesting things in my mind and her being scared , made me even more timid and frustrated as to why I was like that. After going to Dr Vijaya , we concluded that it might be the mood swings and depression kinds and was normal and a part of pregnancy sometimes. This comforted my parents and husband… but not me. Because it did nothing to my mind so that the pain and everything could go away. I wanted to be happy and welcome my little child. And the fact that some other things were taking precedence over it made me guilty and that guilt started killing me from inside. I couldn’t ignore it and as it was physical too , I was even more scared as to how I would be able to take care of my baby if I was not even able to walk properly and do things normally.It was pure hell. Ravi pre-poned his trip and returned early. But no matter who was beside me and what they had to say to me , the suffering didn’t go away. I had erratic fears over silly things coming into my mind and it scared the hell out of me.I had frequent fear and panic attacks. My brain would be blank and cold for a few minutes.  I knew that my family was putting a brave face outside but were equally concerned and scared from the inside.

Finally , when I delivered , I wasn’t scared of anything in my life , except the “thing” that I was going through. I gave birth normally  and very boldly. Because I wasn’t scared anymore. I had something else to be worried about. Physically , mine was the perfect delivery that anyone would want. Not a single medicine given to my body and not a single prick from the midwives. But psychologically , I was somewhere else. Nothing gave me happiness , expect for pure and intense sense of care towards my child. I took care of her to the core. May be the guilt that built up inside was coming out in this way. My physical  and psychological symptoms remained , even after delivery and then Dr Vijaya suggested me to a clinical psychologist. She spoke to another lady who gave birth in the same center and also a psychologist. Unfortunately , she was out of town , so she referred me to another elderly man in Sweekar-Upkaar , Jublee Bus Stand , Hyd.

I was breast feeding and my body was in the process of healing. But I had to go to consult him. He listened to me and referred me to take some tests. Not lab tests. Some written tests ( I thought they were like some tests to determine my concentration and mind body co-ordination ) which took a lot of time. I had to leave my baby in the car and go to take the tests , occasionally coming back to feed her. There is a phrase in telugu……….. “ Idemi kharmamooo” anipinchindi. I don’t know about the cure , but the visit to the doc itself can make you feel so low and less of confidence , as to something is seriously wrong with you and you need somebody’s help to fix it. It makes ourselves feel like yuk.  Finally , he told me that , I didn’t have any previous mental disorders and this was something that had popped up only in and around pregnancy and hence will be termed as “Post Partum Depression”. He gave me 2 sessions of relaxing my muscles as I was constantly complaining about the nervous weakness in my hands and legs. I almost begged him to give me a medicine to calm me down and make me peaceful. But he denied it as I was breast feeding. He said , treat it as a punishment from God and bear it for 6 months. My duty as a mother was more important than what I was going through and he asked me to come back after 6 months , if I felt it didn’t go away.

He told us a lot of things. He said that , in pregnancy , a woman’s body undergoes a lot of changes.Some are physical and some are psychological. Some are good and some are bad. Now , we the people , miss the bad part. We always think that having a baby only brings joy to us. Ofcourse it is a happy thing………. But it doesn’t always bring joy to us. It also makes us nervous and all the emotions around taking up that responsibility and doing our part correctly. So , “pregnancy and delivery is a happy thing” is highly overrated. It can be the opposite also and there is nothing wrong with it. Sometimes , the wiring in the brain changes permanently because of pregnancy , he said. And I am unfortunate that I have had the bad effects of pregnancy. Having a baby is a very big change in life and different people react in different ways to it, consciously sometimes and sub-consciously sometimes. Nothing is wrong or right in it. And if the pressure on the brain becomes un-bearable , then it translates into physical symptoms like the ones I had. In the spectrum of PPD , may be I fell into a “more and intense” scale. It happens to everybody and not everybody are vocal enough to go to a doc and express that something is wrong. Because we are bound by families and society. And this insecurity and the “unhappy” part are buried under the name of society and the family’s name in the society.

It took me an year and half after delivery to completely come back to normal. And I didn’t take any medicines. It was long , hard and a challenging journey and at the end of it , I guess I have turned out to be a lot more tougher than before. I was sceptical about writing this post from a long time. But finally could muster the courage to put it in words and provide awareness to others. PPD in a severe way happens only to a very very few people. But we must be prepared to face it J.

This part of my life is called “HAPPINESS” :-)

I feel elated and content at the same time. You want to know why…………..its because I just got this in my email box today.

This part of my life is called "HAPPINESS" :-).

It’s the name of the kid that we sponsored education in the last half of the year and his progress card. I got to know about Isha Vidya through a trusted friend who is a volunteer at Isha Foundation and it was in an informal chat with her that I expressed having an idea of sponsoring education for a child. The only thing was that I wanted to personally verify if my money is actually used for the same purposes and also get in touch the child. She told me that sponsoring through Isha Vidya was one of the perfect ways as they write back to you and inform you of the progress and we ourselves can get in touch with the kid. I intend on seeing that this kid completes his secondary education so that he can fend for himself :-).

And how much did I spend ? Rs 10,000 for an year’s scholarship program.

And you can also spend Rs 20,000 for the complete educational support of the child (for one year).

Do you want to do the same?

Details :

http://www.ishavidhya.org/donate-now/financial-donation.html

You can go through the entire website for more details and I can get you in touch with an Isha Vidya volunteer if required.

Wish list Wednesdays - The three things I badly wish I could have

I read about the creative prompt and the Wish List Wednesdays on Preeti Shenoy’s blog and it sounded like fun  J So here I am with my answer for her prompt :D

The three things I badly wish I could have are :

1.       The ability to drive : I had a two wheeler before and I am not new to the roads. I enjoy driving and it gives me a sense of independence. One of my friends sat with me on my scooty and said that my behaviour while driving is so different from the person that I am, generally. She said that I was a lot more aggressive and confident on the vehicle J whereas I am hesitant and a little pessimistic otherwise.   Now,  I don’t know car driving. In the sense , I actually went for driving classes and got a license but didn’t successfully start driving on the roads. But I long for the day when I would confidently drive my car on the roads and go wherever I want. I want to enjoy that independence.

2.       The ability to ignore bullshit and move on in life : I have a very bad habit of clinging onto things a way too much and get stuck there. I see people around me, who  may have more difficulties than I have in life , but are still happy and find their own formulas for happiness. I fail to do so. And I badly want God to teach me to move on in life. Of course , if I say this , my dear ones will always say , it’s not God but You who have to try and change. Whatever , I will wait for the day when I will start ignoring the unpleasant things that happen to me and still be lively and don’t rub it on someone else.

3.       A little more height J. I am short and I have always adored women who are tall and have long legs. I feel that any kind of dress will suit them and they look awesome , especially in sarees  J. I know this wish can never be fulfilled in this life of mine , but then I wish , I was tall.