My little bundle of joy

Tuesday, 19th December 2006. It was around 430pm. I was in the office. Running between meetings, operational updates and closure of the appraisal process. My cell phone rang.  It was my father-in-law. “It is time.” In about two minutes, I closed out everything I was dealing with.  Once I had taken care of that, I walked up to my boss’s boss, my immediate boss being on leave, and informed that I would be out of office indefinitely. He wished me luck. I scurried back to my desk to set my out of office message, logged off and rushed to the parking lot.  I would have given Dominic Toretto a good run for his money as I rushed headlong into the peak hour traffic on the drive back home. Given that I had just started driving a few months back, it was a bloody miracle that I did not end up in the crematorium.

 

I brought the car to a screeching halt as I neared my abode, backed up into the parking and rushed inside breathlessly.  I walked into the living room and as I turned around, I saw the entire clan sitting very calmly and patiently; my very “visibly” pregnant wife, my father-in-law, my mother and my father.  Right next to my father-in-law was the hold-all with all thing sundry which would allegedly be required.  He had a firm clasp around the grip. (The hold-all was kept in readiness about a fortnight back. That is how meticulous my father-in-law was). Apart from that firm and white knuckled clasp, everybody looked serene. And here I was, standing there with my entire body palpitating. Damn! Talk about signs of nerve.  I had always taken pride in myself for being calm and collected.

It was time to make the trip to the hospital. Here we were in the car, me, the wife and both our fathers, listening to Kishore Kumar crooning “ek rasta hai zindagi”, as we made our way to the nursing home.  We checked in at the reception and made our way to the room.  The wife had very little or none of the so called labour pain.  The duty doctor came in with the nurse, checked for vitals, smiled and walked out, the nurse dutifully trailing behind her. I looked at my wife, nodded, and ran behind the Doctor.  I confronted her, gave her my best possible puppy look and asked her, “When?” She had a beatific smile as she replied, “there is still time!” “How much?” “Don’t worry! We will let you know.” There I stood thinking to myself that this could mean a few hours or a few days.

I made a quick call to the driver and asked him to get his rear end to the hospital.  I packed off the elderly gentlemen with the solemn promise that I would call them the moment the Doctors said anything. Anything. From there on the wait and vigil began. I slid into a chair, steel backed, next to my wife.  The wife was comfortably sleeping on the bed, clasping my hand in hers.  Two hours into this, my posterior became numb. My back, lower to be precise, was killing me.  And I thought to myself that was it not my wife who would be having labour pain. I walked around for half an hour to get the blood flowing in my butt again. It is not that I was trivializing the pain women go through, but at that moment I could kind of feel the pain my wife would be going through. So, I thought.

The hours went past.  It was the morning of December 20th. Far from being in any sort of pain, here was my wife, resting against the pillow, having her cup of coffee.  Delivered from home.  Whatever happened to the “It is time” call I got from her father? A little later, her Doctor walked in.  Pleasant and courteous, she checked my wife.   She comforted my wife and said that they would wait till the evening to check if the labour pain kicks in. Else they would try and induce labour.  

Induce labour? How the heck would they do that? My paranoid mind ran wild thinking of what would be the way of inducing labour.  As I stewed on these thoughts, while I was having intermittent conversations with the wife, my sister-in-law walked in. With lunch, and, to relieve me. I rushed back home, showered, changed ate and was back at the hospital. Noon turned into evening.  No signs of the labour pain. The Doctor decided that it is time to try and induce labour.  The procedure involved injecting a drug, epidural, somewhere near the spinal column and then wait for the contractions to start.  This is what the Doctor told us.  I was in panic mode as I looked at my wife.  She was calm. Eerie, as she has a pathological hatred for any form of injections.  The wife was taken to the labour room, the procedure for the epidural was followed and she was brought back to the room. Minute turned to hours. Dinner, again delivered from home, was consumed. My butt again went off to sleep resting on the steel chair.  My back again started groaning. The damned contractions did not start.  Nowhere close to it. Night turned into day and it was the dawn of December 21st.

December 20th played out again on December 21st. Event for event.  As on 20th, the doctors tried inducing labour.  My back got butchered. My butt slept. I slept. Finally. No contractions. No labour pain.  Night went past in a jiffy.  It was December 22nd now.

By afternoon, the wife was getting annoyed.  Here she was. Waiting for the labour pain to start, expecting to be wheeled in to the theater. On top of that she had to deal with me and my paranoia. After having had lunch, she had kind of made up her mind.  She called me over and in a conspiratorial whisper said that she would like to go in for the C-Section.  I was caught in a flux.  My wife, who does not like being injected, was willing to go under the knife. She was willing to go through the pain. I spoke with the Doctor.  She was ready to operate that evening, but we needed to confirm soon.  I spoke to my wife.  She cajoled me to be brave.  I had a multitude of thoughts at that time. Most of it started with “what if”.  I called up home and informed my father-in-law. I told him and my folks to get to the hospital.  I signed the forms, albeit with a lot of trepidation.  My better half was about to be wheeled away to the operation theater and I was not mentally prepared. She was.  Around 7pm she was inside the theater.  By then the family had come in.  Along with them was also my wife’s aunt.  She helped calm me down. My father shook my hands and gave me a wry smile.  As I paced up and down near the door of the theater, around 745 pm the nurse came out and asked for a towel.  Bewildered, why a towel was being requested for, I turned into Carl Lewis, ran up and down a couple of floors and handed over the towel.  Around 750 pm the door of the theater opened up again. The nurse stepped out. She had a small bundle, wrapped up in the towel, which she was cradling in her arms.  She looked at me and smiled.  As I walked up towards her, she saw the worried look on my face and told me that my wife was fine. Relief. Then she handed me the bundle and she said very softly, “Girl child.”   I gingerly took the bundle from her, cradled it in my arms and looked at my daughter for the first time.  My wife and my progeny. She was asleep. Eyes tightly shut. As I looked around, I could see the relief and happiness on every body’s face. I walked up to my father and my father-in-law, tears of joy streaming down my cheeks. I looked at them and said, “My child.”

I will never be able to put in words the feeling I had that day.  Pride, happiness, satisfaction, anxiety (for the wife), trepidation (for the child’s future).  It was a mix of everything as thoughts raged in my head. One thing I am sure of; I will never ever trade anything for that one moment when I held my daughter for the first time. My little bundle of joy.