And he is here...

 He is here, Finally !! 

After 3 sleepless days and nights, and too many paracetamols to help me catch up some sleep, it all failed.

We ended up in hospital being induced. 

Epidural didn't work first time, so after an hour it was removed to try it again second time but this time also it worked only on right side and not on left.

After painful hours of waiting, epidural wore off (which was not much effective anyway ), greenish amniotic fluid, not much progress even after IV, contractions one mins apart, it was decided to wait till midnight and make a decision based on progress as it was not advisable to go like that next day. 

At midnight doctor decided to go for a c-section looking at not much progress.

Our Little Bunny was here on 23rd May 2012, 1:30 am. 

Weighted 3.45 kgs, Length 50cms.

We stayed in hospital for 3 days, during which lil Bun met with his first accident when his changing table came off the wall while his papa was changing his diaper with nurse's assistance  Luckily lil Bun. fell off on his papa's legs and didn't have any injury but it was traumatic at first. (Almost all staff came and apologized , it was ok when he was not hurt but what if he was ! ). 

Anyway all those pains are left behind and we are home now. 

We are busy adjusting with new schedules and doing better day by day.

Thank you all for checking on us and sending wishes our ways. 

With this update, template of this Blog comes full circle. It's been a journey, and a journey i wouldn't want anything to change from it !

Little Bunny Welcome on our Blog.  Hope you will enjoy it as much as your mummy n papa do.

We are expecting...!

After family it was time to inform friends and colleagues. I informed my boss straight away so that he knows reasons for me feeling sick. 

More than me Suz was curious on when do i tell other colleagues, she kept asking me when will i as she wanted her dream to be true in a real sense that i inform the news and she can hug me openly showing how happy she felt ! 

We decided on informing everyone after our first ultrasound so that we know everything is well and good. I had my first ultrasound at 11 weeks and i informed to my department colleagues the very same day, more because Suz was getting impatient! hehe

Next week we invited some of the friends at our home and i baked a cake specially to announce the news to them.

Ashu went by saying "We are going to have a new member in our group; only thing is there will be a big age difference / generation gap". And then we presented the cake which read "We are expecting !!

Dream which came true...

After the big news for us, it was time to pass on the same to our families. I was so confused and felt so unprepared on how to unfold it to everyone. Also we wanted to wait till the confirmation with doctor before we tell anyone. It was not that difficult to wait as we had already plans of flying over to Milan for a long weekend.

We were hoping for some nice shopping time and good Italian food, well the trip didn't turn out exactly what we expected, atleast for me. The morning sickness / nausea suddenly kicked in making me feeling sick almost all the time while there. All i wanted to do was to sleep as i felt tired and exhausted.

I couldn't eat anything as suddenly i developed aversion towards tomato and cheese, and if you know Italian cooking it is difficult not to have them especially with me being vegetarian.

We did manage some shopping and walking around the street. And i enjoyed Italian ice-cream, so yummy!

But you know somehow you start relating things with the state of mind you were in at that particular moment, so till today all the dresses i wore while i was there just glimpse of them reminds me of nausea and how awful i felt. I haven't been able to wore any of those again (well, they don't fit me also anymore but still). 

By the way this is what we found while walking on the streets of Milan. Aaahn romantic Italians ! ;o)

Anyway we flew back, went to doctor, and got the confirmation but i was still confused as it was still based on the same pregnancy test i did back home. In India things work differently, it is common to have an ultrasound done on your first visit but here they didn't check anything, wishes us congratulations and passed on midwife references to select one from.

I made an appointment with midwife, and they don't give you appointment until you are 8 weeks along, so I was a bit more confused. How do I tell everyone without a proper check-up and confirmation!

First appointment came, and again nothing. As first appointment is suppose to be counseling one and then they don't check or do ultrasound. They wait until week 11-12 for the first ultrasound.

Now i was losing patience and we decided to start telling people around us anyway, if not all atleast we have to start with our families.

I decided to inform them by writing them.

I wrote letters to my parents, parents-in-laws, my brother, sister, and Ashu's brother.

Write up varied but basically it went with similar concept.

First page said “They said always be positive and you know what we got positive today?"

Then inside i stick a picture of positive pregnancy test result and it read, "Yes got it right, Congratulations to be grand parents!”

The one i wrote to my sister was different than those. She was getting married in January and teased me just a few weeks back that it will be so nice if you plan family now then when you come to wedding we have your shower function as well and i laughed it out saying it is too late for that to plan.

So she got the first ever letter from little one. I don't remember exact wording but it went something like this...

Page 1 Front:

"Hi,

I heard you are getting married in January, and you expressed a wish for me also to be present there.

Well I heard you and just wanted to know that I will be there to attend your wedding"

Page 2 Inside:

"Congratulations Masi" (Masi = maternal aunt)

I sent both letters for my brother and sister together and i asked him to video shoot her reaction when she reads it and to send me. Well he did what i asked. At first she read the first page and gave a confused look on what it is? And then as she read inside she just laughed and laughed for full 5 mins, before uttering a word. I do still have that video and i crack up every time i watch it!

Can Dreams be real? ( Part # 2)

After the negative test, somehow i could not accept that test result, though it was likely to be true. I checked the stick after 5 mins, 10 mins, 15 mins and then i threw it in dustbin.

At night after cleaning when i opened the dustbin to throw some more garbage, i saw a very light second line appearing on the pregnancy kit. I couldn't help checking it a few more times.

When we went to bed i could not fall asleep. To clear my mind I took my phone and started googling on accuracy of home pregnancy tests.

It read - good time for test is early morning with first urine. During the day time it is possible not to have accurate result. I decided to do the test again in the morning.

So far i hadn't told Ashu about the negative test or something. It wasn't that we were planning for sometime but still somehow i was so convinced that morning test will be positive and then i will tell him giving him a surprise. So now laying in bed my mind went journeying on how to tell him, what will he react? How shall i announce it to him? Finally i decided something and fall asleep.

In the morning i woke up early. Rushed to bathroom and took the test. I was so convinced already on the outcome, and it did come true to my expectations when i looked at the stick.

I ran upstairs to the study room.

Took a card paper (which i had bought thinking to create home-made cards, someday!), scribbled a few words with sketch pen.

Folded it and inside glued the stick with result. (Yes i did wash it before doing all this)

Then i took the paper, went to bedroom where Ashu's mobile was charging and placed it beneath his cell so he will read when he will go for his cell before leaving for office.

Then i continued with routine. Went for a shower. Ashu was in hurry to leave early for some morning meeting so we hardly talked.

I was upstairs ironing my dress when i heard him calling that he is leaving. I heard him going to charging point for cell.

Silence for a minute.

Then i heard him calling me...

Lopiiii...is this true?

In two minutes he was upstairs in ironing room running with that hand-written paper in his hand.

He looked at me. smiled.

"Really?"

"hmm"

He couldn't stop repeating it for a minute and then he hugged me tight, we stood there like that and we danced for a minute with our eyes wet :)

So that was the day we knew, we had our little one coming.

I took doctor appointment for next week, and then the wait started.

That was 22nd September 2011.

PS. I did tell Suz about my doctor appointment, and she couldn't be any more excited. She called me especially in the evening for confirmation after i returned from doctor! After all she was the only one who knew even before we knew!

Can Dreams be real? ( Part # 1)

It was month of September. I had been quite busy with a project at work past few months, doing overtime almost everyday. But it was about to get over as project Go-live date was approaching just in 2 weeks.

In laws had just gone back to India from a 10 weeks visit, it was just last 2 days or so i was not doing over-time and still i felt exhausted and tired. I thought it might be a break-down. My body has reached a point and cannot do anymore, this is what exhaustion is.

I was thinking this, sitting at my desk in the morning and a colleague came to me smiling. Let's call her Suz. She comes and tells me i had you in my dream yesterday.

Aaah, now that was a surprise.

So.... what was it about?

I had a dream that you are pregnant !

huh?

Yes, we were sitting here at my desk, you came there and were sitting in a chair next to me and then told me that you are pregnant. I was so happy, we hugged and i was telling you that i am so happy for you.

hehe that's funny :)

Is it true, are you?

No, i am not.

Ya it is weird that i had such a dream, else before this i never had a dream about you.

hmm ya, strange.

So we laughed a bit and got back to work.

In the evening, i was felling tired and could not take it anymore. So i informed in the office that i am leaving a bit early today.

Suz looked at me from behind her desktop and commented:

May be you are pregnant ! That's a sign. You feel tired when you are.

I laughed and left for home. While driving back home, i kept thinking whether it is possible.

I was late only by 2 days and that was normal considering all the stress at work. Whenever too stressed and exhausted i had been late even a week before. So there was nothing new in that.

But somehow i couldn't shrug the thoughts off.

I kept thinking if it was possible possible, to clear my mind i decided to take home pregnancy test.

I took the home pregnancy test as soon as i reached home and guess what?

It came Negative !!

So may be that was just a dream, and not all dreams are real !!

21st September 2011

Learning... looking back at life.

There are all kinds of people in the world and everyone provokes some kind of thoughts and emotions inside you. Well some can be not-so-thought-provoking as well! hehe

Some times i see some people, and you can see that they just assume superiority. Sometimes may be based on how they grew up, or sometimes from which part of world they come from, sometimes how well they did in school and that sometimes list goes on.

How you have been brought up plays very important role ofcourse, sometimes you get things you never had or imagined in life before and so when you face them it gets overwhelming. That time the values you held comes handy to help you keep your feet firm rooted.

When I was dwelling on these thoughts it reminded me of my own experiences. If it wasn't for all the experiences in life, we would be still those frogs in the well. It was an experience to study in India, (as it would be anywhere in the world) and fun as well.

When we were in engineering college and did any fun/ mischievous things students will do in that age, our professors kept reminding us "you are engineers and this is not how you behave" so it kept coming to that you are suppose to be this or that way. When you keep listening that all the time directly or indirectly it trains mind to think ohh we are some great species, more intelligent, superior to others!!

I remember our head of the department telling us "if this is how you wanted to behave, you are at a wrong college, better go and join adjoining college." (That happened to be “just” an arts and commerce college)

Time flew and we all graduated, proud to be engineers. Some decided to start their professional lives and some decided to study further.

I took up MBA; it was a batch with maximum number of engineers. Initially as the year progressed the class seemed to be split in those groups according to educational backgrounds. Engineers thought that they were superiors and will remain together in a group and Commerce guys used to think they were some egoistic creatures suffering from superiority complex. By the way this also was no good as now we were always reminded that “you are going to be future managers, this is not how you behave” or simply “maintain the decorum of XYZ School”.

But this time our own experience helped us. As soon as first semester was in full fledge with all blend of different subject the differences within started to fad away.

Engineers started having difficulties with accounts and Commerce guys with subjects related to Operations and Production Management etc.

They started helping each other. Engineers realized they are not superior when they couldn't answer all the questions asked in economics and accounting. As time passed both learned, both helped each other and it blended so nicely. And when one enters the professional life, there is no way to survive is you close yourself in the shell of superiority. Those experience taught this very important lesson of life that every one is special, everyone knows something that you can learn from.

Lesson which is still helping me and may be most important one to survive and live happily in today's world.

Being jealous or just staying aloof in your complex whether superiority on inferiority won't help, but learning from others and enhancing yourself will.

Cultural difference

An Asian woman and a Dutch man falls in love and gets married.

They are expecting their first baby.

When the due date comes, a beautiful baby girl is born and all are very excited.

When Asian mother sees her grandchild first time, she frowns.... "too little hair !?!?"

When Dutch mother sees her grandchild, she exclaims in excitement.... "wow so much hair !!!"

That my dear friends is also a type of "Cultural differences"!

Photo Courtsey: http://comps.canstockphoto.com/can-stock-photo_csp6118974.jpg