A window to my existence - *WARNING* Seriously sentimental & Long

The theme this week is Window says mamasaysom. So I play the usual word association game around the house. Start with dh. Window, I suggest. Hmm, he says, while attempting feebly to move his nose from the book its placed in. And quickly re-adjusts the nose into the next page of the first part of his discourse with the spiritual being! Window, I hint at dd, she immediately rattles off a long winded and extremely imaginative spiel which I can't do justice to in this post! Suffice to say that she is likely to blog much earlier than her tired old mum. Window, I ask my 6 year OLD baby. I'll open a 'window' and go to www.beyblade.com he fantasises even as he's gazing into the distance outside the window! So much for the family.

Reflecting inward, I didn't hesitate for a moment in recalling the most significant window of my life. It was the NICU window through which I saw my baby for the first time.

A baby whose birth was so different from the previous birth experience I'd had. Every woman who gives birth to a baby does so thinking that she alone has had to undergo the birth process and she is uniquely placed for that special reason. Later, when the collective wisdom of womanhood dawns, she realises the bond she shares with all the women of the world- whether or not they have birthed, they have the power to do so. Having once proved my capacity to give birth to a baby, I swung to the extreme of complacency. Things went right the first time, didn't they? I had a classic text book first pregnancy with the most perfect baby at the end of it. I thought I was through with the baby business, but then...

I'd borne the second pregnancy for nine months with an extremely relaxed attitude, bordering perhaps on the casual. I already had a child, who was the epitome of perfection- my daughter, my flesh and blood, my genes, my baby. Another baby? Would 'it' not intrude on our perfect relationship? Maybe they'd be good *sisters* like me and my sister!?

I had as many as 5 ultrasounds to tell me that I was growing a BIG baby within me. Very reassuring, na? Cricketer or cheerleader, what do you want? was what my radiologist used to ask. Considering it extremely infra dig to engage in such sexist talk, I'd keep a stiff upper lip even while my expanding middle was exposed to his scrutiny. Is it twins? Aren't you already due? others would ask. And yet unmindful of all this talk, I went about this pregnancy absolutely normally. Worked till the last week, was extremely uncomfortable but was actually blase about being pregnant. Been there, done that, hadn't I?

I had my bags packed, the baby clothes washed and just about everything under control. The baby just wouldn't come. Finally, I was induced, but still no go. When labour didn't progress and I was really done with waiting (!), I signed the papers for me to have a C-section. I was in control! Wanted the baby OUT! Then things totally spiralled out of my hands... I had anaesthesia which was NOT an epidural. I was OUT!

When I came to later that evening, there was something rather ominous. Instead of being reassured by all the women folk for the fantastic feat of birthing, I had solemn looking men- my brother, my brother-in-law and all manner of uncles around. Where was my mother when I needed her? And where the h**l was dh?? Everyone spoke to me as if I was still unconscious or dead- talking all around me, trying hard to be calm and even cheerful about my having a baby boy with thick black hair. None of them would look me in the eye, tell me where dh was, or for that matter, why my baby was not being brought in to be shown to me from the nursery they said he was in. Still my N2O dimmed mind did not draw any dire conclusion. I was just angry.

My doc. came by and she was very sweet, yet, nothing by way of any explanation. It was only much later that dh came by and told me I'd had a very sick baby, whom he had got admitted in another hospital and that they would 'repair' the baby, on the fourth day, if he survived for 3 days. The ped. came by next and thankfully, he told me things the way I like to hear them- straight. He also told me there was a 20% chance of my baby's survival and also that statistics were for the studies, for my baby, he would live or die. Can't say which way.

There was nothing I could do lying prone there after a c-section, which I had so badly wanted. Waiting, to see the baby, I'd borne, felt within me, talked to, but never seen. Or, may never see. Three days and nights, when my life was NOT in my hands or my body. When I was sponged, my clothes changed, my hair combed, my bowels opened for me, while I just lay prone. Wondering whether I'd get to see my baby, to touch him, hold him, smell him, kiss him, feed him like I wanted to. My arms did ache as the rest of me.

On the fourth day, in the morning, Baby of Shankari (as his identity was) went under the scalpel for the first time. Heavily drugged, heavy doped, with morphine, dopamine, dobutamine, lasix being micro-managed and injected constantly through the IV pumps, his respiration and aeration controlled by the ventilator, and all manner of pipes and tubes stuck into him and sticking out of his little body, carefully nurtured by the NICU 'sisters', kept ALIVE, when I actually glimpsed him from the NICU window that evening, I knew I'd been revealed a major miracle. A life over which I'd never ever be able to claim any control. A personal glimpse of heaven!

I knew then that whatever this baby (and life thereafter) were to offer, I'd be blessed to accept!

PS: Theres a brief version of the story (factual and with lots of medical jargon) here.