The story of our boy!

It’s been a month since the time our beetle nut came in our lives and our lives changed completely, our priorities changed, the things in our house changed, my YouTube, instagram and Facebook feed changed. 

I  kept thinking I would write about my pregnancy in my blog, but the 9 months flew away and I never got to it, but I didn't want to skip this story because  I don’t want these moments to be forgotten.

A lot of stuff that are not centered around the baby, I don’t remember it, they call it a mothers brain, siva told. If you ask me what happened last week, I can’t clearly recall, if it isn’t around the baby. siva told that a mothers brain prioritizes baby stuff, I opened my work email last week and I couldn't remember most of the stuff that I left and people I trained before I left for maternity leave, so before I forget how baby arrived, I wanna pen it down.

Baby E was a day overdue, two days before he arrived was eid and I are biryani to content, I kept telling siva that if this boy comes after eating biryani, then he's gonna be a hyderabadi. 

July 11th, Monday morning, a week ago I started my maternity leave on July 5th, thinking baby E would arrive on 10th July which was my due date. A week spent on maternity leave, I kept my patience, but I was getting bored now of all the attention and special care from mom, husband and my brother and SIL. My YouTube was full of suggestions like ' how to engage labor,''how to dilate faster' etc. I was lying on couch with mom on video call with dad and dad went 'you look so uncomfortable in that position, please don't sleep like that,' I got bugged and went to use the restroom, I felt weird, this may be too much information but I found that I lost my mucus plug. I told siva about it and without thinking or talking anything he went to take shower. I asked him, why did you take shower? He goes 'I wanna be ready if anything happens and we need to go to the hospital.' I went to the gym and did some yoga ball exercises after this, came home and made dal and rice and rested a little bit. Whole day I kept getting confused if my amniotic fluid started to leak too. But, I wasn't sure, I wrote to my doctor and she responded that I didn't have to come to the hospital till i get any pains or till my water breaks. Being first time pregnant , I didn't know what any of them felt like, so all was assumptions.

In the evening I went for a long walk with my mom, on the way I felt that my amniotic fluid was leaking, I came home and secretly told my husband that let's not get too excited but I want to go check at the hospital. But before anything I wanted to eat, because I always heard that you can starve throughout the labor. So, siva made 3 rotis and omlet and we ate quickly.  So, I told mom that there was no reason to be excited or freak out and I and Siva were going to the hospital. Mom was calm and composed, she was confident that I would come back with the baby but I was just thinking that it was a false alarm. Our hospital bag was ready, so we just went in the clothes we were in, I wasn't even sure if the hospital would take me in, because my contractions didn't start then. Mom made dua and sent both of us. I told her not to tell anyone until morning because it may make everyone anxious and excited at night time.

We checked into the hospital and they put us in a covid delivery room, which had a big hose for probably refreshing air. They told us they'd move us to a different room once my covid test comes negative, which it did and we were moved to a better room. Before the covid test they checked if the fluid I was leaking was amniotic fluid or not. once I was all plugged in to monitors, the nurse asked if I could feel contractions, because I was getting contractions, but I couldn’t feel anything. So, she told we will wait for the contractions to get stronger till the morning. 

12th July, as early as you can think in the AM, nurses switched and the nurse on duty checked every unnecessary thing possible to keep me awake. She suggested me to walk if I can, so that I can dilate. But, I was already feeling dead and just wanted to sleep, coz I knew I wouldn’t get enough sleep there after and I wanted to be prepared and well rested when it was time to push. 

The nurse who came in the morning told that she’d give me pitocin to induce labor, since my contractions weren’t strong enough. She put an IV and injected a small amount of pitocin to kick start labor. My contractions became intense, in general the contractions build up in terms of pain intensity and duration I guess, but I was getting a contraction every 2 minutes and the pain was indescribable. During pregnancy I googled how contractions feel, google tells you it’s intense cramps, like one would have during period, Google, like always you were so not accurate. Contractions weren’t close to period cramps. When the contractions first started I was lying down and every time a contraction would begin, I would want to kill anyone who’d ask me anything. The nurse told me to walk or sit on the birthing ball, I did and it helped a little bit, but I didn’t feel it was worth bearing so much pain if something like epidural existed, after an hour or so I gave up and took epidural. The anesthesiologist came and very casually tried to find the spot in my spine to give epidural, he poked me twice or thrice because he couldn’t find where exactly he wanted to give the injection in my spine. In the middle of contractions he asked me ‘does that feel the center of your spine?’ How on earth am I suppose to know what is center of my spine? Specially after getting poked. He mentioned some weird reason that he had to poke twice, thrice because my spine isn’t straight. Blah! No one ever told me that before. 

Once I got epidural, I felt the most peaceful and rested with no pain. I was told I can only be in lying down position and no food, only liquids. Hot breakfast and lunch came to the room, but I got chicken soup only, later I came to know that it was just the chicken stock cube dissolved in hot water. I kept craving icecream and asked my nurse if I can have it, she very pleasingly gave me ice chips. I was craving icecream before I started for the hospital and siva even asked me on the way to the hospital before delivery, if I wanted icecream, but I ignored. I regretted saying no to that so much, because I was feeling so hot with all the medication and harmones.

Whole afternoon, the nurse kept changing my position to stabilize baby’s heart rate. It seems some baby's don't like pitocin and our baby was no different. His heart rate dipped after every contraction. The doctors observed it from morning until five and took a call that it was a safe option to go for a C section. We were not prepared for a C section but at that time whatever was safe for the baby was the option. We asked the doctor, when would we go in for the operation? It was 5:30 at that time and the doctor responded 'in the next 15 minutes.' I was shaken hearing that, I wasn't mentally prepared or even had time to digest the news that the doctor just told me that I’d have a C section. Now that I think of it, it seems like it wasn’t a big deal and why was I so scared? 

My body was shivering, tears rolling as they took me to the operation theater. The room was brightly lit. The anesthesiologist was beside me and siva was on the right side, the anesthesiologist told me that it is common to experience what I was going through during the process, emotional breakdown, shivering etc. I wasn’t sure what would happen, i just wanted the baby to be fine. Siva was at his jolliest and happiest, wearing the white suit that surgeons and others wear in operation theater. He was genuinely happy and trying to encourage me that our baby is coming. 6:00 PM, baby Eshan was out. He didn’t cry, the nurses were surprised why he didn’t cry. They cleaned him up and put him on my chest for skin contact for a few minutes. They took him up from me and siva was happily getting to do all the fun stuff like taking him for height check, weight check. I cannot forget that moment. Siva was his happiest, while I was getting stitched on the operation table. I kept thinking when would I get to do fun stuff with baby, I didn’t realize it would take sometime till I recover or now that it’s been a month, I think mom - son’s fun time is a little bit far away as it’s been a month with Eshan and till now it’s just been diapers, feeding and a lot of time spent looking at him enchantedly, another reason why I say mom-son fun time isn’t begun yet is because, he always starts crying every time I try to take a picture with him. 

That’s  the story of how baby Eshan made it into this world. I can write a story of him each day, because each day with him is so special. 

Starting from scratch

I started writing this post in November last year, its April now, I thought I rather post it than letting it sit in my drafts.

It is been a day we left everything behind and trying to find a place that we can call home.

We moved from our beloved city Chicago, to do better in our jobs in the west coast. We moved to the place I always said no to, when a recruiter would ask me if I am OK for positions in the bay area.

Starting from zero sucks, the first night here felt the way I felt when i moved from India, I have a better quilt and a phone to reach anyone in any corner of the world as compared to what I had when I moved from india back in 2010, but I don't have anything that I'd call my belongings - my bed, my TV, my home. But, I have my husband by my side and my plants that we managed to bring here on our flight with us. It was the same like how we entered  this country, packing all our stuff in 2 bags.

I will use this space to put down my house searching stories, so I can go back to this and read about what I sign myself for when I decide to move states, moving apartments and houses, I am pretty used to by now, moving an apartment every 1.5 year ah! but moving states I am scared and nervous of, coz you start from zero and have to find each and everything again, grocery shops, meat wala, your favorites joints of bakeries, coffee, the lady who'd trim my eyebrows 🥴 and restaurants etc and of all people/ friends who I can talk to, in the form of friends, neighbors and acquaintances, finding  the former is easier than later.

Anyways, day 1 - we reached our temporary accommodation, dropped our bags and went to say hi to one of siva's friend who lived nearby. 

I am not working this week and we thought we will look around places and check the vibe of places. So, we were eager to go see which area siva's friend lives in, because this was the neighborhood we initially thought of living but it would be too far from siva's office, once we knew the location of sivas new job our search engine crashed and we had to focus in a area on other side of the bay called Fremont. Indians get happy when they hear Fremont, because it's little India, all the Indian married people with kids live in this area coz it has a good school district and the rents are a little cheap. So, we thought let's do Fremont, but my brother happened to visit Fremont 2 weeks ago and hated Fremont and told us how dry the place is blah blah and our search engine crashed again.

Siva then started looking for places in the San Francisco and it's suburbs and that was our first day of house hunting. We were excited as we drove through the freeways around mountains and with so much vegetation. We first went to a place on ocean bay, the vibe was excellent and would make you feel like you are on a vacation, everyone in the area was chilled out and very hip. One of my criteria for home is a place where we have some indian community, not a lot but some. In SF and suburbs, all day I kept trying to see if there was any indian community, we only found people in cars but nowhere in the apartments we chose to tour. Also, the units we saw didn't fit even 50% of our liking criteria. We had about 5 appointments made, we saw 3 and skipped two because even the neighborhood or surroundings of the apartments didn't click for us to begin with.

Day 1: We completed our search for apartments in SF and came to a conclusion that our city living in Chicago can't be compared to living in the San Francisco city, we kept homelessness aside, but still nothing matched.

On the way back home we decided to drive by a different city, small but had some charm to it, it was a place called foster city. It had small water bodies, not sure lakes or ponds or shores, but it had parks built around the water body which was nice. So, we started to look apartments in this area, but it turned out that the parks and stores for grocery etc are far away from the residential area and the apartments close to the parks were too expensive, so we left that option too.

On the weekend we  thought we will give Fremont a try. We saw 2-3 apartments, the place didn’t have any charm to it, it was dry and felt like people living there had no life or happiness/excitement, I feel this in general about people living in the Bay Area, that they have no life, they work and talk about stocks all day trying to make more money and hike, period. 

Within a day or two of moving from Chicago, I understood I made a blunder, I shouldn’t have just decided to move cities just because I wasn’t happy with my work. I don’t know if this will change, but lessons learnt.  

 Anyways, after searching every neighborhood we moved to a small city called redwood city, north of the silicon valley, it is decent, nothing exciting as compared to Chi town, I will probably move again next year in November and you will see a 'moving again' post then! 😉 

Lost in thoughts..

 You achieve a lot in life..alhumdulillah to that. You keep praying for months and years for it to happen that one day when you get what you pray for..you will be in content. You will feel the best, you will no longer sit in despair, you will have your next steps planned. You will have that success. But that's not how you feel when you get things you been yearning for years, you feel the floating moment of success and happiness, but still lost in thought and confused about what will happen next?

Often we think about our purpose in life, relate it to goals with progress at work, family, buying property. But, is that it? And you will feel - yes!! No.

The lockdown and living at home makes you feel burned out, tired or is it the information you take in.  The pandemic has effected countries like Syria and Yemen so much, as if there was less suffering for those countries already and all I can do is send a prayer, like a photo on social platform and maybe sometimes support the organizations helping these countries people. It's difficult to get the faces of orphan kids, war ruined homes, draught effected pictures out of my mind. For me, they're just pictures and I am a spectator, but for someone else it is their life.

In this moment, I think - I wish I was there, helping people who need food, clothing, shelter. I wish we all were equipped to do things we want to..I wish we were so strong to just leave everything and go lend a helping hand. Theres a feeling of guilt that 'oh you don't have to worry about what's happening there, you are here.'

Oh Allah, let us help however we can, cross oceans and countries and help the people we want. Alhumdulillah for what we have, but please lessen the sufferings of the underprivileged.

Things Changes..We Change..for Good :)

It’s been sometime I wrote..(how many times do I start my blog with this line?). I wanted to continue writing something I wrote at the airport, but looks like Evernote did not save it and I lost my draft. ☹

Another note I wrote was on my birthday, but I forgot to publish it. I wanted to post it now..but if you can’t relate to those feelings at the moment then what’s the point posting about it? Anyways birthdays are awkward and this year it was rough with siva’s grandpa passing on my birthday due to covid.

I am at home living by myself after a long time. I just got out of my apartment, to see other humans and thought I will sit in the lounge and write for a little bit. Christmas mode is dull this time, but its still there, with Christmas decorations and music playing in the apartment lounge.  It’s here where I walk after my heavy meals and when I am bored stuck inside my apartment. I see faces familiar(in masks) - students working on their assignments, doctor doing his paper work, door man/woman.

Siva drove to Seattle last weekend and I have some time to be by myself. The first day, for few hours, I felt so productive and relaxed, with no one to yell on to keep things in place. But, I think I get productive because I get so bored alone and I just want to be doing something and keep myself busy. With siva around, we both laze around, waiting on each other to do chores, cook and clean. By the night I felt how come I lived like this few years ago? I lived for about a year all by myself, just before I got married. Otherwise, I always had roommates or siblings living with me.I remembered all the old times before I got married, going to bed alone was one of the hardest things, especially since I grew up sharing my bed with siblings, sleeping by mom. I would open social media, see married couples’ pictures and feel the void in my life and just sleep off. Some days, it would take hours and hours of Grey’s Anatomys episodes for me to fall sleep.

When I lived alone, I felt I was very organized, I would come home from work, go to gym. My roommates admired my dedication, they didn’t know I was doing it to cut time too and not just to lose weight. For a second I thought did I lose myself? And by the time I went to bed, I realized ‘No.’

What a blessing it is to have a partner, to appreciate each other’s presence, you need to take breaks like this, where you do your gratitude list and be thankful for people around you.

Thank you Allah Mia. 😊

Stepping into Fall..

The weather is cozy, I usually don’t like weather like this. It’s a little gloomy, but bright. When I was growing up I would usually call it a ‘romantic weather.’ Because all I felt like doing when it was cloudy was to dream and sleep.

Right now, I feel like it’s a Seattle kind of a day or I feel like I am in London. Husband would totally argue if I say so, arguing – ‘if once in 10 days it’s a cloudy day, you can’t say its Seattle kind of a day, sun does come there,’ maybe it does, but that’s not enough sun for me. Doesn’t weather play so much with our feelings? For me it does. But, it feels good to be indoors, back in my sweater, sipping hot tea. It’s been a long long summer this time,I have soaked enough sun, finished two tubes of sun block. We have been at home for more than six months, we all have skilled the polar bear life, though the real test would be now, when the fall starts and soon we will step into winter.

Today I feel good, there’s clarity in my mind. The brain fog has cleared, a lot of times we live in confusion, specially when we have options, not picking any, living in confusion, not assessing what’s good and bad. What I learnt past few months is that, when in doubt – just ask, if its for you, it will come to you. This may sound cryptic, but people who knows would know.

The day has passed, it was a long weekend and its Tuesday today, I have zero but -1 motivation to work and I blame the weather, but hey I am writing because of the weather.

I have my favorite song playing , I don’t listen to it just any time, I savor it for moments, for me, each song takes me back to a moment. This song unfortunately takes me back to my school crush. Yesterday I watched ‘Dil se,’ its one of my favorite movies. I remember I used to listen to the audio album so many times while growing up, there are songs I would listen on repeat and this is one of those songs. My parents always thought I was a crazy girl, because I was always indoors with my books, learning, byhearting stuff, I also use to maintain a journal, I did it from 6^th Standard to 10^th or 11^th, then I moved online to my blog and the digital life took me away from penning things down, I regret doing that, I remember often I would read what I wrote and re-live some of the stuff.

Digital space is good, but not good enough, I post things on Instagram sometimes, but don’t want to come across as a person who shows off, so a lot of times I would just picture something or try posting it, but then erase it. I would also not put a lot of things because you never know how people would see it. There’s happiness, sorrow all kind of feelings one goes through, but we can only portray a certain character to certain people. I realized, I am a different person with different people and a completely different person with some. Sometimes I get confused am I being fake? But I don’t think that’s what it is, you can only open up so much to some people, things they don’t teach you about growing up!

When I was growing up dad would bring video cassettes of movies he grew up watching and try to make us watch it too, we would run away and think why’s dad so old fashioned? There’s so much new good stuff, why can’t he watch that? Now, I know..because my playlist and the movies I go back to are the ones I grew up watching, it has a special place and takes you back in time.

I had so many goals for 2020 and everything went phew..because God had plans for all of us before we could execute our own, I am thankful though that I am not effected by the virus. If not anything, I was more connected with myself than anything during this time, sometimes I really pondered why am I really here and is there a purpose for me on the earth?

Right now, I just feel like going to the mountains and live there, America has made life too comforting, I miss waiting for bus and saving money, in short I miss growing up. If I knew growing up was a path to a comforting boring life, I would never grow up. Haha! Anyways, yesterday after watching Dil Se, it reminded me of my forgotten travel destination where I always wanted to go when I was growing up – Leh and Ladakh. Travelling seems like a dream now, specially to Kashmir, can I ever go there in this life time? Such a heavenly place ruined and destroyed by politics. Kashmir was always a dream, I dreamt Dal lake so many times, the hills and the trucks. If I had to pick somewhere to be born, it would be in the beautiful Kashmir..with blue eyes..💙

Anyways, this random post is dedicated to my favorite song and my feelings to it..

Why Smirk?

Aren’t we all going through some life changing shit? If we all are in the same boat then why show so much disagreement or superiority to someone as if you are suffering more than me. Unless you got Corona?

I have been using the community boardroom in my apartment to study, work sometimes, just to get some different scene as we all are working from home. Have to compensate for all the different things we use to have at work right? Meeting rooms, Café, hideouts. So, I use the boardroom for that change in air. 

Just beside the boardroom there’s a yoga room which is equipped with TV and yoga mats etc; so people come there to work out at times. Today evening, I went to the boardroom to read and someone had the TV on with loud music doing exercise. I waited for sometime to see if they will reduce the volume. I am not someone who likes things if they aren’t supposed to be the way they are supposed to be, I speak up. Not only the person was disturbing me in the boardroom but the residents in nearby apartment units. So, I went in knocked the door and then opened the door and asked her if she could reduce the volume, obviously she couldn’t hear my request, coz she had a video with a deafening sound On, then she lowered the volume and I requested her the same again, she lowered the volume with an annoyed face. I didn’t ask her to leave the room, my request was polite. So, why that face?

I just thought what happened to people? Am I from a different generation or are we loosing it how to behave? I see it everywhere, trolls in social media, people at grocery stores. Why can’t we be nice to each other anymore? Or is it just me who takes even the smallest thing and makes it a mountain? Because we have only so much exposure to people these days past six months.

Anyways, I just write and let it out, the girl reduced the volume and I got what I wanted, does it matter the kind of face she puts up when interacting with others? Hah!

Ramadan 2020

This post may sound like it's coming from a teenager, but what to do 'Dil to bachcha hai ji,' and the lock down is adding the additional dramatic touch to life so, harmones + lock down = maximum drama.

Sunday is Eid, when I got up Friday intending to fast, my head was hurting - I cancelled my 8'O clock meeting with my Italian  colleagues and postponed it to Monday because the whole week I have had early morning meetings. Though Monday is a holiday, just not to postpone things more, I thought I will just talk to them on Monday. Anyways, after a good sleep I got up with my head hurting a lot, it was the last Friday of Ramadan, an important day to fast and the last second day of fasting just before Eid. I lay in bed texting my sister that I doubt I can fast today because my head hurted a lot. I figured it was going to be a tough one that day, but after sometime I realized it was that time of the month. 

I felt sad that I couldn't make the last two days of Ramadan and also not be able to do the eid prayers, though there was a lot of sadness, there was no guilt this time that I didn't make the most of it. The night before when I sat for my night prayers, I didn't intend to pray for so long but I kept praying for few hours, in my mind I had it - you never know if you get the next Ramadan, this thought was due to the uncertain things that's been happening around us, COVID and all the unpredictable things that you read in the news paper. We take things for so granted, plan things years ahead, save for the upcoming decades and plan but in that process we forget doing things whole heartedly, because we always feel there's a tomorrow, and you will do it the best tomorrow or the next time.

This year Ramadan was special, it was not like before. we all were facing once in a lifetime crisis, the covid pandemic and I found solace at my prayer mat. 

Fasting, practicing a religion where you are a minority with much distractions and limited community is tough, while growing up, I never took not fasting as an option. In fact I argued and cried when mom used to tell me that I can skip my fast because I was getting weak or had too much on my plate, like exams, taking public commute to get to college and the summer season etc. But after coming here Ramadan had a different meaning, it was more of a commitment that you had to make to stick to your religion and to be practicing it with people of different religion and color around me who did not follow Ramadan.

This year I felt, Ramadan came at the right time, we all felt stuck and hopeless and scared , I wasn't sure how I would fast as I was used to fasting being at work and the day would pass just like another day with no one knowing what you are upto. But this time, I felt more connected to myself and God. I felt the most calm, in regular times I lose control, get angry when things get delayed or when I have to cook to feed myself when I am hungry but during Ramadan I never felt 'hangry' or impatient, isn't that what a religion is suppose to teach you? To be right and patient and positive and hopeful by keeping faith in the supreme. 

One of the goals of the month of Ramadan is to teach the humans to be thankful and patient. I did experience this truly this year. I felt like I was back in the day connected to God and he would listen to me if I repeatedly asked him for the same thing. When I was young, I would laugh and wonder if God would really listen to me if I keep chanting the same thing all time, that one wish was that I clear my 7th standard Maths paper, haha. So, this year reminded me of that time.

When I started writing this blog before Eid, I had it titled 'the not so Eid, Eid' but never can Eid lose its charm of being a special day, if you perform the Eid prayers or not, this year was no different, I celebrated with my sister, made Biryani and sheer khurma. Though my heart went out to a lot of people who couldn't celebrate because they lost their loved ones due to COVID, plane crash in Pakistan etc.. May Allah forgive us for all the wrong we have been doing and ease our sufferings in the coming time this year.