Updates.. Updates..

Achchu has finally discovered her hands (i think..) .. She tugged her little teeny hair on her forehead and started crying.. my mom had to pull her fingers out of the entangled hair.. :)  And... today, she pinched her cheeks and we had to pull her fingers out before she hurt herself.. :)


Its amazing to see her do a new thing everyday..
I love you, Akshaya...

Updates.. Updates..

Achcu's palm and feet turned a little bluish black today for few mins. I panicked and swaddled her with a soft flannel baby towel and then she turned red again.. uffff.. 

Updates..Updates..

Hi there...
Finally after so many days Akshaya was born on 29th june, 2012 - 3:07 AM
Delivery stories and scan stories will be posted shortly.

I would be posting regular updates reg her hereon.

Update for the day:
Achchu's umbilical cord stump dried and fell off last night. :)

Seemantham and Valaikappu - March 18th

Seemantham and Valaikappu are two rituals that are performed in most of the south Indian families for the pregnant woman and the child present in the mother's womb.

Here I am sharing My experience regarding the ceremonies. Pardon me if any of the details are incorrect and do leave a comment regarding the same. Each family may practice the rituals in a different way.

We believe that the fetus can hear the sound and feel the vibrations from the fifth month of pregnancy. Therefore all these ceremonies involve chanting of mantras by vedic learned brahmanas. The rituals involves three parts - udhayashanthi, seemantham and valaikappu.

In udhayashanthi, there were around 7/8 brahmanas who chanted soft yet powerful mantras for about an hour and half. I remember getting goosebumps from their sharp voice yet soft mantras. They had kept a pot of water mixed with some herbs in between them during the mantra chanting ceremony. Once finished, they asked my husband to pour the water from the pot onto me.

Valaikappu is the bangle ceremony. The pregnant woman is adorned with 20 bangles in left hand and 21 bangles in the right hand. In our family, the mother is the only one who is allowed to arrange the bangles in the pregnant woman's hands. There are 4 kinds of bangles - vepillai kaapu (bangle made out of tender neem twigs), thanga kaapu (bangle made of thin gold strands), velli kaapu (bangle made out of thin silver strands) and the glass bangles. My mom arranged the bangles in the above order. I still can remember her serious face while she was trying to arrange the bangles in my hand. She was nervous and was praying god that the delivery should go on well. Then the bangles were arranged for the maru-manai. The bangles were then given to other women who attended the ceremony.

In seemantham, there was what is known in tamil as aala moghu/aththi moghu and a porcupine quill. Aala moghu and aththi moghu were ground to a paste and little juice was taken and put in through my nostrils - just a single drop in each nostril. I believe there were more mantras - dont remember exactly what happened.

Then there was poo-chootal - All the ladies of the house were requested to place a tiny strand of flowers in my plaited hair.

Oh, one more thing to add here is that every single lady attending the ritual gave the blessing that I should bear a boy baby. In India boys are considered to be better than the girls as they are the ones who would carry on the family name. There was just one person who gave me the blessing to bear a healthy baby - she did not mention the sex of the baby - her exact words were -  'I will pray God to give you a healthy baby'. She was the maru manai - and my Husband's cousin. I can never ever forget those words. And If Achchu is reading this blog, I would request her/him to Remember to Always Thank his/her aththai for her blessings. :)

I will update this post if i remember more details on these ceremonies. :)

Do you leave your comments below..
Thanks!

A new face for the first time!!!

A new face for the first time!!!

After the Dec 1 confirmation check-up, we were asked to make an appointment with MediScan for an ultrasound scanning for NT screening.

Now, to touch base on a few facts, neither me nor my wife are doctors or have studied medicine in our school or college (Except for a few basic stuff in our 8-9 grades). When they told NT, I did not know head or tail of what it meant!!! Thank god, my wife had done some research beforehand (gods bless her) and gave me a small hint....

OMG!!!! That was the reaction once I came to know on the scan's purpose. Do we need to do the NT scan???

Of course, why? Here it comes - It's all about probability - I dint understand probability then, and I still don’t understand. I always tot probability is for gamblers. I am a software person. The program I write needs to run to its purpose, I cannot deal with probability in my field, like, I say to my customer, the program has 1 in 250 chances to fail and if that was the case, we need to start all over again!!!! 

Well, this is not software development; this is much much more complex than that. And the stakes are so high, even a veteran gamble playing with Rs. 100 would say 1 in 250 is really risky...

Well that is NT scan for you. For basics, NT is the clear space at the back of the fetus’s neck. And they measure this space using Ultrasound, now that’s real complex. This thickness needs to be within a specified range. This couple this with a blood test would determine the probability of the fetal having a chromosomal abnormality. A result better than 1 in 250 is considered safe, else, a different set of tests are done - which is said to have 1% chances of miscarriage.. Probability was killing me; still we were ok with it till the news of that we need to do our baby shower soon cropped up...

My wife did not even want anyone(apart from the first closest circle) to know abt the news till NT scan results came out fine, but our parents started to plan on a bigger event. It took a lot of shouting and consoling and more shouting and even more consoling to iron out the creases. Finally a decision was made - parents take care of baby shower, wife concentrate on the baby..

The date - Jan 10th

We were both tensed though, we did not show up, but was clear on our faces. The tension was overcome by another emotion, eagerness. We were to see "our" kutti for the first time. We were on all high dreams. How is she/he gonna look (we tot, it would be so clear in an Ultrasound and that too in the 12 week!!! Thinking back, I feel so silly now :) )

When we reached MediScan(MS), we were in for a huge shock. For starters, from outside, MS lookes like a small "akka" kadai mess. When we entered, wonder if it was an illution or something, it looked like a huge railway station. 100s of ppl, babies crying, names being called, ppl eating, ppl coming from there, ppl coming from here, TV sets on walls, etc., etc., etc,.(By the way, did I hear train sound too?? Of course, there was a railway track nearby :D).

I would skip the initial registration process done at MS. We had to wait for nearly 2-3 hrs, before we were called to the 2nd floor for scanning. There, a radiologist asked us if we would be willing to be a case study for MS's audit. She told, there would be no difference in treatment, it would be same, but jus in a different room. We were unable to think clearly, we just agreed.

I would skip the scanning process too. Upon completing the scan, the DOC told "All is well"(guess she had seen 3idots lately). Upon hearing this we were so over joyed we wer back to our cloud nine. Finally, we were asked to give blood samples to complete the NT test, and asked to collect the reports two days later.

Oh yea, did we get a change to look at the baby? Of course, we did, I would not lie. Consider this, when we were young, we would have been shown by our elders that this is mars planet, pole star, etc.  We would have jus nodded.  Similarly, they (the radiologist) show something and tell us this is the hand, and rest of the parts, and we just need to nod, as simple as that.  :D

The results came out to be very good, and said 1 in 8400 was the chance of our "kutti" had a chromosomal abnormality.

1 in 8400, after almost 3 months later I understood the significance of this probability

The brand new experience.. Part 2

The date - Dec 1st 2011

Wonder if it was fate or jus pure co-incidence, both our parents were un-available in Chennai on Dec 1st.

We land upon the clinic at 1:00PM for our 1:30PM appointment.. Both of us tensed, both of us anxious, afraid to talk, thinking that it was a taboo. I still remember those chairs and the notice boards that took the heat!!!

The nurse calls up my wife's name for the routine pre-consultation routine. Again the waiting continues, when someone from the front desk comes and asks if we would be with the clinic till the delivery, my response to her, evokes one of the most angriest stares towards me, saying don’t even try to jinx this NOW!!!

Wow, the moment was like sitting on a live valcano and cooking, or even better, standing before a firing squad with you having the power to telling the word "fire". Am not able to word the tension on that day, but something’s are better not word'ed ;)

At last, the nurse called us inside to meet the Doc.

The brief conversation as below;

The doc - Have you done you regular home test

She - Yes, once on 19th - but did not get the correct color or so I tot.

Doc - Ok, so?

She - So, I did it once on 22nd and it gave the color OK

Doc - Ok good.

She - I did it once on 24th and again once on 28^th too..  Just to make sure the color remained..

Doc  - :O :O :O So, did the color change well???!!! The doc was really amused..

So, many times????!!! I know I bot her 2 kits, but 4??? Wow, gals are incredibly complex creatures!!!!

The doc did the Ultrasound and showed us the fetal heart beat.. Small, rhythmic, un-imaginable.. Like a reflection.. Everything else from then on was just out of focus.. The doc shows some sac or some other stuff, but I hear nothing.. I see nothing.. ppl might think this is a bit dramatic, but am sure, ppl who have experienced this would vouch for me!!!

YES, it was confirmed on that day, December the 1st-2011, that we would be getting a huge promotion in our lives in another 10mnts. Indeed it was confirmed that my wife would be the carrier for the bundle of our joy.. 

A brand new experience- Part 1

The date - Nov 19th 2011 - My wife says I am damn good with dates!!! :P

The time - ~ 6AM

As most normal ppl, at 6 AM, I was still sleeping, when a sudden shriek woke me up - with a start!!! My wife with all her animated self-came running towards me, like a brakeless metro water lorry!!!

A short backtrack - few months ago, we had a biig(but small) disappointment - a chemical pregnancy, with missing out wat we were expecting but a whisker. We were almost thr, but ended up not being thr!!! I would not go inside the incident. That incident had caused the expectations on us to be bigger...

Now back on track, guess, the diary milk ad did not exist back then, but am sure my wife would have wanted to tell "Balu, mujhe kuch khatta khane ka man karta hai". All emotions slowly "bottle necking up"!!!

Even today, she asks me how I felt at that particular time.. I honestly felt "numb" - with wat?? The news? Sleepiness?? I still have no idea, guess it took a lot of time to sink in, but like a cow, I ate it slowly, digesting it bit by bit.. 

But, there was a catch, can we risk telling our parents again about this? After what happened just a few months ago?

The date - Nov 21st 2011

Two important things happened on this day. One, we bot one of the most important investment of our life, other, she messages me "Booked doc's appointment on Dec 1st :)"

At that moment, I clearly felt like am back in college.. Not telling something to parents, having secret message exchanges, having even more secret calls(this being in the same home)... It was clearly the start of something big..

The days between Nov 21 and Dec 1 were full of mixed emotions. One, we are extremely happy, excited that something new, something huge, something extraordinary was gonna happen. Two, we were extremely frightened. What would happen if it was jus like the earlier one? Would it jinx if we told someone else? Would others be disappointed like last time, when/if it happened agian?

We a few heated discussions, of when to tell our parents, how to tell them, whom to tell first, etc. Finally, we decide upon that we go tro the Dec 1st checkup and then tell our parents, and not any later (We much later agreed upon that it were the best decision).

Parents here means siblings too, as they being one big pillar of support on our rainy days.. I remember trying to call my bro and he returning my call - in the middle of the nite... :P :P

End of part 1 - part 2 coming up..