These are a few pictures from the first 3 months -
April 18, 2004 - What a thinker baby!
April 21, 2004 - Monkey baby having a burpie time with Mumma!
June 26, 2004 - His tiny little foot!
June 27, 2004 - After maalish!My stay at the hospital was for about 5 days. On Sunday, April 4, 2004 we came back home. Hey! It just struck me that it was 04.04.04 the day we came home! So interesting! My SIL had been home with her kids waiting for us. She did tilak and pooja when we reached home.
Few minutes after we came back home, betu decided to do all the nature calls. We all laughed saying he's making everyone realise that there's a small baby home as we had all gotten busy talking to each other.
Once we came home, relatives and friends started to pour in. Not one day went for entire first week when we would not have someone home at least 2 times in a day! Things started to slow down the second week. How time flew, it was beyond me.
I could spends hours just looking at my baby. He was so cute that sometimes I would think to myself, I never expected my baby to be this cute! Hehehe...
Every time I would look at him I would be so amazed at the whole process of having a baby. And it still amazes me. How from a single cell it grows up so big inside and how the baby is delivered. It is just all so intriguing for me.
A week after we came home, his dad and his Majhli Mausi (MM) went to buy a cradle for him. Since betu would not sleep on the bed and would sleep only cuddled up in arms, we thought the swing motion of the cradle would work. And it did work great for him and for us too!
In the beginning, how hard he used to cry at maalish and at bath time. Few days later he started to enjoy the bath as long as you don't put water on his face. He never liked maalish though. Not till he was about 2 months or so.
He would hardly sleep for long during daytime in the first 10-15 days. The reasons were
- Reason 1: The family living on the floor above us had a huge dog (dunno the breed..I think he was a mix). He would be out in the balcony 24X7 and would bark 24X7.
- Reason 2: The neighbours were getting a room constructed just adjacent to our bedroom so you can imagine how much noise that created.
But after the initial 10-15 days, my poor baby almost learnt to sleep with all that noise and would frighten up or wake up with sudden noises only that these construction people were making.
On April 30, 2005 when he was a month young, we all (betu, myself, DH and MIL) went to Jaipur in Rajdhani Express. That was his first train ride! Since my in-laws stay there, the naamkaran ceremony was to be held there. His Dadu was waiting eagerly for him in Jaipur. Dadu had made the bed ready for his betu-ram and had spread up such a pretty sheet. The moment I opened his diaper, he peed right on the sheet. Hehehe...
A day or two later, DH and FIL (father-in-law) went to select a card for his naamkaran ceremony and selected a cute one. The date for the ceremony was fixed for May 15, 2004. We actually took a long time to decide his name since me and DH were anticipating a girl, we had selected a name for a girl - 'Sneha'. So we took a long time before deciding on the name 'Anirudh'. Despite the fact that ranked the first in preference in the list of names I had prepared for both girls and boys.
Till June, 2004, I didn't have a digicam. So we used to use our regular camera to click pictures. I think we clicked about 2 rolls of film. But somehow never got to scan those pictures to keep them on the PC in digital format. So in June 2004, his Badki Mausi (BM) sent a camera as a gift. Although however she justified that it was for her own selfish reasons so that she can get to see pictures of him being so far away (in US), we knew it was a gift to us.
As a small baby he used to love getting his pictures clicked. But sometimes he would get so conscious looking at the camera that he would stop doing whatever he was and just stare at the camera.
Months flew past and Betu grew into charming little baby! He was so much fun! Everyone adored him so much. And he also responded every one's love by smiling at them and laughing and giggling when they talked to him.
Thinking of his milestones that I can remember as of now are
My first glance at my baby is still etched fresh in my mind! He was all clean and white. You must be wondering what kind of statement is that. Well it was quite different from what I had expected so those were my first thoughts. He was very unlike the birthing and just born baby pictures that I had seen on the Internet. Frankly when I first saw such pictures my first thoughts were if the babies look so gooey just after birth, how will I feel love for her/him? I don't know if any of you first time mommies felt so too.
I even used to feel ugh at the thought of cleaning poop when I was pregnant. Its a different story that I did not even feel 1 millisecond of disgust when I had to do it the first time.
The second picture memory after his birth is when they brought him to me after cleaning up wrapped in a sheet, he looked so tiny, so adorable and fuzzy! And he looked straight into my eyes. After I kissed him on his forehead they took him away for some tests etc.
Once I was moved into my labor room back again, everyone started to come and congratulate me. It was around 10 pm when they finally moved me to my room where I would be staying for the rest of the period till I was healed up to go home. It was quite an eerie feeling lying on the stretcher and nurses taking you through the galleries with me looking at never ending pipes on the ceiling. Everything seemed to whiz past me and was making me giddy so I closed my eyes for the rest of the journey to my room.
Betu was kept in the intensive neo natal care unit for the first 4 days as he had had meconium aspiration. So it took 4 long-decade-like-days before he was given to me 24X7. Before that I would walk down to the nursery, and feed him there itself.
Walking down to the nursery was quite a painful task for me because of the episitomy stitches but I remember how I would wait for the feeding times or would just make excuses to go and feed betu. Just so that I could see him. Betu would never start feeding without spending at least a minute of looking at me. However hard he must have been crying of hunger, he just would not latch on without the look-at-momma time. So I used that time as our conversation time. Many a times nurses would talk to him saying you give us such a tough time wailing so loudly and now you don't want milk? :D
A day or two after birth while going back from the nursery to my room, I stopped at the nurses station and asked them for a weighing scale. I had been reading so much that mothers loose quite a bit of weight after birth and I wanted to know how much have I lost. The scale told me I had lost 8 Kgs.! WOW! I was ecstatic! And I thought to myself..only 6 Kgs to go. But who knew that those 6 Kgs will be with me forever! Those 6 Kgs just refuse to go away.
Betu was quite an active child since birth. That's what all the nurses told me. They said usually after crying for 10-15 mins all the babies sleep most of the time. But he slept quite little. He used to look around and throw his hands and legs in the air quite a bit.
On day 4 when they finally shifted him to my room, it was celebrations time for us. Whether he was sleeping or awake, everyone just wanted to hold him or look at him. I remember DH's expression when he came in the evening from work and held betu for the first time in his arms. DH was grinning from ear to ear and just kept admiring our little one. And the first words he spoke to betu were "Aur Mr. M? Kya haal hain?" We all had such a good laugh at that! (Our surname starts with M). This is his picture on this day when he's is just 4 days young.
I'm 4 days young!
