Becoming Momma

We are on our dream Europe vacation and holiday stories with our baby will follow. Right now, I will only focus on the flight segment. We were booked on the Delhi-Munich direct flight - that is seven hours of travel time - something that I thought would be easy to manage with our little one. In the run up to the travel date, I prepared by reading blogs, watched YouTube videos for tips and advise. I called up the airlines a few days in advance to book a bassinet for the baby and checked her baggage allowance (the airlines allows an extra 23 kgs for check-in luggage plus a pram for the baby!). I packed formula, feeding bottles and drinking water to last us through our trip and also to cater for any delays. This was good because once we landed in Munich and reached our hotel we were not allotted a room till noon - had I not carried all the extra feed, there would have been some serious trouble! I also carried an extra large piece of muslin cloth in the hand luggage - this serves multiple ...

Having a baby did not transform us as persons. At least not immediately. My husband and I continue to be very social, we devour books and movies, exercise, visit the cinemas and often dine out. Precious time is spent playing with our daughter, cooking up lullabies and limericks and watching her ever expanding repertoire of facial expressions. We continue to value our personal time - time out individually and as a couple.    The transformation from individuals to parents is not simulatanoues with the biological process. We grow into parenthood. Parental instincts are acquired , learnt, nurtured - but there is no default parent mode. I remember the first night after I was wheeled out of the labour room with our baby. I was curious about the newbie on the cot next to my bed, but so much more pre-occupied with the intense discomfort of my post-delivery body. As visitors streamed in to the hospital over the next few days, I was secretly happy to have them hold the baby because I wa...