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 was still so awkward around her. Nor could I get her to latch on to feed. I remember feeling hopeless and thinking to myself - how on earth am I to raise this little one?
Over the next couple of days I slowly got the hang of it. My husband availed of his paternity leave and took on a lot of the work required in the care of the baby. Grandparents ensured that I got proper rest and took my meals on time. This ensured that I was not immediately overwhelmed and slowly eased into the routine of feed-sleep-poop-repeat! Eventually, I even began to be aware of my baby's needs, not always spot-on, but close. Slowly but surely I felt, that from muddling my way around, my presence was actually beginning to impart some comfort and reassurance to the little one.
And then I read about this.
In the past few years, Delhi has been the scene of tragic events like this and this that have shaken the moral compasse of our society. But on each such occasion in the past, while we have shuddered and expressed our disgust, life has moved on as usual. But the other day, after the latest such horror came to light, intense sorrow settled on my soul and for an instant tears pricked my eyes as I thought of the poor helpless infant. My husband I are extremely practical people, and as we stood watching our baby in her cot, he suddenly turned to me to ask if I had read this news story. I gloomily nodded and voiced the unsaid thought in both our minds, 'What if it had been ours?' We then kept quiet but each could feel the pain and loss that the poor mother must feel. Similarly, now when I hear of abandoned babies or infanticide I feel my heart wring in pain as the words on the screen become intensely personal and transposed to my own experience as a mother and all the attendant feelings.
This is a strange set of emotions that we as parents have developed - pain caused to offspring is compounded so many many times over by the helplessness at our failure to protect. It was the same feeling that made me choke when I could hear my baby wail longer than usual behind the closed doors of the neonatal care ward in hospital as she received a few shots. Or when I heard her cry in the background when I phoned my mom-in-law to check on the baby while at a party.
On both occassions an irrational guilt swept over me - guilt at my absence. My baby cries even when I am around, but to hear her, when I am not immediately available to hold her is unadulterated torture. As a result, I never phone in (and instead text) when I am out of home. On our outings together, my husband and I always find ourselves taking some time out to swipe through our phone galleries to giggle over the little one's photos and when in the car we play who-can-mimic-her-expressions-best. I am desperately trying to brace myself for the end of maternity leave when I will be forced to leave my baby for the larger part of the day. And in the meantime I add all other little babies who have no one to care for them to my prayers.
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