He's hungry! No, he's wet! Nonono, look, he's pooped!

Day 2 dawned upon us, although I don't think we were in the mental state to figure out if it was dawn or dusk, or for that matter, whether we were even alive!

There was, needless to say, no sleep, whatsoever. I was in horrible pain and couldn't move an inch without silently crying in pain or without the husband's, or mom's help. I couldn't turn sides, let alone get up and walk.

The baby, of course, would let out a piercing cry every couple of minutes, once poo, once pee, sometimes hunger, most times, it was nothing, or at least it seemed like nothing.

I think, at some time, little P would just think, "Hey! They are all blissfully quiet and asleep for FIVE WHOLE MINUTES! Let me see what happens when I scream bloody murder!"

And Voila! He would let out a cry that would make all of us run to find out what was bugging him.

We slowly started getting visitors, much to my dismay. Go on, judge me, I am quite snooty! Baah! I just wanted the baby back inside my womb where no fat old aunties would come and pinch the life out of his cheeks.

Neither did I want "advice" from fellow, yet seasoned, mothers who told me to literally scream and shout at the top of my voice near my sleeping little P, because, you know, babies should be able to sleep even in a noisy room, else they develop "bad habits"!

He was ONE DAY OLD! I didn't care what bad habits were forming. There would be plenty of time to form those and break those, but right now, he's asleep and quiet. That's all that matters!

And then, there were those aunties, who thought, just because of their gender, they were allowed to watch me feed my baby and comment about how "BIG" I was and how the baby was making this noise and that noise.

Hey, aunty! See, that's the door on your right. Now help yourself!"

At first, I was hesitant, but then I thought, what the heck?! Let her stare, she's probably forgotten what boobs look like. I am just going to feed my baby, while you continue to shove your husband out the door, because he's a man and is forbidden to look at other women's breasts, while you can stare all you want, because that doesn't make me uncomfortable in the least!

But the next time you gobble and chomp down that dosa, I will humph and pumph about what a noisy eater you are and how big your plate is!

I had read up so much on breastfeeding. I had watched videos, I had tons and tons of material on me and in my head. But when the ground reality hit, I forgot every damn thing. The emotions were so overwhelming, that nothing made sense.

The fact that I had given birth and this baby was our creation and our responsibility was so poignant, that I was left paralysed and brain dead. Everything was on auto pilot, but I was clueless.

Feeding was becoming increasingly difficult, God knew why. The baby was being given top-ups with the help of a spoon, and little P was slowly getting used to the milk trickling into his mouth at a much faster speed than what his natural source of food could ever give.

New mom emotions are a horrible thing. They give you bad guilt when you need none, But the overpowering motherly instincts ensure that you want to do everything possible to provide love, comfort and nourishment to the little wonder that you help create and carry to term.

Little did I know, the events of those day would lay the foundation of my battle with breastfeeding for many many more weeks to come.

But the pig headed person that you know me to be, I would eventually, and very very slowly, but steadily, win that battle and emerge the winner. Hooray, watermelons!!!

"My nipples, my nipples!!!"

Remember the wedding appointment the husband had with JLO? Aka the passport appointment on the day the baby arrived?

As it so happened, the appointment was at 0930 and the location was pretty close to our hospital. As luck would have it, little P, daddy's little boy that he was to grow up to be, arrived in the nick of time for the appointment!

Yes, daddy got to see and hold his creation, while he also got to get to the passport office just in time for his appointment, and went and told the officer in-charge that he should hurry up, because his hours-old son was waiting for him! All's well that ends well!

Any way, back to me...!

So, before the milk came in, one extremely sweet head nurse reminded me that I had to feed the baby colostrum, the super-rich pre-milk, that's called liquid gold. This is very very thick in nature, and extremely difficult to suckle, and is in very small quantities, just in tune with the tiny little creature's even more tiny stomach.

Whilst all the pom pomming was going on, head nurse realised that the baby needed a bit of help, and came back with, guess what?!

She returned with a syringe! Ummmm, Are you going to prick my boobs with a needle?!

No, smart ass! Wait and watch, she said!

Quickly, she took the needle off the syringe, only to expose the open-mouthed vial and the lever. Okay, what next...?!

As I watched open-mouthed, much like the syringe, she planted it on my breast, and PULLED!!!

If any of you watch FR.I.E.N.D.S, and I assume you have, and hence you will recall Phoebe going, "MY EYES, MY EYES!!!", when she finds out about Monica and Chandler; this was me. Except, that I found myself screaming, "My nipples, my nipples!!!"

Two things happened at the same time. One, the off-white colostrum flowed into the syringe, which was promptly lapped up by little P (he may have even licked and smacked his lips, I don't know!).

Two, my stomach felt an intense and horrible cramp which made me shriek even more. Turns out, this was a sign given to the uterus to contract back to its original shape, slowly and gradually. Err, thank you, uterus? For making me scream like a wimp!

Or the next few hours, till the water melons took over, head nurse would come and do this exercise for me. Which was great, because as much as I wanted to breastfeed, I couldn't get myself to put a syringe onto myself and scream and shout in pain like a banshee!

But wait, this was me, right? The syringe had to bring in some excitement, of course. So, head nurse tells me, you have to keep pulling your nipples out with this syringe every few hours, because yours are flat/inverted.

Okay, cue, me looking down: hey, I didn't know you guys were not the right shape! To think that you folks come in different shapes! Who knew, huh?!

What's those water melons things on my chest?!

The first few hours were a haze, quite literally. The baby was snoozing, thank god, because so was I. The painkillers were damn good, I think in hindsight. I should have taken some for future purposes, when I want to run away from the toddler tantrums and the peepee waving and touching! ;)

We had deliberately chosen a smallish hospital, or rather, nursing home, in medical parlance, because we were a bit uncomfortable with the big corporate "advice and follow up" you get in the name of medicine.

We wanted sweet old Maharashtrian nurses to help us, and not coat-clad snooty ones, we were that finicky. I was hell bent on breastfeeding and knew for sure that those old aunties will know the way to go about it.

Luckily, for us, we didn't have many visitors, which was a blessing. Just like any other new mom, I wasn't too comfortable with loads of people coming in and all that touching and holding the baby, and kissing, OH MY GOD!!!

I would have nightmares thinking, oh dear, all those people are going to kiss the baby now that he's out of my womb and has to defend for myself in this ugly rotten world! sob!

Again, luckily, nobody kissed little P. Maybe because they had seen me give them sneaky little dirty looks, or maybe because people are more aware now, and realise that some serious germs *can* be passed on. Who cares?! the fact that his milky fat chubby cheeks were left untouched, was more than enough for me, protective mamma bear that I had become.

Any way... as some of you know, the milk takes a few days to "come in", as they say. I had read about this, and could feel it myself it wasn't "in" yet.

But, of course, in my life, nothing is as simple, right?! So, every couple of hours, until almost 2.5 days had passed, every nurse on a new shift would come and pom pom me and say," Has it come in yet?"

Errr, no, but thanks for pom pomming my breasts, you strange lady. It was nice knowing you too!

My doctor had given me strict instructions that I had to pass the "stool test" before leaving, which in layman's terms means you have to stand up, go to the toilet and poop by yourself, if you want freedom from the hospital. No bed pans, no nothing. You had to (wo)man up, and do the big job in the big pot. Yep, poo poo in the potty!

For one whole day, I was scared shitless, pun intended, to not eat anything, because the prospect of standing up, and walking to the loo was giving me goosebumps.

It would take the husband forever to help me change sides, because I would scream in anticipation as soon as he would touch me, and more so, because I was still quite numb, waist down. This was an irony, you feel numb, but there's horrible pain.

In the meantime, yet another shift change, and yet another pom pom, "Is it there yet?"

And, this time, after what felt like a zillion pom pomming of the cow-like udder, EUREKA! IT'S THERE!!!

Yes, yes, yes!!! Aah, no wonder, I thought I had suddenly grown water melons on my chest.

Bye bye, 40DD, hello! 42 GG!!

Hello, and welcome to the world of peepees!

I was always pigheaded about the fact that if and when I do have a baby, I would only go for a woman obe-gyn. Not that I have anything against the men, but it was just a preference I had. Luckily, for us, ours was a she. BUT, and there's a but here, the pediatrician at that hospital was a he.

So, I am laid there, everything is out in the open. I am staring at the ceiling, concentrating hard on not screaming, holding onto my big fat thighs for support, because my legs were fixed on the stirrups, pushing with every contraction that wreaked my body. And, in walks HE, coolly looking at me, my stuff like an open wardrobe, and looks at me, nods a hello, and says, "What's up?!"

And, I am like, Not much, Just trying not to let out a poop instead of the baby, because s/he is hell bent on not making an appearance.

At this point, the decision was taken to cut me up and deliver the baby, because I had no strength left in me, given the passage of time, and the strong headed babe I had inside me, who had decided to take permanent residence inside.

The one painful thing about the caeserean operation is the epidural they give in your spinal cord. Man! That's one big syringe! I won't be surprised if it's the same one used to sedate horses, it's that big!

It took forever for me to bend over, and you have to really make a concave out of your back for the needle to go in correctly, because I was so damn huge. After a while, I was numb below the waist, and the painkillers that had been administered before, were still making me quite woozy.

And, the nerd that I am. I kept asking the doctors what they were doing, because, you know, I was a SCIENCE STUDENT once, and came 10,000 in the All India position in some medical entrance test I gave a zillion years ago, before I found my true calling! BAAH!

Little did she know, that all my knowledge came from watching Grey's Anatomy and also because, I read through a million labour stories and watched many more videos before the real thing made me pee in my nightie, pun intended.

I am half asleep, when suddenly, I hear myself discussing episodes from the TV series and the doctors are busy doing their job, but quite taken in by my knowledge. MUST PAT MYSELF AFTERWARDS!

I wake up again, after a bit, and I see what seem like TESTICLES! HUH?! Yes, black, like really black ones, in front of my eyes, against a ball of milky white skin, which the doctor was holding.

At that point, I smile, and, now I am not too sure, but I either said, "BOY!" or "BALLS!" Either way, both go hand in hand ;)

So, there he was, our Sindhi-Tamil-Bengali dude, our little P, all covered in gooey stuff and screaming bloody murder, while the doctor patted his white and pink bottom.

The baby had safely arrived. It was a 'He'. All the stars, the astrological predictions, the pundits whathaveyou, All of you, take a bow, because, Alas! I was indeed mommy to a peepee.

This rent agreement is only for 9 months

All my dreams of having a Hollywood-style pregnancy and labour were crashing. The pregnancy, of course, was now about to get over, with the not-so-cool labour taking over.

Somewhere towards the end of our pregnancy, I somehow managed to get the husband to sit with me and go through hours and hours of YouTube videos of women giving birth.

Yep, we saw it all. The normal ones, the caesarean ones. All the drama, the emotions, the tears, the blood, the screams, the joy, you name it and we saw it. We held hands all through those videos, we were so shit scared!

This was now our moment. No movie-inspired labour for me, thankyouverymuch!

We waited for 3 hours, and then called up the hospital and told them we were coming. It was 0230 hours and we booked a cab and I left home wearing a nightie! Oh yeah, I forgot to change clothes, because the pain was a bit** and I didn't care a tiny rat's ass about how I was dressed!

Soon, our doctor arrived, and before you knew it, I was screaming bloody murder! The pain was now killing me, and I was ready to kill the husband, because, of course, labour pain turns you into murderous evil witch!

All those promises to myself that I will go through this pain and not succumb to getting cut melted away, as the pain rocked my body and mind. This was crazy shit pain. When they say labour feels like you are going to do the biggest poo of your life, IT'S BLOODY TRUE!

Pretty soon, I was all konked out, thanks to the lovely painkillers I was given. I slept off, but woke up every couple of minutes were the pains tore through my body and the husband, poor fellow, rubbed my back like his life was on the line. At the end, I am pretty sure, he wanted a hand transplant and a wife transplant, as well ;)

The clock slowly managed to make its way through the hours, and after five or so hours, the sweet words I so wanted to hear, finally came: you are ready.

We had taken permission for the husband to accompany me to the labour room, but what ensued later would forever go down in history books as a question mark. Apparently, some drama occurred, and the doctor quickly threw both the husband and mother dear out. I shall not elaborate further for the sake of family ties ;)

I was on the labour table, popping in and out of consciousness. I was shaking and shivering like I was a Bollywood actress dressed in a chiffon sari atop the damn Alps lip synching to my heart's content! The shakes were so bad, the darn table went clackety clack!

Next thing you know, I hear myself telling the doctor, I want to pee. So, she says, no problem, go ahead and do it. And before you could say hello, I went! Yep! I peed on the labour table, just like that. No dignity, I told ya!

She told me when to push, and push I did! For 2.5 hours! But nothing came out! This little Sindhi-Bengali-Tamil cheeky monkey was one hell of a stubborn baby!

She tried getting forceps into me, but nope, nothing. Ditto, vacuum cup, a weird little cup that went inside me, did some weird little dance inside me, and came out empty handed. Speaking of hands, she even tried getting her hands inside me to move the baby's head, because it was stuck at a weird angle :o

Ermmm, okay...

I know the womb is a wonderful place to be in, but, hello, baby, are you planning to come out at all?! Our rent agreement lease is only for 9 months, you know!

Marrying Jennifer Lopez the day your wife has your baby

The thing with me was, that for the longest of time, and ever since I can recall, I always wanted to be mommy to a little girl, and not just one! No, I wanted twin girls.

Funny thing is, I say wanted as if twin baby girls are made-to-order and available for cash on delivery from your nearest God who is quite cool, because obviously, he has his own Android app through which you can order your babies with one click!

This is the real world, of course. Irony of all ironies, I had this weird call-it-what-you-will mommy intuition that this baby would be a boy. I would cry out in horror every time my palm lines or astrological stars or my numerological whathaveyou suggested, or rather, predicted, that I would give birth to a boy.

Let me clarify... I am not anti-boys. Boys are great, but it's what they do as little cheeky buggers with their things that I found appalling. Laugh all you want, but surely all that tugging of little peepees makes you cringe, doesn't it?!

So, going back, I was in labour, and I had no idea. I was barely dilated, so the doctor suggested brisk walk and lots of activity. No, not the sexual kind, because I am not Rachel from F.R.I.E.N.D.S and neither is the husband, Ross.

We went back to a friend's place, who had kindly given us shelter, because they were close to the hospital. The husband was a bit freaked out, not because of the impending labour, but because he had a passport appointment the next day, and we all know how hard that one is to come by! Babies can come and go, but an appointment for a passport is like waiting to marry Jennifer Lopez.

A la Cinderella, the clock struck 12 midnight and off we went to bed. It was barely 12:01, when I woke up wanting to pee. This was the beauty of pregnancy, this urge to pee constantly.

I should add, that a few days before this, I was happily attending a religious ceremony right outside our place, and was surrounded by loud drums and even louder chants and music. I did the mistake of venturing a bit too close to the drummer, and WHOOPS!! Got the biggest kick of my pregnant life in my you-know-where and ended up PEEING IN MY PANTS!!! In the midst of a religious function! WHAT BLASPHEMY!

Any way, back to Cinderella... I kept going to the loo every few minutes, slowly the urge to pee turning into a desire to the big job. But the damn thing JUST WOULDN'T COME!

Suddenly, like a Eureka moment, I went, "OMG, I think I maybe in active labour!" All the signs were there, the horrible lower back pain, the constant urge to do a poo, the weird cramps all over my back and other gross bodily signs that I won't mention for your sake ;)

We timed the contractions, and boy, were they close?! Barely three minutes apart! We needed to get to the hospital NOW!!!

All that while, the husband kept asking, "Aaj raat jawan hai?", loosely translated as, "Tonight's the night?" But, what about my wedding with Jennifer Lopez aka passport appointment?!

Should we name the baby Rafael, as in Nadal?

D-Day had finally arrived, much to my glee!

Yes, Yes!!! You guessed it, it was time to EAT EGG AND CHEESE WRAPS again! Make that a double please! I have no shame in admitting I can gobble two at a time ;)

This was our penultimate meeting with the doctor and it was a little difficult to accept that the next time we go there, it would also be the last time I would lay my hands on a egg wrap and not feel guilty about it. sniff sniff!!

Any how, here's another thing about pregnancy. The fastest road to divorce is the one you take in pregnancy when you have to zero down upon a name for the baby, and that's when you know that your spouse LOVES HIS FOLKS more than he loves you.

This moment, when this revelation is out in the open and is there to stay forever, is a time point in a married couple's life.

Of course, like all pregnant women, I had already decided on boy and girl names, probably from the time I got my two positive lines on the peeing stick. And of course, they had to be COOL NAMES, and definitely neither Tamil nor Bengali.

No way Jose! There would be no Muthu or Mishti! Oh nononono! This was my cupcake, I was the oven for NINE FRIGGING months. There's no way I could let the grampas and granmas take away my moment by giving the baby a real tragic name!

The husband, on the other hand, had already decided that he would VETO each cool name I threw across. He knew the real me, he knew I would come up with some Hollywood-inspired or F1 or tennis-inspired name.

Much to my dismay, before I could even suggest those names, he said no to Rafael, Pete, Steffi!!! HUH?! Did he not know who these people were?! Of course he did, but he was having none of them, or rather, their name sakes, in our living room.

This is also the time in your life when marriage politics comes into play. You have to make everyone happy, there's no denying that. And, by everyone, I mean the In-laws. And that's a tough nut to crack, ain't it?!

We have this tradition of naming babies after grandparents, sort of like an Indian version of George I and Louis XV. But my pseudo-intellectual half-Bengali genes were vehemently protesting against being mommy to a Swamy I or a Muthu III.

And neither was I going to be mommy to a Rabindranath junior or a Satyajit junior!

So, in the spirit of secularism, we decided to say byebye to Tamil and Bengali names and just came up with the letter 'P', because, it's mommy-in-law's initial.

But, what about MY MOMMY?!

Husband: And, what about my DADDY?!

Gaaah! Egg wraps, where are you when I need you?!

Mommy and daddy and all kinds of genes be damned, I was in labour already and I had no idea!

The doctor told me, "You are going to deliver in less than 48 hours!"

And indeed, I did!