The birthing story

"you and I need to talk," I said, glaring at my burgeoning tummy. I was driving back home from the hospital for a second time after being told that my labor pain was actually false.




I was tired and worn out. From severe back pain to horrible heartburn, this pregnancy was an extremely difficult one for me. I was driving to a farm in Dhaid every other week to drink fresh buttermilk so that I could eat something without heartburn. And to add to all of it, my baby dropped into a head down position more than a month before it was supposed to, making it extremely difficult for me to sit/ stand/ breathe and do somersaults (what else would I be doing when I'm eight months pregnant?)

So on Friday, June 15th I started getting contractions. By afternoon they were getting closer. So we took bag and baggage and left for the hospital. But on getting there the nurses said, they were not contractions but irritability (for God's sake, what is that?).



So they asked me to go for a walk and come back at 8pm. Thats when I told my baby that we needed to talk about grounding him/her for a week without TV and Internet. We went home, prayed, cooked dinner and then headed for the beach to walk. Beach sand is famous for speeding up labor. But by then whatever pain I had was gone. So I prepared myself for another week or two of pregnancy discomfort and headed for the hospital. Our plans for that evening were clear- finish the hospital, go home for dinner and then go to the nearest theatre to watch the latest Malayalam movie Diamond Necklace. We had been waiting for the movie to release because a good friend was acting in it.

But surprise surprise...when we reached the hospital, the doctor on duty said my contractions were becoming quite intense and I was in active labor. Now trust this child to thwart all our plans. So I grudgingly let myself to be wheeled into the very same labor room that I had given birth to Mehreen in. Mom and dad went home to get some dinner and Arfaz curled on the sofa and fell into a deep slumber. Time passed. It was midnight and I was still not progressing enough. I was fast getting tired, having had no sleep the previous night because of back pain. So I asked for IT- the ultimate medicine that women before and after me will literally worship- the Epidural. Once the painkiller entered my system I fell asleep. Mom and Arfaz went up to the hospital room. Mom would later tell me how she was so tensed that she couldn't sleep and how she spent the night listening to the clock's ticking...and oh Arfaz's snoring as well :)

Throughout the night, as I slipped in and out of slumber, I could see the Burj Khalifa through the window of my labor room. The building looked so beautiful and majestic against the night sky that I was just awed by it. And I was surprised that I hadn't noticed it before because I stay barely a kilometer away from the iconic building. Yet it's beauty had never impressed me so much. I guess that pretty much how life is. You don't see the beauty of the people in your life, until Allah chooses to show it to you in a particular situation.

At 7am the nurses shifts changed. The doctor's shift was ending at 8:30. She came and told me in a pleading voice "Please let me see your baby before I go home today." As if I could do something about it! Mom kept checking on me throughout the night. At about 7 30 she came and fed me the stale idli and sambar that the hospital provided. We were laughing about something when I suddenly felt like it was time. I quickly gulped down some more food and sent for the doctor. I think she would have put PT Usha to shame by the speed with which she sprinted into my room. By then it was 8. At 8:10 sharp I heard the first cry of the little person. But I didnt even pay attention to it coz the minute it opened its mouth to cry I heard my mom sobbing beside me. I was so amused and busy watching her that I totally forgot about the child. "Male baby, male baby," the doctors exclaimed. I know guys," I wanted to say coz I looked for "it" and this time I knew the difference between the umbilical cord :D (check my previous blog for the whole story)




The rest of the day passed in a blur. Mehreen came and saw her little brother. It took some time for her to accept the fact that the baby who was inside my tummy had actually materialized into a human being.



Two days later we came home. Then I had to go through the whole post natal care routine (that deserves a blog entry of it's own). One thing that quickly struck me was that Zayaan was very different from Mehreen. He was more laid back and less gassy than her. Alhamdulillah for that because Mehreen wasn't the happiest person on Earth to have a big chunk of attention diverted from her. Sibling rivalry quickly started to rear it's head (again that deserves another blog entry of it's own).

Now, 6 months later, things are much better Alhamdulillah. A special mention to all my friends and family who came to visit us and brought gifts for Mehreen. I was surprised by how many people actually remembered to get stuff for her while bringing in gifts for Zayaan. It helped to cancel out a lot of animosity between the brother and sister.

More of Zayaan-Mehreen chronicles in my next blog post. Till then keep smiling :)

Location:Dubai

Baby Shower

A baby shower is not a tradition where I come from. In our culture, the girl is taken from her husband's house to her mom's house in the 8th month of pregnancy. There's a small function where the elders of the house come together, put some gold on the girl, have food and leave. But nothing like a baby shower. So obviously there is no one who would organize such a function for me. The first time around I pestered my husband till he said "Hun, I will give you some money. Why don't you organize your own baby shower?" And thats how it happened when I was pregnant with Mehreen. This time around, I was talking to my colleague Surina and mentioned that I didn't think a baby shower was on the cards because I was so tired and just couldn't be bothered. "why are you organizing your baby shower?" she asked. "Let me do it for you." And she, along with another colleague Feyaza, decided to organize the party.

We drew up a list of people to invite and divided the tasks between ourselves- Surina would do the decorations, Feyaza would do the games and I had to take care of the food. It was to be a tea party on a Friday (which is a weekend in this part of the world) evening.

At 2:30 on Friday June 1st Feyaza and Surina reached home, with bag and baggage.



They wrapped the gifts, prepared the games, decorated the house and set the scene.



At 4:20 our first guests came. As soon as everyone walked in, they were given bracelets. The rule was: No one could say the word baby. If any one said it, the person who catches them saying it would get their bracelet.



And at 6pm whoever had the maximum number of bracelets would win. The game produced some high volume squeals and volleys of laughter throughout the evening as everyone tried to outdo the others. I think it was the most closely contested game. Someone even asked "what's Justin Bieber's first single's name? I seem to have forgotten"



Malak won the game with her sharp ears...next time I want to know who said what, I know who to go to :)

One of the other things I got the guests to do was pick a letter out of a box.



With the letter they got, they had to write a message and draw a picture for the baby. For example, if they got A, they had to write A for apple and draw a picture (Shruthi got the letter A and she wrote A for acrobatics which the baby has been doing inside my tummy. It was my personal favorite. And oh also R for Romeo and Y is for yes which you have to say to mummy all the time).



I hope to compile it into a book which the baby can read once it starts learning the alphabets :)

The next game was finding the "treasure".



A bunch of safety pins and buttons were hidden in a pile of pulses and the contestants had to close their eyes and pick out the treasure. A safety pin was worth 5 points and button worth 10 points.



The game was played in batches of 3 and the winners had a final face off with Nyla winning the game.




Then we had some fun with baby food. Bottles of baby food were covered in colorful wrapping paper.


Everyone had to taste it and guess the flavors. Even my mom couldn't resist playing this game.



But the winner was Surina who got all four- vanilla custard, peach and apple, mixed veggies and porridge- right.



I wonder how much of her food Kayla (Surina's daughter) actually gets to eat :D

Then came my favorite game. I had specifically asked for this game to be included because it was so much fun. We froze little Jelly babies in ice cubes and gave them to the guests.


They had to break the babies free from the ice cube and whoever got them out first had to scream "My water has broke".



Some tried to suck the ice out while others twirled it in their cups. Still others ran to the balcony to melt the ice.



But no one could outdo Shruthi who just bit into the ice and freed the poor little jelly baby.




And of course no baby shower game can be complete without a "Predict the gender game". Everyone picked up the color they thought most appropriate for my baby.



At the end the number of blues exceeded the number of pinks but then hey, it was the same for my first baby shower :)

Our last game was the sipper cup game. We gave two sipper cups full of coke to Christine and Tina. They had to finish the drink in the shortest possible time.



I think the picture clearly tells that it's two people we have definitely put off coke for a very very long time. Tine won the game, by the way.

We rounded off the evening with some tea and snacks. It had been one of the most enjoyable evenings. And I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Of course all credit goes to Feyaza and Surina for not just such planning the lovely event but executing it so well that after the weekend everyone came back talking about how much they had enjoyed themselves. And I have some lovely pics, videos and of course gifts


which I can show my baby when s/he comes out and say "we had so much fun at your expense."
Tina summed up very aptly what the evening had taught her "It must be so hard to be a baby. They have to eat such yucky tasting baby food and drink out of such difficult sipper cups. Poor things."





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Location:My house

Turning 25

Surprises are not Arfaz's thing. In 4 years of marriage, he has probably surprised me once. That's partly because he doesn't really see the need for it (what a typical man, right?) and partly because he is such a horrible liar that I end up detecting his surprises before they are executed.

So imagine my shock this year when he actually managed to pull off a complete surprise for me. It's a video with a lot of loving messages from my family, friends and colleagues- scattered all over the world in the US, UK and India. I don't want to say more about the video except that it touched my heart in a way no other gift had, sheerly because of the time, effort and love that went into making it. Needless to say, I had shed a generous amount of tears by the end of it. I'm sharing it here with everyone. Some of you might not understand chunks of it because it's partly in Malayalam and partly in English. And in case you cant watch the embedded video, here is the YouTube link

When Mehreen became a person

May 2, 2010 10am

I'm in pain. Make that a lot of pain. And I am irritated as well. This child has been playing games with me for an entire week now. Last Friday I was admitted to the hospital with contractions. The doctor checked me and said I was already 1.5 cm dilated ( you have to be 10 cm dilated to actually give birth) and that I was in active labor. But the next morning the contractions had disappeared and I was packed off home. Turns out my child was playing Braxton Hicks (false contractions) with me. Since then every single day I had experienced hours of painful contractions and each day I would get my bag and clothes ready to go to the hospital. But they would subside soon after. On May 1st I was admitted to hospital for induced labor. They had already put two doses of the induction gel but the kid didn't seem to be in any mood to budge. I vaguely remember someone telling me that no matter what you did or how hard you tried, your baby would come out only when it wanted to. Neither earlier, nor later. 'Ok baby,' I thought grudgingly, 'whenever you are ready'

May 2nd 6pm

Phoosh...my water has broken. Phew...finally. Now where is that epidural? Please give me the epidural...please?

May 2nd 8pm
Arfaz and my mother-in-law come to visit me in the labor room. I don't remember what I said but Arfaz did mention later that it was my best mood in the nine months of pregnancy (and for a long long time afterwards as well). It was the epidural...made me so light-headed. I guess this is how people feel when they are drunk

May 2nd 10pm
"you are 10 cm dilated," the doctor tells me. Woohoo...that means the final delivery is just minutes away. My mom stations herself beside me. "who is this?" the doctor asks me. "My mom," I say. "Oh my God she looks so young," she gushes. And my mom blushes. Ladies, can we have this conversation at some other point in life?

May 2nd 10:30pm
"Ok doc, I really feel like I want to go to the toilet," I told my obs-gyn. "we are ready for you," she told me as 2 doctors and 3 nurses with gloves and a whole lot of tools crowded around me. And yes, they do tell you to push, like you see in the movies. "Push," they are all screaming. I can't feel a thing, thanks to epidural but I do push. "Yes, it's coming," the doctor is excited. And I think to myself 'Oh ya right...you can stop lying to encourage me. I know it's not coming.' A couple more pushes and the doctor says 'It's almost out' and I think 'ok lady, whatever...I'm going to pretend I believe you'
(At this point, Arfaz informs me later, all those outside the delivery room hear a baby crying. They all hug and congratulate each other. Suddenly they hear the doctors screaming Push again. Turns out, the lady in the room next to me delivered a few minutes before me and it was her baby crying)

May 2nd 10:38pm
I knew what to expect. I had read books. I had spoken to friends. But when they placed the baby, wrapped in blue tissue paper sort of thing, I gasped. So the doctors were not lying. The baby had been coming out when they said it was. I caught a brief glimpse of the baby before they whisked it away. The first thought that crossed my mind was "Did Arfaz clone that baby? It just looks like a photocopy of him." I also saw something dangling. 'Its a boy,' i thought. Someone called Arfaz. They pulled a curtain around me and were working on me when one of the nurses said "It's a girl, isn't it?" What? Cheeky monkey. And I had thought all along it was a boy. She had taken us all for a ride. Oh...what about the dangling? That fell off 7 days later...it's called the umbilical cord.






The first few hours passed in a blur. She was a perfect baby...yawned, smiled (my mom said it was gas but I'm sure it was a smile), slept. I couldn't wait to get home. Get home we did...and then she started to scream!!

May 9th
It was on the 7th day of her life that we shaved her hair and put on some gold for her. She sat like a lamb throughout the shaving of her head. Then we had a sumptuous lunch. And oh she still screams a lot





November 2010

Sleep? I don’t like him much. His acting isn’t that great. Huh? What are you talking about? Oh you mean the act of lying down on a bed and closing your eyes? Aaaaah…that one. I don’t do much of that these days.
I am delusional now. Almost every other day, Arfaz and I take turns walking up and down the room, performing something like an aadivasi (tribal) dance to put Mehreen to sleep. She would only sleep if we performed that particular dance. Arfaz grudgingly noted that if CK Janu (google her) saw him, she would just adopt him for his skilful dance steps. Our hands would be so sore from carrying her. Getting up at 5am to go to work is also not doing us any good. Apart from that Mehreen screams every time someone comes home. She screams every time we go out. Quite anti-social, she is. I have forgotten the time when I could step out of the house without having to worry constantly about upsetting her. And she would scare everyone within a 2 km radius of her with her screams. Life just looks great, doesn’t it?





May 2012

Phew!! 2 years already, eh? She is now a happy bunny who will walk up to random people and just start having conversations with them. Her social skills have built up remarkably. She has also started swimming lessons and can sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Why This Kolaveri (although you will probably need a translator to understand the words). She continues to make everyone walk on the line that she draws. This includes both her set of grandparents, uncle, aunts and most importantly her dad. I do too most of the times but not without a fight. But I guess it isn't going to last very long because this is probably her last birthday as the unrivaled supreme queen of the family. She is preparing to welcome a sibling as well as a first cousin in the next few months.

“So what if you had to put up with such tantrums until she was about 10 months old,” my mom sometimes asks me. “You have such a good and well-behaved child for all the trouble.” I look at the pen scribbles on my brand new bed sheet, 5 million toys scattered all around the house, my broken pieces of make up which she has been experimenting with, the brand new carpet which she has peed on while potty training and say “Yes mom…she is a very well-behaved child”

Now let's see what my blog will be like for her next birthday...

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The Day The Sun Fell Into The Sea

The problem with kids is that they take things seriously. A bit too seriously for their own good.

So the other day Arfaz and Mehreen are watching the sunset from our balcony. And Arfaz said to her “Oh look, the sun is falling into the sea.” She seemed fascinated by the idea and turned to me and said “Mamma, sun is falling into the sea” (of course, she said it in a mix of 3 languages that we speak at home- Malayalam, Kutchi and English). We found it funny, laughed about it and didn’t think of it again until about an hour later by when she had repeated the same sentence 5 times.

Uh oh. We all- my mom, dad, Arfaz and I- started to look at each other and we could see where this was going. “But its going to come back tomorrow morning sweetheart,” Arfaz reassured her. She didn’t seem too convinced.

And that evening when we went out, she saw the full-moon and her face lit up “Sun,” she said. “That’s the moon, honey,” I corrected her and my mom glared at me. Shucks, I should have let her assume that it was the sun. It would have comforted her. She repeated “Sun fell into the sea.”

 Before she went to bed that night, she kept saying it over and over. We were all a bit shocked at how deeply the thought had affected her.

Next day, I got a call at office from my mom at about 11. Apparently she had woken up crying at 7am saying that the sun had fallen into the sea. And it took her a full hour to go back to sleep. When she woke up again, my mom took her to the balcony and showed her the sun in the sky. It seemed to relax her.

That afternoon, when I got back home she came running to me with a big grin and said “Mamma, the sun told me ‘Good morning Mehreen’”

And peace was restored in her world 

My Lost Bag Saga

I know I have to blog about my move and the madness surrounding it but before that I have to tell you about my New Year party. I have to say it’s one of the best parties I have had simply because it made me start the new year on the note that good people are not so hard to find J

The party started at about 4:50 on January 1st 2012 when, after a shopping trip to IKEA, I got home and realized that my bag was missing. And inside it were 2 phones, my wallet, my driving license, my insurance card and just basically everything of any importance. Now it so happened that while my mom and I were loading some of the heavy IKEA stuff into my car, I had dropped my bag on to the pavement and forgotten to pick it up. Panic hit me like a cyclone straight in my face.

I rushed back to the festival city parking lot in an inebriated state of worry (cant remember how many speeding tickets I racked up on that trip). Checked the exact place I left it...and surprise surprise!!! It was not there. My heart started to pound madly...as if I had been dancing at the disco. Remember? It's my new year party. I then ran to the mall. Checked with the information counter. Nothing. Checked with the ikea and hyper panda information counter (because they have staff in the parking lot who collect the trolleys). Nothing. By now I was so close to tears that I was having a hard time holding it back. After spending an hour trying to chase the bag that I had lost for barely 20 minutes my mom and I climbed into the car to go back home- absolutely dejected. My head was throbbing with pain- thanks to the stress I had been through. Some time in between all this I managed to call my bank and block my ATM card.

Now all this while I had been trying to call my phone and it was ringing. I found this a bit odd because if someone had stolen my bag, the first thing they'd do is switch off the phone. But if they didn't want to steal it, why wouldn't they return it to lost and found or at least answer my phone? I just couldn't make sense of the whole thing.

Once home I prayed Maghrib and sat on my prayer mat just wondering if I should close my eyes and let my dam of tears to break open. Suddenly my dad's phone rang. I hoped it was something to do with my bag but it turned out to be my cousin who works in Rashidiya. He asked my dad to speak to me. I signalled I didn't want to talk but my dad was already handing me the phone.
"Hi," I said.
"Hey did you lose something?" he asked. Oh God. How is this news spreading?
"yes I did, why?"
"someone just called me and said they had found a phone belonging to you"
And he gave me the number of the person who had called. This was turning into one interesting party (And even though I wasnt in the mood to listen to joke then, my cousin told me something that had me cracking up for days. Apparently whoever found my phone called him and said I have found your phone. And my bro had lost a phone that very morning- it had fallen into the toilet. He was absolutely amazed that Dubai had become so advanced that people were finding phones in the sewage pipe- before realizing it wasn't his phone that had been found)

By now, all my energy had seeped through my legs to the ground and I didn't want to phone this person. I made Arfaz do it. The man who questioned Arfaz about the contents of it etc. Obviously he gave me the phone and I stammered out everything I could remember. He asked me what car I was driving and I gingerly answered- a Lexus. He said he would be in Lulu Qusais in about 45 minutes and asked us to meet him there. And its only when a crisis occurs that all the bad thoughts in the universe starts to hit me. What did this man really want? Why didn't he just give my bag to lost and found? Why was he insisting on returning it to us himself? Was he going to bargain for money? And why did he ask for the make of my car? Was it to see how much money he should bargain for? Shucks- I should have said I drive a really cheap car. Oh God!!! I'm tired of this party.

I reached Qusais Lulu in 40 minutes and waited for him to call. My hands were sweating. I had never been so nervous- not even when my 12th standard board exam results were due. He called a few minutes later and we met in the parking lot. He was a well built Pakistani laborer in shalwar khameez who spoke only Urdu. He told us how he had pulled into the parking that I had got out of at festival city. He found my bag there and was worried to leave it on the pavement thinking someone might steal it. So he put it in his car and left a note on his dashboard with his number- in case I came looking for it (and which would have been there when I madly ran back and forth that pavement, had I looked). And then when he returned to his room, he browsed through my phone and called the first number on it, which was my cousin's. I didn't know what to say. It was so very sweet of him. He asked me to check the bag to see if anything was missing. Of course I didn't. After thanking him and giving him some money (which he initially refused- and I had thought he wanted to bargain) Arfaz led me away before I fell at his feet and started worshipping the ground he walked upon.

On our way back home, I realized something else- this poor man wouldn't have known how to navigate my ultra-sophisticated Samsung phone ( I can barely make a call on that phone without getting lost). So he had gone back to his room in Sonapur and charged my dead Nokia phone (which I carried around only because I had so many contacts in it) and then looked up my cousin's number. This poor soul had gone through so much trouble and taken so much effort just to make sure that I got my bag back. Wow!! So why didn't he just return it to lost and found? Because I highly doubt he even knows something like that exists. And thus ended my big new year party.

Moral of the story? Always carry simple, and easy to navigate phones. And oh, don't forget your bag/ wallet/ keys anywhere.

I relate this story to my colleagues who shake their head in disbelief. "I can categorically tell you that something like this will only happen in Dubai," says Maddy. "If it was in India, once gone don't even hope to get it back." "Neither would it happen in the UK," Christine says. "if the person who finds it is kind enough, he will probably mail the cards back to you. But money and phone, gone." And we all said a silent prayer of thanks to be able to live in such a beautiful country.



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Location:Dubai Festival City