Watching over lil' sis

Yo gets all happy and excited when he sees his sister, and he's showered her with lots of kisses.  I've certainly been surprised at how much love he shows Mika.  The boy still needs to fully comprehend the concept of 'being gentle' with his baby sister, though; his gentle patting sometimes transitions into an inquisitive poke, pinch, or even solid thwack before we can react.

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Pre- and post-birth video

Malaika - week 1

Amma stayed with Susan in the hospital after Mika was born, while Yo and I spent the day there with them and then came back home for the night.  She kept waking up for feeds, which takes a long time, but other than that didn't give them any worries in the night.  And in general this past week, she's been a very peaceful, calm baby; sleeps through most of the day, and when she's up she just looks around without any fuss.  At night she wants to be held for a bit, but typically falls asleep quite quickly.  The doctor said today that she'll start to be more awake this next week; sleepless nights might be back in our immediate future.  For now, we'll enjoy this peaceful phase :)

Malaika's Birth Story

The last time around, I gave Ranjit a hard time for not getting all the details of Yohan's birth story completely right (well, my post-pain-meds version of right anyway). So this time, I figured I'd write Malaika's birth story sans an interpreter. Also, since I am sequestered upstairs without a TV, now's as good a time as any to record this.

Woke up at about 12:30 am on the 20th with a lot a of aches and pains. Nothing new about that since for several nights I'd been experiencing what I thought were contractions (yup, we even made one hurried 3 am visit to the hospital couple nights prior to that). After a lot pf pacing, praying, rest-rooming and moaning, I decided about 4:30 am that this was PROBABLY the real thing and I should wake Ranjit up. For an hour after that we counted contractions and figured, yeah, it was D-day ...perhaps. Called the doc and told her that the contractions were five minutes apart to which she told me to lie down for an hour and see if they would go away. Like I wasn't confused about my situation already!!

So I dutifully lay down and in about an hour, after answering Ranjit's many, "are you sure we should go's?" in the affirmative, we arrived at St Vincent's and checked into triage at 7am. I could say it was deja vu bu that would be redundant considering, uh, we'd been in the same room only three days earlier. The nurse checked me and said I was definitely in labor. Finally - I didn't just have an overactive imagination! At some time in this process, Ranjit started Tweeting about proceedings. He looked like a video-game crazy dude who needed his daily fix even when wifey was in labor. Wonder what the nurses thought.

We told the triage nurse that we might want to try a VBAC (Vaginal birth after Cesarean), depending on what the doctor advised us. After a while, Dr Carol Stull, my OB, breezed in with her usual, "Hello, little one!" She checked me and said I was about 2-3 cms dilated and then immediately started talking about the c-section like it was a pre-determined conclusion. I kind of feebly inserted, "What about a VBAC?" which she wasn't keen on at all. Ranjit and I had been feeling over the last few days that a VBAC may involve too many risks as well, so we were happy to concur with the doc.

At 9am that morning we were told the c-section would be around 11am. Dr Stull would be back for the surgery although she wasn't scheduled to be at the hospital that day.The anesthetist came in, asked me a bunch of questions and asked if I wanted an epidural since I was in pain. I told her I'd wait it out since the surgery was only an hour away. Not so smart. 11 am rolled by and no wheelchair. Ranjit was given his bunny suit and even got dressed but no sign of the nurses. And, of course, more and more pain. We turned on Chris Tomlin on the iPhone (I finally concede that that is one cool device) which helped some. And then this God-thing happened. After having some intense pain, I stopped feeling my contractions. Honest! I was actually able to fall asleep and when I woke up was wondering if labor has somehow stopped in its tracks. But God had really held the pain at bay till I had to be whisked off to the OR.

Finally my carriage (aka wheelchair) arrived a little before noon and off I went to the OR. This was the hard part - while I was being prepped for surgery, Ranjit would have to wait outside. The spinal (the pain-numbing shot delivered in the spinal cord) was the bit I was most dreading and it didn't quite go off smoothly. Here I was sitting on the operating table all hunched over (bending forward when you have a watermelon belly is not an easy position to assume) and the anesthetist couldn't find space between my "bony" vertebrae to poke me. So she tried and tried and tried for what seemed like an eternity. Dr Stull tried very obviously to distract me - we spoke about her fraternal twin, how I met Ranjit, and stegosauruses (not kidding) while she kept poking. Finally just as a second anesthetist walked in to help find my elusive spinal cord, wham. The deed was done. I was put on a stretcher, a blue screen suspended in front of me and the "can you feel this?" test was done with a wet wipe on my belly. I hate answering that one. What if I could feel it but my brain didn't register it! Yikes. I so didn't want to be wrong.

Ranjit came in and I greeted him with a whimpery, "Babe, I'm nervous." He put his masked face (very Zorro-like) close to mine and we sang "Thank-you Jesus" together (he very off-tune). The nurses must have thought "Video gamer turned Jesus freak." Whatever! And very soon after that, Dr Stull said, "I can see lots of hair". Soooo exciting! Tears sprang to my eyes as I heard Malaika's first cries at 12:27pm. Nothing can quite capture that feeling of hearing your baby take her first breath in the real world.




She was cleaned off and handed over to Ranjit who brought her close to me. She was perfect. As perfect as her big brother and so so much like him.

That was exactly a week ago and we can't thank God enough for our perfect little angel.

Her first bath:

Mama holding Malaika for the first time:

Yo and Ammama meeting Malaika:

Taking in her new world:

Keeping Yo busy

Back home

Susan and Malaika were discharged from the hospital Sun morning (Aug 23), and having had enough of hospital gowns and hospital food, we quickly packed up and headed home. When he met the new arrival on his home turf, Yo looked upon her with definite excitement; that excitement, along with all the ummas, quickly translated into enthusiastic poking and prodding of the baby. Where does one find body armor for babies?

Floppy hats

(This was an old post that somehow didn't get through).

Yo was all looking spiffy in a kurta and jeans last Sunday, but before we could get around to capturing it on film, the jeans came off, and a floppy hat was donned. This was a cuter look anyway.

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Smiling for dada

Susan got some of Mika's first smiles on camera; day 3 at the hospital.

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Malaika - day 2

Welcome, Malaika!

Malaika Lily Narjala was born Aug 20 2009 at 12:27pm with a hearty cry. Hearing the baby's first wail before you see them is really something quite special. The moment Susan and I saw her we both said she looked like a carbon copy of her brother when he was born. She also had pretty much the same stats as her brother: 6lbs 7oz, 18.5inches. And beautiful, long fingers. Think there might be a little pianist somewhere in there :)

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Almost there

Baby #2 could show up any day now. Early Sunday morning (3am-type early) we decided to go to the hospital since Susan had been having bad abdominal pain for the last few hours. After an hour and a half of monitoring at triage they told us the baby was ready yet, and we trooped back home.

Back to waiting.

Words and Pictures

Yo's vocabulary of spoken words is starting to build up, slowly but surely. It now comprises of: mamma, dada, hallooo, hi, bye, car, woof, uh-oh (which may or may not be a word dependng on how much of a purist one is), eye, teeth, no, and no (for nose). 'No' was his first word.

The boy certainly understands a lot too, and it's amazing to see how much of a sponge kids are. He's big on pointing these days - especially outside, when he wants his ammama to take him out for a walk or to play.

Some random pics from the past few weeks:

A basket case

Forget the toys; pots, pans, and now baskets/tubs will do just fine.

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From the mouth of (sleepy) babes

Here's an admission, out on the big internet: I sometimes (try to) sing to Yo while putting him to bed at night. Susan sings 'Away in a manger' to him usually when she puts him to bed, and since that seems to work, I try to attempt the same as well.

One night as I was rocking and singing to him, the boy, half-asleep, reaches out a hand, puts it over my mouth, and says 'Noooo'.

Okay. Maybe I should sing something else.

Tonight as I was putting him to bed, I switched to singing 'Hallelujah' - the slow chorus version - thinking it might be soothing and all. After a few minutes, he raises his head, with a wide smile on his face, and says 'Halloooooo'. (He has just started saying his version of 'hello', and perhaps in his sleepy mind equated my rendition of the song to the greeting).

Maybe I should take a hint.

Pongal and Poriyal

We hosted a lunch with the Indian crowd last weekend in honor of baby-to-be. Amma cooked up a storm, and some of our friends brought some yum dishes as well. It was a hot day, and the kids enjoyed splashing around outside for a bit too.