Peanut Poetry - 1, 2 and 3

So, at least once in 6 months, the idea is to write a poem (or rhyming lines, if you prefer) for Advay.
Even though we make it fairly clear to him how much he is loved, it seems interesting, at least to me, to have something to document how we felt at various points along this journey.

This was poem one:

The 10th day of Feb dawned bright and clear
Nervous, I paced the floor
As the minutes ticked past half past nine
I couldn't take no more

Then the sound of a cry hit the air
Time seemed to be on pause
But in order to celebrate, still
We didn't have a cause

At last the doctor popped out her head
"Husband of Gayatri?"
You have a baby boy she said and
Brought him for us to see

Clad in that same orange swaddle cloth
Which once your sisters wrapped
You were placed into my waiting arms
And there you slowly napped

Thanks and prayers escaped my silent lips
Old nightmares flew away
Your arrival seemed a herald to
A bea-u-tiful day

There's since been times of discovery
And nights of little rest
You seem to sleep through most of the day
Midnight brings out your best

You gurgle, frown and sigh in your sleep
What are you dreaming of?
You give an empty and vacant look;
Admire the sky above

You hiccup for 30 minutes straight
My palpitations rise
I wonder if this could happen in
Someone of your small size

You cry before your nightly feed
Friends say that's what kids do
And I'm thinking in my head,  "I'm sure"
"Your kids worried you too"

You pee just when your diaper's removed
Everyone laughs out loud
But to tell the truth little man, you
Already make me proud

And occasionally, while you nap
A smile crosses your lips
Waves of euphoria fly o'er me
And my heart does backflips

At noontime lulls at work I wonder
Is his post-lunch feed done?
And is it normal to experience
Sine waves of emotion?

This surely must be what they call, an
Experience life-changing
I look forward to your bright future
To watch you dance and sing

Until then you have my hand to hold
My presence by your side
While my lines chronicle your story, through
This kingdom far and wide

Poem #2 at 6 months:

It seems like it was yesterday
When you, tiny peanut, were born
But I realize with a shock
That six months have, somehow, just gone

Flown by in a crowd of events
Mixed with colds, coughs and runny nose
Monthly cupcakes and photographs
Vitamin D; Colic-Aid dose

While not worried about hiccups
Thoughts still arise when you complain
Are you teething; hungry maybe?
Have you now sufficient weight gain?

I see you just 4 hours a day
Else I'm at work or you're asleep
And so I watch you in your crib
As you lay quietly counting sheep

I'm petrified, anxiety-filled
Wondering if you will perceive
That your dear father is the one
With the songs and lines up his sleeve

Many nervous moments are spent
The bell rung and waiting a while
D'you know the man behind the door?
Will you then greet him with a smile?

I've loved the time that has "whoosh"-ed past
Morning baths, and songs at nap time
Your gurgling and excited kicks
Your squeals that almost are in rhyme

Your drool that splashes on my shirts
Your worm-like, winding, tumbling crawl
Penchant for chewing everything
Your awesome, right-side, dimple small

Eyes that shine with the light of youth
Eager fingers that fly to mouth
A cute tummy that produces
Thundering sounds from the deep South

These sights and sounds that form my days
Long may they ever continue
And I'm fortunate, blessed to have
A tiny peanut, just like you


This was the 1-yr poem:

A year of parenting has been and gone
We've really not been keeping score
Of the numerous scrapes and worried frowns
As you face-planted on the floor

Or the many times that you've pooped your pants
Just as we're all ready to leave
Or when you have drooled and spat all over
My formal office white shirt sleeve

Or when you've woken up at half-past one
Not in the mood for milk or food
Or the improvised diaper-changing songs
We've sung out loud with attitude

Or the times Mommy has given a nudge
Exclaimed, "Your turn", to no avail
Or times Daddy has, with contorted face,
Emptied your smelly diaper pail

Or when small, missing objects are searched for
Inside your eager, tiny mouth
Or meals when all you do is drink water
As if from a land of great drought

Or the Movies we want to see and cant
Spas we want to visit and don't
The times when seemingly tasty dinner
Could be eaten, but you just won't

'Cause when you smile and give that toothy grin
All else just simply fades to grey
And anger, occasional frustration
Simply matters not; flies away

Each day brings us something completely new;
And the first year that has gone by
Tells me that you're surely going to be
A totally watchable guy

But the one thing that we can surely count
Is how lucky and blessed we are
And that having you around has made us
The happiest parents by far

Responsibilities, Learning etc...

As I may have previously mentioned, I started writing this as my way of coming to terms with what has happened. Recent events have made me think about how and why I am writing this.

These lines are not purely my point of view. Losing our baby is certainly not just my loss and, if anything, has affected Gayatri much, much more. We discuss my posts before they are published and while it allows us to talk about what happened, in quite a few cases we have found that these lines have echoed thoughts that both of us have felt independently.

Getting my emotions and thoughts out in this blog helps me look at what happened slightly more dispassionately and I also believe that it helps me deal with this at home, when people call and visit, in a less emotional way.

While at times I feel guilty that perhaps I am not crying about it enough (perhaps it hasn't hit me yet?), I still feel that there is no right way to feel or no correct answer to the question of how emotional I'm supposed to be right now.

Perhaps the one thing I have not taken into account is what the family might feel after reading this. After all, like I've written above, it isn't my loss alone. The loss of a baby isn't just devastating to her parents but also to her uncles, aunts and grandparents and I must admit that I haven't really considered whether any of our family would find reading this upsetting.

I suppose it comes down to the question of whether someone who is writing also has a responsibility to the readers or whether the sole responsibility is to tell the story as honestly as possible, especially if it is an autobiography.


___________________________________________________________________________________

Over the past 2 weeks, we have heard different opinions from people about how to deal with what happened. Some people have told us to forget that it happened and move on. Others have told us that naming the baby helps us remember. I don't know if I'm quite ready for that yet. To me, it feels like she wasn't a part of us yet, though we will never forget her or what she looked like.

I think that we both have a responsibility to each other and to our baby, to never forget what has happened. Despite our first pregnancy having a rather tragic end, it has shaped us in ways that will make these days impossible to forget.

I would like to believe that I have become more sensitive to the needs of my wife and have become a more responsible person.
Gayatri, after a long time, feels comfortable asking others for help. Having managed her own life in IIT and in the US for 6 years, being pregnant allowed her to relax and let others finally do a few things for her.

___________________________________________________________________________________


With the loss of our baby now being officially deemed an unexplained phenomenon, we cannot medically learn anything more about what happened.

Our learning therefore is that we believe we are now better people and better for the experience of this having happened. Our learning is that we are closer and have more love for each other now than we did before.

...And surely that isn't such a bad thing to take away from this all, is it?

Stasis

The term stasis (from Greek στάσις "standing still") may refer to:

A state of stability, in which all forces are equal and opposing, therefore they cancel out each other. 

Stasis (political history), as defined by Thucydides as a set of symptoms indicating an internal disturbance in both individuals and states 

Stasis (biology), a period of little or no evolutionary change in a species in the punctuated equilibrium model of evolutionary biology 

Stasis (fiction) implies, especially in science-fiction, an artificial pause that stops all physical and chemical processes, including those of life; they resume as if uninterrupted as soon as the stasis is ended.

It has been a week filled with thoughts of "what-might-have-been".

I still remember our first day back home, a week before today, when Gayatri was afraid to go into the bedroom and afraid to lie down on the bed.

That is how it has been in a way. We've come back to a house that hasn't changed during the 5 days that we were in hospital and yet every single thing about it seems different. Everything around us is a reminder of what isn't...

We've a king-size bed that is empty in the middle, baby photo albums that aren't yet going to be filled, a framed poem which cannot yet be read to anyone, several packs of infant diapers, numerous boxes of wet wipes, a little stuffed penguin that has to wait awhile before being someone's companion, a cap knit by the grandmother that will need to be stored for later, an orange welcoming blanket that made its way back home to Chennai and a bag-full of clothes that I'm terrified that we'll incidentally come across on a day when we think we're over this.

Each one of those things could have been so different.

In a way, we feel like fish in a pond full of anglers who are ready to practice catch-and-release. Every phone call, every thing we see feels like a fish hook ready to yank us out of water for a little while, before releasing us back in. It is hard to speak to people outside of your family on the phone as you're not sure what they're about to say and at least in the beginning, I'm just hoping that the little fish escapes the hook-infested waters.

It is even harder to listen to people commiserate with you face to face.

"There must have been a good reason..."

"Everything happens for the best..."

"It shouldn't have happened like this..."

How does one respond to that? I do not know and frequently I say nothing. I don't know if that makes me seem indifferent but what can I say?

___________________________________________________________________________________

Over the past week, we've received e-mails, messages, phone calls and visits from people we love. Even the shortest messages from among them has wished us love and strength and assured us our presence in their prayers.

Some of these wishes have brought us to tears, some have made us smile, some have given us strength but every single one of them has made us feel lucky that we have a wonderful family and that we have a lot of love.

Thank you.

Answering the "Why" question

4 days have passed but we still have questions, the foremost of which is Why this happened.

The even more worrying thought is if we could have prevented this or if something that we did caused this.

The mind has a life of its own and though we're fairly logical, scientific people and it would seem silly to think that small, seemingly unrelated, insignificant things could have played a part in the events of Friday night, I can't help thinking about how Gayatri rolled against my knee one night in bed or that Gayatri missed taking her Iron and Calcium tablets for 2 days or that I refused to pay a transgendered person in Lalbagh.

Maybe we could have noticed changes in the baby's movement or patterns and maybe we could have been paying more attention. Maybe we could have read more baby books.

Maybe none of the above would have made a difference, but there they are - my biases and irrationality out in the open.

Perhaps for these thoughts to stop, we need to know what caused our baby to be still born. I don't need a guarantee that it won't happen again and don't need to know that it could have been prevented or even can be prevented for the next time around.

I just need to know so that the corner of my mind can stop attributing it to stupid, insignificant, incidental things.

Maybe this is why so many people are so religious... maybe it is because Science or its Practitioners don't have all the answers and even if they do, the answers are cold and emotionless and give you no place to hide, when that is all that you want to do. It is easier to turn to faith when Science fails you or if Science is about to tell you that you were at fault.

Though my family is traditional, not all of my family are very religious and this point feels like a little test of where it is that I place my faith.

Maybe it is just best to place my faith in people - those that I love and those that I know will love me, no matter what - and maybe that will help me through.

The slow journey back to 'Normal' begins

In the first week of July, Gayatri was to give birth to our first child.

Getting to the stage of being pregnant had taken us a while, several months of consultations, some treatment and numerous attempts.

People frequently asked me if I was nervous. Truth now be told, I'd never looked forward to anything more.

Your life will change forever, they said. "That's the idea", was what I always secretly said to myself.

Each regular checkup brought us a step closer - the first ultrasound, the first time the baby yawned, moved, the first time we saw the spine, the first thump of the baby's heart beat.

We picked out baby names - boys' and girls' - and tried not to go overboard shopping for the new Mommy and the baby.

We wanted a girl; the great-grandparents wanted a boy.

------

Tuesday, May 29th, was our regular appointment that marked the start of the 9th month.

It was then that the Doctor noticed that the baby didn't seem to have grown in the last 2 weeks i.e. since our previous regular appointment.

An ultrasound showed that there was interrupted blood flow to the baby through the placenta.

We then knew that the baby was going to be premature.

The biggest risk with a pre-term baby is that its lungs haven't grown enough.

Steroid shots were given to Gayatri (one on Tuesday night and one on Wednesday morning) to boost lung growth of the baby. Gayatri was given Amino Acids drips.

Meanwhile an anxious mother and an anxious husband paced around her hospital room nervously through the night, hoping that things would improve by the next morning.

The next morning's scan showed that blood flow to the baby had improved from the previous night, though hadn't yet reached ideal levels.

According to procedure and to give the baby's lungs the best chance to grow and survive, we'd need to wait 48 hours from the last steroid shot, before doing a C-section.

The C-section was then scheduled for Friday evening.

------

Friday evening arrived and the best description of the mood at the time is probably nervous optimism. The situation and blood flow hadn't regressed. The fetal heart rate was normal.

A team of nurses came in to prep Gayatri for surgery. It was 5pm and the fetal heart rate was still normal.

At 6:20pm nurses once again came in to wheel Gayatri into the delivery room. At that point, fetal heart rate couldn't be detected.

Doppler machines of different sizes were brought in and no fetal heartbeat was observed.

------

Sometime between 5 and 6:20pm on 1st June 2012, Gayatri and I lost our baby.

------

It takes courage to face up to facts when someone tells you that the baby that you've been waiting a year for isn't alive anymore.

To face that fact and then have to deliver that stillborn baby, through a normal delivery without painkillers and injections in her spine, is one of the most courageous acts that I have ever seen.

It requires strength that is beyond my comprehension; that beggars belief. It is why women, even the emotional ones, will always be stronger than men.

It is why holding her hands through that will be my moment of greatest pride.

-------

Our still-born baby was a girl.

I'd like to think that she would have been creative like her dad but more importantly strong and beautiful like her mom.

-------

I'm not sure what the reasons are for my writing this but I know what the reasons aren't.

It isn't because I want this to be shared so that someone else somewhere may be helped. What happened is far too recent and I have never been very selfless.

Perhaps I feel that it is necessary for me to get things off my chest for me to be able to start again.

The last 2 days have been filled with relentless thoughts and very little sleep. Some thoughts fly in and out and are forgotten, while others keep coming back and are perhaps significant, in a way that their recency will not let me see.

-------

Today feels better than yesterday but I'm kidding myself if I feel that life will soon be normal.

Our journey back to Normal is only just beginning and maybe, if we get there, these lines and posts will let me know the road that we took.

Home, the Sequel

Hello family members.
Rather typically, we have had no updates whatsoever to this website from anyone in the last several months despite the fact that several members are now in different corners of the country, nay, the world and are up to something.

One of them has designed a place to pee when there's a cyclone raging outside; another has a summer job with a leading Indian firm; a third is using the skills of his future profession to convince his parents that bunking class is the best thing for his career.

However, whether they are in different corners or not, they just seem indifferent.
(Hmph. Younger cousins... please take the hint).

The update from my side is that furnishing of the apartment is finally done and it has taken me the better part of two months.

Below are photos. I'm especially proud of the TV room which I did up myself, without the help of the TV guy or the home theater system dude. I will someday also take a photo of my DVD collection, which is now alphabetized, but not yet.

Update: Alphabetized DVD collection photos uploaded...

Front Door

From front corridor towards Puja

Dining table and front facing balcony

From dining towards living room

From dining towards the kitchen

From the Kitchen towards the living

Living Room

Living room, opposite wall

Living room skylight

Master bedroom

Guest bedroom with Aqua curtains

Piece de resistance - the TV room

TV Room - opposite wall

Alphabetized DVD Collection

The entire lot

The Dark Knight review

Note: This review would have appeared a lot earlier had it not been for a few reasons:
a) the fact that I left for my honeymoon in mid July and was in Spain and Portugal for 2 weeks, where the movie hadn't yet released
b) movie tickets were almost impossible to get, with even midweek night shows sold out
c) This is the kind of movie that needs a second viewing, and I mean that in a good way



'The Dark Knight' (hereafter referred to as TDK), released on July 18th, floating on clouds of success and tremendous critical and popular acclaim. The film continues from where the previous film in the series, Batman Begins, left off.

That film, inspired by the darker tones of Frank Miller's 'Batman: Year One' graphic novel traced the origins of Batman and the events and motivation behind why billionaire Bruce Wayne chose to fight crime from behind a mask and the symbol of a bat. It left us with Inspector Gordon (Gary Oldman, who continues his role here) hinting at an escalation in crime and violence in Gotham city and with Batman promising to look into the crimes of Gotham's latest demented villain; someone who left this as a calling card:



TDK, inspired by the tone of Miller's graphic novels and by 'Batman: The Long Halloween' sets itself no cinematic constraints, takes its inspiration and leaps off the novel's pages with it.

TDK starts off big with a set-piece at the Gotham bank, tying in perfectly to Inspector Gordon's lines at the end of the last movie about stranger criminals and more violent crimes.

However Gotham has been seeing better times. Armed with the constant encouragement and advice of his butler Alfred (Michael Caine again) and a more flexible body suit and gadgetry from Wayne Enterprises scientist Lucius Fox (Morgan Freeman), Batman's emergence as a vigilante crime fighter has reduced crime and has driven the gangs underground. The new upright DA Harvey Dent (a wonderful Aaron Eckhart) is making the right noises and is willing to help Inspector Gordon do what is necessary to crack down on the gangs' source of funds. In their desperation to see a return to old times, the gangs turn to a crazed psychopath - the Joker.

The Joker turns out to be more than just a foil for Batman. Causing chaos and foiling Batman's best laid plans being his only goals, the Joker adds a psychological twist of the knife to every little defeat that the Batman encounters.
With traps set for Gotham's citizens and for Batman at every step, the Joker ensures that every confrontation involves difficult questions and life and death choices for the Batman; all of which are designed to force him to unmask the man behind the bat.

As Gotham's White Knight and crime crusader (with Batman therefore being The Dark Knight) Harvey Dent finally gets caught up in Joker's wave of violence and with a little encouragement (and a personal tragedy) makes a riveting transformation.

Ultimately though, the questions are these:
Does the film work? Is it worth a watch (or two)? Is it better than the previous film?

'TDK' is a tremendous movie, the best recent entry in the superhero genre, because it is ambitious enough to try and be a little more than just a standard summer blockbuster, because it is well written and directed, because the performances - from Christian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhaal and Gary Oldman and Aaron Eckhart in particular are top notch, because the action now jumps at you off the screen instead of being clouded in smoke as in 'Batman Begins' - a car chase with the Joker in a monster truck drew instantaneous applause.

The reason the movie is terrific is because of the Nolans' script that makes the story plausible and roots it in a Gotham city that seems real, and populated by folk that are as affected by the modern world's problems as the populace of any big city today - Terrorism? Check. Moral decrepitude? Double check. Corrupt elected officials? Check. Violence escalation? Check. A big brother government? Check.
Some of these fears are ours, some of these people (granted, on a terrible day) could be us and this could easily be our city.
Normal citizens could be shot at just as they drive along on the streets, ferry passengers could be blown up, a hospital could explode. This is truly a city in chaos and Batman's problems are more mental and psychological than just physical.

There is one other reason why this movie is tremendous and that is Heath Ledger. In his last completed film role, Ledger owns the screen and every second that he's on it. Right from his introduction, to his first scene with the mob, his Joker is a devious, devilish character - a crazed, psychopathic terrorist. This is the kind of performance that lets you see why Ledger might have been so affected by the role and his interpretation so as to lead into the depression that later claimed his life. A posthumous Oscar nomination is well within the realms of possibility.

This tremendous movie though isn't without a few flaws - the movie fails to pause enough (despite its 152min running time) to let the really important bits stay with you, the end does seem a little preachy as Nolan drives home his point and some scenes seem unnecessary while others feel like more time could have been devoted to them and might need a 2nd viewing.

These are minor quibbles in a really good movie that just falls short of greatness. See it once for the action and spectacle and see it again, just for Heath Ledger.

This bat sure does fly.