Rollercoaster Ride – My Pregnancy Diaries

Hope you all find my mixed bag of emotions and outbursts justified looking at the circumstances I was fighting. After a long battle of almost nine years, we were bestowed upon with the happiness called parenthood but since our triplets were in a bit too much of a hurry to see this world so they planned an early emergency entry in our life, and at just 27 weeks of pregnancy they were welcomed in this world, sans that big smile.

The reason was clear. Their gestational age, their development, and their weight except for the third one were a matter of concern.

It’s not that we weren’t warned about this earlier but no one ever hopes for the worst to happen all the time, and we too hadn’t even in our dreams ever thought of such an outcome where nobody could predict our destiny. Hence right from day one, it was a mixed feeling, not knowing whether to be happy for we had become parents or sad looking at our tiny kids, as we didn’t know if they had arrived in our life to finally give us that joy we were waiting for or were they once again going to leave us in tears as before.

I just kept my fingers crossed hoping for a positive outcome, while the gynecologist quietly handed over them to a team of senior doctors from a reputed hospital to be transferred to the NICU in their hospital. The specialists on duty from that hospital informed us telephonically about the line of treatment they were planning.

Climbing up the steps leading to the NICU for the first time after that was giving me goosebumps. I didn’t know what would my reaction be on seeing those little angels, who at that point in time were fighting all alone for their survival. I had no courage to see those feeble beings, being punished by God just on arrival and failed to understand why on earth was this happening to them and to us too.

Even today I feel terrible remembering the words of a staff member, I had overheard. “Abhi dekhlein, phir to itni pipes dalengi ki chehra bhi nahi dikhegaa bachon ka”, she said as we were moving towards their incubators.

During the hospital stay, my life was restricted to my room. Although there was nothing to do physically but mentally it was a very tough fight, especially because of our eldest son fighting on several fronts with bleak chances of survival.

Before the other two kids were shifted to our room, we were asked to make the necessary arrangements like their clothes, small diya-shaped spoons for feeding them, and many other such items.

Once shifted to our room, my routine was to keep a watch on their parameters. Although the doctors used to advise me to move out of the room for some time and meet other mothers, so as to fight my loneliness, derive some courage, and most importantly change my mood, I could never gather the guts to leave the infants alone in the room and go out.

My routine was monotonous::
Washing their clothes, changing diapers every two hours, and waiting for the nurse visits at scheduled times to feed the babies. They were fed formula milk using those little diyas. I was also taught how to feed them using those diyas and was expected to start doing it as soon as possible. After all the same process had to be continued at home also after discharge. It was quite tiring honestly, feeding them that way.

One of my most important roles in the hospital was providing Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) which is an essential part of nurturing preemie kids.

With three kids and a KMC to all of them at least twice a day for about half an hour to forty-five minutes each meant sitting in one posture for almost about four hours a day, without moving much as they had their sensors monitoring their oxygen levels, heart rates, etc. attached to their tiny fingers and these would loosen and start giving false reading if I moved much.

Imagine so much time sitting in a chair without changing posture, although doing nothing is still so stressful physically. The nursing staff used to help me adjust the babies to my bosom and then………..
Me and them were alone in the room.

Though this was the most difficult part because sitting for long durations in one position with the babies resting peacefully, stuck to my bosom one by one was quite tiring, still that feeling of nurturing my child, that one particular emotion perhaps, that a woman enjoys in her last trimester that I had missed used to leave me so contented that it made up for the loss of the experience of those three last months of pregnancy.

It felt like there used to develop during those moments, an invisible Umbilical Cord connecting us and nurturing my babies through the blood of my hope, optimism, and love.

Once KMC for the third baby couldn’t be done till late evening, so when the nurse came to feed my babies at night, she asked me if I could do it at that hour. I readily agreed but suddenly dozed off in the chair and the baby fell down with a thud. The noise woke me up and seeing the baby lying on the floor, not moving or responding, I was trembling with fear as I woke up my husband. Immediately he took him to the NICU to get him checked. He was okay. The stupid boy was in deep sleep and hence wasn’t responding. (But he’d literally give me a heart attack that night).

The next morning we requested the doctors to conduct all the necessary tests for our sake and everything was fine.

Handling the second and the third baby was okay but I used to be really afraid of dealing with the eldest one. He was light as a feather and appeared so fragile. I even refrained from changing his diapers, fearing that I would crack his spine. His feeding tube was also removed quite late as he could not drink milk properly. There was just one nurse from whom he would drink milk nicely. Whenever others tried to feed him, he would badly resist and would scream at the top of his voice.

Although he himself was very feeble his cries used to be so loud, that they could be heard till the other end of the corridor. We still have those videos and he looks so funny screaming like that. His nights would be spent crying and my nights sleepless courtesy of his cries. It had been assumed that he suffered from colic. I felt so frustrated at times that I yelled at my husband like anything.

One night coincidentally when the nurse got delayed to follow his feeding schedule, I thought that I might give it a try, and to my surprise, he drank milk from my hands with such neatness and also slept well. I felt so happy and satisfied feeding my miracle child for the first time ever.

The babies were discharged from the hospital after a period of about four months. Once back home, it was my turn now. No assistance from any nurses, no external help, all by myself.

Locked in one room, just me and the babies. Twenty-four by seven, I was attending them all alone.

Tired days, sleepless nights, mounting frustration, and loneliness were sort of overpowering my happiness and love toward them to be very honest. I don’t know whether it was depression or the result of working all by myself day and night.

Diaries had to be maintained and hourly entries were required to be done about their feeding schedule and quantity, medications, diapering, etc etc. Anything done needed to be immediately entered as if maintaining some excel sheet for credits and debits. Any unusual event had to be reported. The doctors needed all information during our visits. Moreover, this was important for me too as I had three of them to attend to. I had to refer to the diary, time and again so that I would not end up doing silly mistakes,
although I did many.

Back home they were still dependent on the same formula milk, which was to be prepared in the same way as was done in the hospital using those small sterile water bottles used for injections, which are of 10 ml each. Breaking so many bottles and preparing milk was harder as compared to breastfeeding them, believe me. My fingers had all turned black, due to breaking and opening at least 100-150 bottles every day. The utensils we used to feed them in, had to be boiled time and again. Clothes had to be washed in Dettol separately. Proper Hygiene and sanitization practices were of utmost importance. There were like cyclic rounds going on– feeding, diapering, medication, diary entry ——— Restart.

In between handling bouts of indigestion, vomiting, loose motions, etc. There was no time for rest. I had sleepless nights with my sleep time reduced to a bare minimum of 2-3 hrs. that too, was not at a stretch, for when they went off to sleep, I had kitchen work, related to them, waiting for me.

I had become more of a nurse for them now, just doing my work mechanically like a robot without emotions, waiting for the exhaustive days to get over and move out of the room and feel the fresh breeze of air caressing my cheeks. At the same time fighting my frustration, and bad moods and frantically trying not to get involved in heated arguments with my husband.

It was only after all of them started to sleep continuously for around 6-7 hrs. at night, that I got some relaxation. That too wasn’t quite consistent as one or the other would have some point for not sleeping every second day. While I was busy handling all this, people around me were busy commenting that since I had led a luxurious life earlier (Bahut aish ki hai Zindagi mein), hence now I had to work hard. So I had the additional task of handling negative vibes and comments. Plus the rumors related to the kids used to be quite depressing.

I seriously feel that those people never understood the difference between bringing up a single normal child and bringing up three premature children simultaneously. And also a difference between leading a luxurious life, and facing treatment procedures and failures, time and again. Anyway now I’ve got used to those remarks. By the way, they still exist in my world and bring my happiness crashing down.

Although after the doctors allowed me, I always had a set of babysitters, still I worked hard day and night, without a single day off to bring them where they are today.

Today they are five and a half and like all other children when they fight with me and say “Papa hamare friend hain, tum gandi ho, jao yahaan se”, I feel depressed, I cry my heart out, I fight with my husband and I scold them to my heart’s content. Honestly, I feel like moving out sometimes, with these mixed emotions flooding inside me.

I am not perfect and also have a grudge that I have had many uncomfortable moments during the past five and a half years, still keeping all my emotions at bay, I have tried to put in my best and sincere efforts in bringing up our kids.
🌸🌸🌸

What say??

Waiting for your judgment.
Will be back some other time with another page of