Our precious one is here to make our moment dear. After 13 hours of a very strenuous labour my wife, Anupama, gave birth to a baby boy on 22nd November 2005 at 6:53 am. We have named him Aadi.
He is definitely big for a new born as he weighed over 8 pounds. No wonder why my petite wife had to undergo the pain of bearing the big one.

Aadi means the beginning or the first one. Searching for the name also had been a sweet little exercise for us. There have been fights and quarrels just to get to the name Aadi. Fifteen days on Aadi’s routine is just eat-sleep-eat-sleep-shit-eat-sleep-eat-sleep-shit…..

The weight of the baby drops soon after he/she is born and later the baby picks up weight. Aadi weighed 3750 grams at brith. 4 days later while leaving the hospital he dropped to 3540 grams and now he is 3800 grams and growing.

Aadi was 11 days over due. The due date was 11th November 2005 and because Anupama’s hemoglobin count was very low at 8.4 (normal is 11.5 to 16) and 10 days on no regular contractions were occurring, she was advised to go on induced labour. Induced labour is more painful than normal labour and with the help of epidural we thought that it would have been okay. But there were other surprises in store for us. When Anu went on labour, around 1700 on 21st November, there were several other mothers who went on labour around that time. So there was a midwife crisis. All midwives were busy and Anu got the attention of the midwife around 2130 after suffering the initial pains for over 4 hours. This was the time when more pain was on its way. The midwife refused to give her the epidural as it required a midwife to be present all the time with her. Because all midwives were busy, she was administered pethadine. Pethadine is a pain killer that makes the pain tolerable. But believe me it was still as bad.

Finally all is well that ends well. I am now enjoying the joys for fatherhood. The sleepless nights are not as bad I thought it would be. I know for sure now that the greatest pleasure in the world is to have your baby sleep in your arms. All your tiredness disappears instantly when you see your child sleep peacefully.