Dear Baby - 14

Hello Bangaru ,

Good news, good news, good news. Amma has passed the GTT with distinction. Her levels read 83/180/126 which are considered absolute normal. We are so happy to see the diet control restrictions put in place has worked real wonder.

We had kind of pre-celebration party last Sunday as we ordered Pizza's and Amma had bit of coke too. This Monday we had our appointment with the doctor and we reached in time. After exchanging pleasantries and performing the overall check, we were happy to note that Amma's tummy was shaping up well, your hearbeat was monitored and everything is perfect.

This time too it was Dr.Jogita who was present, as lively as ever. She was happy with the blood test report and told us that it was important to continue with the diet control till the end of delivery. We have been advised to have weekly sugar test monitoring. Amma had few questions of her own the prominent one being - Is she overweight or not. Thing is nutritionist had told us that Amma gained lot more than required which was bit unnerving for us as it came out of the blue. All through our check-ups regular weight checks were there and at no point of time a concern was raised.

Doctor told us that the weight growth is healthy and there is no reason to worry at all. It relieved us a lot. The iron content was just about normal and it needs to be improved for which Amma needs to consume lot of leafy vegetables (already doing it), beetroot, red beans, figs etc.

That's about it and we didn't have any further things to talk about and made our way back.

You know bangaram, it was at this point of time. something odd struck me. Right from the time Amma conceived and it was known that this would be a long, challenging, exciting phase of journey that was waiting to happen, I imagined ourselves with a doctor living alongside, with regular interactions day in and day out - you know thinsgs like how the day went by, any complications, some daily tips, hanging out at dinner (a bit far fetched but still). You know basically a family doctor with whom you feel more attached and in turn giving lot of confidence. It was at this meeting reality sunk in.

In this fast moving urban world, the old 'family' doctor kind of relationships are no longer a possibility. Our visit to doctor is like any other visit that we have when we want to get treated for a running cold, fever or head ache. The bonding starts and gets completed in one meeting. In our 8 months we have seen 3 doctors and from the looks of it they remember nothing of you, until they see your report.The reason I am bringing this out is, one of your Dadi's friends daughter had refused to go to Fernandez during her pregnancy time because it was told to her that the doctor who sees her periodically is not the same doctor who will be present during delivery.

In retrospect I don't think that makes any difference. I am not saying the current system is bad but just that I had too much expectations going into the hospital and also thanks to you my sweet love. For Amma, since her childhood this is the first time ever being admitted in an hospital. Touch wood, it stays that way all through the remaining two months.

You have been the perfect baby anyone can hope to have and you have already your Amma proud. She hasn't had any vomiting since day one, never felt sleepless, never felt nauseated with food, slight cramps sometimes but thanks to childbirth classes( she has overcome that). YOU have been the greatest, cutest, sweetest baby so far.

Muuuahhh.

With Load of love,
Nanna
P.S.-Amma started singing again in the night, hope you are having very good sleep.

Dear Baby - 13 (Part 2)

priyamaina bangaru konda ku,

Though the post title may say Part 2, it isn't necessarily a sequence rather I wanted to get all the things that have happened so far in one post, so breaking it into two (there may be a third one too).

First and foremost I was able to feel your kicks even before first ball was kicked around in Sao Paulo. It was a delightful feeling. It was like feeling small ripples across the ocean. Basically there are three things that you do - keep rotating which is when ripples are felt, give some kicks which we are still trying to figure out when you do that, keep silent which was what you had been doing for quite long. More recently couple of days ago, you were constantly moving around causing some concern for Amma. I had asked her to call up one of her friends and to get assurance everything is ok. It is.

You see, this would be something that would continue going forward. Your movement in Amma needs to be constantly monitored. If there aren't any movements, it is a cause for concern. If there are too many, then we realize now it isn't a big concern unless protrusion in Amma's belly is pointing downwards. On more higher level though, once you are out, if you sleep long or sleep short, awake for long or awake for short, less po-po or more po-po any of these would be a concern. You may be just testing our nerves or there may be nothing but still it would be a test far more competitive than any of exams I have taken so far. I can't wait to see you out to experience all this.

Talking about experience, for almost a fortnight or more your Peddiah, Pedamma and Ram were here. (part of the reason for this long delay). We could literally see each of the above concerns I raised live in action. From the looks of it , it is a very tiring task but something I guess we would need to get used to. Of course most important of all is how the baby is i.e. you. Its all about making baby at peace for which we have started this habit of playing nice music in the morning. In addition to that your Amma's one song per day in the night. (of late though there has been a irregularity, need to revv up Amma to sing for you again and also partly because she is getting tired).

Your Arrival and thereafter -
Once your Amma conceives, her company grants her 3 months leave. In addition to that she would be taking 2 more months. During that time she would be staying at Thathas home. I can chose to stay there or at Jeyjeyya's house, who would be transferred to Hyderabad by this September. The only problem is both are very far off from office - one at Domalguda, one at New Nallakunta, almost 23 KM's from my office from my current 7Kms. I have seen some of my friends who travel the same distance daily and you wont' believe how exhausted they look. Its almost spending 3 hours in travel daily in addition to the work timings. Hence, though its very tempting to vacate the current house, shift to Nallakunta and commute daily, I may opt out to stay here and come see you during weekends. I am sorry in advance for not being there with you. It does hurt me thinking about it you know but there is no alternative. With Avva not being there, it would be hard to manage during the initial months with only Amma and myself. We can try but Amma doesn't want to take any risk.

Avva and Amma though have already started some back planning work. Each are determined to send me packed set of chapathis, some curries to take me through every week like how we do for Jeyjayya's but I have firmly said no. I told them upfront that I would be cooking on my own. (a HUGE task on which I doubt my abilities myself). We also talked about how would the weekends go, like spending Saturday with you and Amma, drop in at Dadi's place on Sunday etc. It was fun seeing both challenging and betting that I wouldn't be able to cook beyond 2 days and that I will become scared when I am alone. Lots of fun and adventure are in store for me.

Names, Names, Names,
Update on Names. Good number of people at Amma's seemantham (an upcoming post) and from J-Gang told Amma that with the way her belly is the probability of you being a 'boy' are more. Though slightly, I must say very slightly, your Amma is disappointed she did want to have some name in place for boy too. We keep referring to you as Maya even when we tell to others or Sreedevi Avva for example when she phones ask how Maya is shaping up. So to be prepared and also not to disappoint you with a girl name here are few names that cropped up -

Trivikram (Jeyjeyya's suggestion)
Arya/Aryan (Amma likes Aryan)
Ram (Already taken by your brother, so less probability)
Arjun (something we both like)

That's all for now baby konda.

Hope you are having very nice fun.

Itlu,
Prematho mee Nanna.

Dear Baby - 13 (Part 1)

hello bangaru bujju konda,

I know it's been a long time we had a connect, almost a month and a half. Call it fate or coincidence this delay is for 13th post, a number which is commonly believed to be unlucky. Let me tell you I am not one of those who believes in things like that and get this across.

Lot of things have happened since then, two doctor visits, two childbirth classes, your peddiaha's trip to Hyderabad with your brother Ram, World Cup. I will try to cover some of these in details.

Let's first get over the doctor's stuff.

Doctor Visits -
The first doctor's visit wasn't much of a thing to talk about. Everything was ok, not much to be concerned about. She confirmed that it is perfectly fine to continue driving till your Amma can. In the next week or the one after Amma undertook GTT exam as was scheduled to monitor the sugar levels. The results weren't encouraging. Do you remember me telling Amma was too sweet during earlier time? It's the same again. It was little disconcerting. We made some phone calls to your Lakshmi avva and she told us to be take some steps to correct mainly in the way food is being consumed, and the amount of food intake, quality of food intake etc.

In few days time one afternoon, I got a call from Fernandez. The lady at the other end had got hold of the report and she said that that level of sugar is absolutely not good and as top most priority we had to consult nutritionist at the earliest possible time. She further added that one more check up needs to be done in 2 weeks time frame. It really scared the hell out of me with the way she told and seeing the urgency in her voice. It was a weekday and the day was almost ending. On inquiry the only available nutritionist was at Hyderguda which was like almost 20 Kms away but we didn't have choice. Amma was initially reluctant saying to let this wait till weekend and then we can consult the nutritionist. I wasn't ready for that and made it clear we had to do it the very next day and that I would make an appointment. We weren't on the same page and Amma was quite a bit furious that I was making a mountain out of a molehill. Begrudgingly though, she was the one who phoned around and made an appointment for the next day evening.

I had taken a half-day leave on that day even though hours before I came to know that our appointment had been scheduled for the evening from morning. I had badly wanted some break, hence came home early during lunch and was able to catch all the action going on in house with your Peddiah, Peddamma, Avva and Ram. Avva had taken leave for almost 3 weeks to stay with them. Thanks to the delay I was able to help out with some shopping for Peddiah and do some house work etc.

Around 4:30 P.M. I reached your Amma's office and from there on we went to the nutritionist. To our utmost surprise there was hardly any waiting time and only 2 patients were in queue. When booking the appointment the folks from hospital had told us that all the "available" slots were over and that as a special case they were considering us. It ticked us off to no end on seeing that it was all bunkum. I mean quite literally the floor was empty barring 2 patients who were ahead of us. Had the attendant who had made our appointment been there in front of Amma, she would have just melted down like a iron cast in molten liquid. I made her cool down and in a few moments time it was our turn.

The doctor was a nice slim and petite lady dressed in sari who looked like she practiced what she preached. Once the pleasantries were exchanged we got down to the actual stuff. We told her about the results of fasting blood sugar report, the earlier history of similar spike that we detected, our current eating habits, some questions on intensity of the sugar level i.e. if it really meant that she had become diabetic or if it was only a temporary state. To the last one she agreed with Amma's conjecture that she was not a diabetic and also that during pregnancy it is normal for some hormone levels to fluctuate and cause such imbalance. You should have seen the triumphant look on your Amma's face, like that of someone who has won million dollar lottery and has just got her lottery ticket numbers confirmed, to which all I could offer her was a sheepish grin. As she was talking to us, she took out a brochure and started going through each of them that mentioned what kind of fruits were good to eat by pointing to various things within the brochure. It got me to thinking if only I had a chance to flick that thing from our countless trips to Fernandez, we would have saved all our trip and additional 400 bucks.

After finishing what she had to say, she brought out her notepad and started listing down things to eat at proper time. Here is how it goes -

7:30 A.M. Milk
9:30 A.M. Idli ( Urad Dal (3) : Wheat (1)) / Pesarattu / Upma (Dalia rava) with chutney
11:30 A.M. Soya Milk
1:00 P.M. Rice with Green Leafy Vegetable(GLV) Curry & Soya chunks / Vegetable Curry & 6 piece Paneer
5:00 P.M. 50 gms Channa/Lobia/Rajma

Hard task I must tell you especially when this is the stage Amma might feel some hunger pangs to eat stuff like ice cream, chocolates etc and added to that she has a sweet tooth. For the few days following our meeting, she wasn't able to adhere to it strictly as there were too many people at home and too many parties at stake.

Once they were gone I wanted to tighten it to the maximum which led to scores of tiffs between us. You see her reasoning is, the doctors usually exaggerate things more than necessary and that she is perfectly capable of being a good judge of herself, hence it should be okay to indulge once in a while for eating chips or pani-puri or some pala kayalu etc. For me even a small deviation from the prescribed routine is completely non acceptable. First off we aren't doctors, and there was a reason why this "sugar" level are so VERY important.

Remember the last meeting with Evita that I wrote about in my earlier post? She made a very nice representation of the situation. It's like this. Imagine a weighing balance, sugar level on the left, air to baby's (i.e. for you) on the right. More sugar less air, less sugar more air. It's that siimple. It was a delightful sight seeing Evita perform this simple routine with her hands.

This was the image that was stuck in mind and I wanted to take no risks at all. Your Avva was a party to our non-stop arguments and having a difficult role in deciding who was right (of course I was ) and who was wrong. She consulted her sister and we now have solution. Have a Glucometer in hand to do the checking ourselves, a practice that is quite common in the west and to take readings periodically. That way self-imposed regulation would kick in and our lives would be glorious ever after (note- there is a happiness even in fights).

Last week, we have got two sets of machines, one from Indrani Avva and one from Vasundara Avva. The one taken from latter was an imported one from US for which the testing strips were hard to get here, hence had to search for another one. Once we had it, last Saturday we went to Vijaya to standardize it (i.e. taking readings from the our machine and the sample taken from them) and more importantly to check for how are her sugar levels now. The machine gave a doka as the battery in it was not working. The results from the hospital though was not encouraging. The blood level before fasting has shot up one point more than the last time - 107 when the normal is supposed to be around 98. Poor Amma, she was praying and hoping that it would be low .

Again Jeijeyya (who had come here over weekend), Avva, Amma and I sat together and wanted to see where to plug-in the leaks and to see diet plan is followed to the tilt. Your Avva was very supportive and assured Amma not to be disappointed and that we can easily fight back and get some control. She also added since it was only for a week the plan actually kicked in, it is only matter of time before the levels reach to normal.

Starting this Monday, your Amma has been on strict diet again (with absolute no deviation, wonderful I must tell you) and also doing her exercises regularly (lessons from childbirth classes). To support her I have also resolved to stop eating junk, stop eating outside food, stop eating oily foods, stick with only home food. I must confess I have a hunger pangs akin to a 2 year old and that I wasn't able to resist eating something during snack time. From today I would try again. Your Amma though is very strong and determined lady with a strong will.

This coming Sunday we would be getting tests done again this time along with the instrument (last time it wasn't working). Fingers crossed and hoping for the best.

I planned to cover everything in one post but seeing that this has been a lengthy one, let me put it another post.

The rest to be continued in part - 2.