Thursday, July 1, 2010

Getting through the pregnancy

Being pregnant, knowing that your baby is not healthy is very difficult. Although I had followed the tradition of not informing too many people about my pregnancy in the first trimester by the 20 week scan I had ofcourse shared the news with everyone and even the fact that I was having twins.

I am not a superstitious person by nature but the last 4 months were very difficult - on the one hand we were so excited to be pregnant, and on the other hand peoples well meaning excitement and enquiries about twins really hurt. We ourselves were sometimes scared to voice things out loud. How much should we prepare - do we buy twin things, have a baby shower, how to respond to playful banter about how our life would change with 2 babies etc. etc. At the end of it I had steeled myself to respond with a non committal smile or simply respond as was expected.

At 24 weeks the flutters started progressing into kicks and rumbles and this was surely the best part of being pregnant. I would always try to get DK to come quickly and feel but most of the time they would stop. However by the end of it he managed to capture some amazing movements which he compiled into a video. With two of them it was so difficult to discern who was where ?! I felt like holding my breath and would instinctively touch my stomach to reassure myself that I could feel them!

Maybe it was psychological but I always felt the upper twin more actively which I thought was maybe Gods way of keeping her closer to my heart for as long as possible. Saw a movie the other day where there was a dialogue saying ‘A mother is only as happy as her saddest child’ – am discovering what that means. My thoughts are always ceneterd towards my unwell baby and it already makes me feel guilty that the other one is not getting the attention she deserves.

I started going a lot to the Gurudwara where I could just sit and think of my childrn and pray to God for their well being. Strangely inspite of it all I did not ask God 'Why me’ or how he could do this to us, the only thing I could ask for was to forgive me if I had done anything wrong and to give my family the strength to cope with whatever was in store for us. I still felt lucky in some ways that i got to experience having two babies and the fact that I had a healthy baby as well to look forward to. There are so many worse things that could have happened. So at the end of it I was still grateful and blessed for that. Am sure He had a plan for us.

Although I did try and be positive and enjoy my pregnancy there was always an invisible voice 24x7 reminding me that my baby was sick and may suffer a lot. Overall I think we adjusted and coped with the situation better than I would have imagined, not discounting the turmoil my thoughts and my mind went through every single day.

I really tried my best not to be depressed or disturbed. My prayers changed from asking God to help us make the right decision for our children to giving us all some time together as a family and atleast come home together.

As time for the delivery came closer I was really unsure whether to look forward to the date or dread it. I had no idea what to prepare for.

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